Working people and office people need to be with the computer every day and stay at the desk for often almost 8 hours a day. Have you ever thought about how long you sit for a day? The problem of prolonged sitting and wrong sit position of people during sedentary activity has existed for many years. And a number of studies have shown that prolonged sitting will affect the health of people's bodies and cause physical discomfort.
Sitting for too long and in the wrong sitting position not only is easy to cause shoulder and neck discomfort, back pain, muscle loss, blood circulation, and other problems to people, but also may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.
In addition to the above physiological effects, sedentary also will affect people's mental health, resulting in reduced work efficiency, poor concentration, reduced memory, slow reaction, and other problems. The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, once said, "Sitting is the new cancer.” So it is recommended to replace all employees with adjustable height desks and office chairs to let them can have a more comfortable work environment.
Today's article will focus on two parts.
Why is sitting too long bad for you?
How to make office chair more comfortable?
Firstly, we will talk about the hidden risk of sitting too much.
People’s spine is S-shaped so that it can withstand the pressure of the body. But when you are sitting, the spine will become C-shaped, which not only affects digestive function but also increases intervertebral disc pressure. The pressure of intervertebral discs will transfer to the pelvis and spine. The tightness of the cervical spine makes it difficult for blood to flow to the brain, resulting in headaches and blurred vision.
One of the most serious hazards of prolonged sitting is that people will have a much higher chance of developing cardiovascular diseases. Sitting too much weakens people’s muscle strength, obstructs blood circulation, and reduces blood vessel tension.
Sitting too long will affect the blood circulation in the lower extremities. The continuous sedentary will definitely cause varicose veins, especially in women. Varicose veins also can be caused by continuous sitting with feet crossed.
Sedentary will slow down people’s metabolism, and make calorie burning reduce, the result is to cause obesity. Long-time standing workers can burn more calories than long-time sitting people.
People sit too long and lack of activity will reduce their muscle strength and muscle relaxation. In addition, the bones do not need to support the body when people are in a sitting position, they will gradually lose strength over time, leading to osteoporosis.
The function of telomeres is to protect chromosomes. The telomeres will gradually lose, leading to aging. Long periods of sedentary and inactivity will accelerate the rate of telomere loss, thus accelerating aging.
Prolonged sedentary also has a negative impact on people’s mental health. The lack of activity can cause mental discomfort and anxiety. According to research, prolonged sitting will reduce the polyphenols in people’s brains, and make people feel anxious.
Lack of physical activity will affect sleep quality. When sitting for a long time, although the brain is active and thinking, the body is in a resting state. So when you go to sleep, the body does judge that you have already rested enough and don’t need more rest. People will be hard to fall asleep.
In fact, ergonomically speaking, you should adjust your office chair to make it more comfortable to match the most favorable sitting position for your human body.
You can kindly check the below picture. This is the best standard sitting posture for people in the ideal state. If you want to achieve this standard, first you need to adjust the height of your seat and make it in line with your body's height and proportion. Your thighs need to be in a horizontal state and the lower legs naturally on the ground after sitting down.
In many cases, sitting for a long time will make people feel very tired. Because when people are in a long time sitting state, they will have lumbar muscle strain or even serious lumbar intervertebral disc disease. If people want to sit and feel not so tired, they must find the appropriate support points in the waist, which can help disperse the pressure on the waist and relax the muscles. After sitting for a long time, some people are easy bend forward. Then the pressure on their waists will transfer to their backs with the change in posture. Long-term bent back sitting is also easy to form a hunchback that will affect your personal appearance.
You can get perfect lumbar support by adjusting the backrest of the office chair.
In addition to lumbar acidity, one of the most common problems of office workers is neck soreness. Usually, the natural state of the cervical spine is to present a certain bent state. The long sitting posture of humans makes their cervical spines maintain the same posture. If the neck muscle tissue for a long time to maintain support. It will make your cervical spin difficult to get activity. Gradually, you will have muscle soreness. So if you have to sit for a long time, you need to find the force points to share the weight of the head. It can reduce the pressure on the muscle tissue around your neck. Or you can stand up to move your head so that the neck muscles and cervical spine can stretch and exercise.
Remember to adjust the headrest of your office chair to achieve a comfortable position.
When the human body is in a sitting position, the hip muscles are in a stretch state. After sitting on the hard chair for a long time, the whole body's weight will all concentrate on two points. The two points of the sitting bones that are in contact with the surface of the hard chair will be very painful.
And the home sofa is very soft, but why sitting on a soft sofa for a long time will also be uncomfortable? This is because although the sofa is soft. Your butt will be trapped on the sofa when you are sitting on it. The sofa will give the human body the invisible compression that will affect blood flow to make people feel leg numbness. A good seat cushion will have flexibility, which can help reduce the compression for people.
If the original seat of your office chair is not comfortable, you can try to buy a new seat cushion for yourself.
A long time sitting is a challenge for the human body. You still need to stand up for more activities. At the same time, an adjustable height desk is also necessary.
The ultimate office chair should be adjustable, healthy, and comfortable.
A better and more comfortable working day starts here, from Weworth.
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Daniel Yao
Yose Lang
