What does a day’s worth of sitting do to your back?
Sit up straight and brace yourself as you read: prolonged sitting is killing you slowly and this is no exaggeration. The human body was not made to sit for prolonged periods of time and as a result, it takes a serious toll on our physical and mental well-being. Here are some of the ways that sitting negatively affects your spine:
- Damages your spine by increasing downward compression
- Damages organs and
- Compresses your abdomen and interferes with digestion
- Encourages poor posture which carries over into other positions
- Tightens certain muscles and underworks others, leading to muscular imbalance
In the end, sitting is literally taking unquantifiable years off of your life. The solution is to get up and move; in fact, this is the greatest way to stay feeling young. If you are tasked with sitting on a daily basis, make sure you are proactive in fighting the risk factors that come along with it.
Reverse the daily damage of sitting with yoga
All of the following poses can be found at this extremely useful resource: https://www.yogajournal.com/poses. We selected the four poses that we believe pack the most punch in reversing the daily damage of sitting. These four poses can be done in a 5-10 minute flow that will save your back a lot of grief down the line.
- Cat and cow pose
- Downward facing dog
- Pigeon Pose
- Spinal twist (if appropriate)
The fact remains agreed upon by all health professionals that sitting is a disease and prolonged sitting, day after day, will affect your spine, causing back and neck pain. The degree to which this then takes hold of your life is hard to determine until it happens, by which time it is too late. If you are ready to get serious about taking care of your spine despite all of your daily sitting, give our office in Ramsey a call to schedule an appointment today.
