Sitting: The Unbelievable Cause Of Many Health Problems

We all sit down a lot during the day, either at a desk or behind the wheel of our car. If you chalked up all the hours you’re awake, and figured out how many of them are spent sitting, then you’ll be surprised at how little you spend not sat down.

Sitting seems natural for us, but it’s actually not a good position for our bodies to be in. In fact, many experts attribute sitting as the cause of so many common health problems in life. Don’t believe this to be true? Take a look at the issues sitting causes, and how it affects our health:

Back & Neck Pain

The most common problem caused by sitting has to be a pain the back & neck. Too much sitting can cause all sorts of postural issues that throw your entire body out of whack. If you’re working at a desk, you have a tendency to poke your neck forward which causes stress to your cervical spine and also encourages your shoulders to round. Rounded shoulders cause pain in the upper back and thoracic spine. When you’re sat on a chair, your legs are in a flexed position which shortens your hip flexors causing your lower back to tighten, leading to pain in your lumbar spine. In short, you end up with a lot of physical pain. The problem with general back pain is that, as it says on this site NewJerseySpineSurgeon.com, the worse it gets, the more chance there is of surgery. So, you have a huge medical bill to consider all from sitting!

Increased Weight

If you sit for long periods, then that means you aren’t active. What does this mean? It means you’re going to start seeing your weight increase. Especially if you’re someone that sits at their desk to eat lunch every day. Go out of the office and walk around town finding somewhere else to eat. It keeps you active and minimizes sitting time. You can look at sites like http://www.mindbodygreen.com/ to find ways of getting up more during the day.

Problems With Internal Organs

Scientifically speaking, humans aren’t built to be in a seated position for long periods. As a consequence, our internal organs start to suffer. It restricts blood flow and can end up causing long-term health issues like high blood pressure and high cholesterol. It can also lead to blood clots which can be extremely dangerous and life threatening.

Mood Problems

Also, as a result of the poor posture you get from sitting too much, you can also suffer from mood problems. Bad posture leads to people feeling less confident in themselves and generally more sad. If you practice good posture, you’ll be walking taller and feel on top of the world.

It’s quite amazing how many problems are caused by excessive sitting. The simple advice is to get your backside off your seat and start walking around more during the day. Do some stretches every hour or so to keep the blood flowing and ensure you don’t suffer from any of these problems.