Poor Sitting Posture – Leading Cause Of Back Pain
Do you spend a lot of time in a chair at your desk daily? Many of us have desk jobs and there are many individuals enjoy online surfing. We need to recognize the difference between a good sitting posture and poor sitting posture. The posture you use has a great deal of influence over the comfort you feel as well as your good health. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.
Now is the perfect time to try different things to learn how to sit correctly. This is especially true if you experience pain when you stand up or body aches and pains because of sitting in straining positions for a long time. You need to sit correctly in a good office chair posture. These few tips will help you avoid sitting with bad posture.
Avoid sitting on your tailbone, which is actually the bottom bone of your spine. Sitting on the tailbone for any length of time will cause pain, soreness and stiffness. Always try to sit squarely on your buttocks.
The sit bones are part of the hipbones and should bear most of the weight while you are sitting. The muscles of the buttocks cover these bones. They have the ability to sustain the weight of the body, whereas the tailbone does not. When you are sitting always, sit squarely. Never lean to far backwards or forwards as this causes strain and tension.
As you are reading this article, check where your shoulders are now. Do you have them hunched forward? More than likely, your shoulders are curled in and forward, while you are sitting at a computer and work station. Doing so causes tension in the shoulders and it regularly influences the way you feel and look.
Widen your shoulders and pull them back. It might be a bit of a strange feeling, but in a little bit of time, this will start to feel quite normal. Do some exercises to loosen up your rounded shoulders posture.
Are you craning your neck? This happens regularly while you hunch over peering at a computer screen. This will tension the back of the neck by causing strain in that area. You may be able to solve this problem by repositioning your computer screen.
While using a computer monitor with a flat screen, it can cause you to tuck in your chin to view it. Simply raise the screen up on a stand, while trying to figure out your proper neck posture.
Are you rounding your lower back? As you are sitting in a hard, straight back chair with a 90-degree angle from the seat, you may be rounding your lower back. This may result in bending forward slightly to support your entire back. You need a good ergonomic chair and then ensure that the seat is slightly tilted forward.
These tips might be a little hard to keep up with, depending on how strong and flexible you are, and certainly on how much body awareness you have developed. If you really want to help yourself relieve the pain associated with poor sitting posture, find a program that focuses on strength, flexibility, relaxation, and body awareness, and does not take much time out of your schedule. That will help ensure your success and get rid of your back pain.
There are various benefits if you improve posture. These may include more energy, better health and easier relaxation as well as freedom for back pain. Your well-being depends upon these things. Take a moment to imagine how well life can be without all that nagging pain and tension.
Back Pain, Spine Strength, and Good Posture
The spine is probably the single most amazing thing about your body. It supports us as we walk upright and helps us to lift objects. Keeping the spine in good shape is vital to a happy, healthy life. As a sufferer of back pain myself, I have learned a few things that may help you to relieve the pain you have or, hopefully, to avoid it altogether.
Living with back pain can be a miserable experience. You cannot do the things you normally would and simple things like tying your shoes or holding your baby are cumbersome. You do not need to live that way. The first step is to understand a little about the back so you can avoid the things that will cause pain.
Your back is designed to act with gravity. The vertebra (bones) are stacked one on top of the other and are arranged with three distinct curves or arches: 1) the neck (cervical) curve, 2) the middle back (thoracic) curve and 3) the lower back (lumbar) curve.
Between each vertebra are fluid filled discs to cushion the vertebra so they don’t rub together; very painful! Attached to the vertebra are a myriad of muscles.
So, as you can see, the back is a concert of muscle, bone and cushions all acting together. When you are at rest, a good posture is important to keep the spine in its natural position. A good posture is achieved by having the shoulders aligned with the hips. When sitting, the feet are flat to the floor, the knees at right angles. When standing, the feet should be no more than shoulder width.
When you have good posture, you keep those three curves in your spine in the right alignment. This protects the health of your spine and your back muscles, preventing most back pain. However, if you already happen to suffer from back pain, what can you do to help reduce this pain? If you have bad back pain, spine strength has already been compromised. What can you do?
Simple exercises are the ticket. These can help relieve pain that is already present as well as help avoid it altogether. Before any activity is undertaken, do some stretching and bending. This helps loosen the muscles and gets them ready for the coming activity. A basic warm up, like an athlete before an event.
If you are already in pain, there are exercises you can do, like that above, but they need to be done carefully and not overdone. Leg lifts are great for this and so are side bends and forward/backward bends. Remember, though, that if it hurts, STOP IMMEDIATELY!
By practicing good posture and doing some warm ups before engaging in any activity will alleviate a problem most of the time. For back pain sufferers, good, back friendly posture will rebuild your spine one vertebra at a time and put you back in line in no time.
If you’re good to your spine, then it will do the same for you, providing you with a lifetime of pain free, flexible mobility. Work to improve posture and your back will reward you.
Finally, whenever you’re lifting, make sure to do so with your legs instead of your back. Many serious back injuries are caused by improper lifting techniques. When you’re lifting, bend at the knee, grasp the object you want to lift and stand – this lets your legs do the lifting and protects your spine.