If you’re anything like me, you spend an inordinate number of hours a day sitting. And if you’re anything like me, you also find yourself hunching over your keyboard, your spine in a crescent shape and inevitably, you get a pain in your lower back, tight shoulders and neck pain.
The experts say that as many as 80% of people who live in industrialized countries experience at least occasional back pain. For those sitting 9 to 13 or more hours a day, as we do on average, that pain can become chronic.
Interestingly, researchers have long believed that our computer-based civilization makes us modern folks sit more than more primitive cultures. Not true, say researchers from the University of Arizona who put activity monitors on Hazda people, hunter-gatherers in Tanzania who live primarily off wild foods and are physically more active than most of us. They found that the Hazda folks spend about 10 hours a day sitting around, pretty much like we do.
But they don’t experience back pain like we do.
That led researchers to conclude that it isn’t how long we sit—but how we sit that leads to the chronic back pain.
I won’t go into great length about this—you can learn more from the NPR news story on this.
Here’s how to look at it: If you look at most people sitting in a chair, their spines will look like the letter C—shoulders forward, chin jutting out toward the chest and buttocks tucked under. That posture is what is causing the damage, especially compression and deterioration of the discs, which places pressure on nerves, causing intense pain.
All of our moms undoubtedly told us to sit up straight, and we’d automatically thrust out our chests and throw our shoulders back. That’s what’s causing the pain: We’re thinking of our upper bodies.
The right way to sit begins with your lower body: your pelvis. Your butt.
Think of your dog wagging its tail, cute little butt swinging back and forth.
Now imagine you are a dog. Sitting in the spinal C position means you’ve got your tail tucked under you.
Instead, wag your imaginary tail as you sit down, allowing your spinal vertebrae to natural fall in a straight line. Relax your chest and back muscles which lets you fall naturally into the bowl of your open pelvis with your spine aligned. Your leg muscles immediately start to relax.
True confession: I’m a short-legged person and the height of most chairs prevents me from planting my feet firmly on the floor. So, over the years I’ve developed the habit of sitting on the edge of my chair, tail wagging and feet planted firmly on the floor. I also have one of those ball chairs that allows me to sit in a similar posture at my desk.
Sitting in this posture has become comfortable and I don’t have back pain. This posture may not be comfortable for some people at the beginning but give it a try. It may save your back.
