Regularly changing our sitting position and moving around in the chair promotes the metabolism of our muscles and the intervertebral discs. This keeps them flexible and prevents signs of age attrition. To wriggle back and forth in the chair, stretching, and getting up is part of healthy sitting.
Sitting too many hours a day?
How long do you sit during the day? Count the hours. The average person today spends well over 10 hours sitting as a result of our modern lifestyle. We get up in the morning and sit at the breakfast table, we sit in the car or bus, we sit in the office, then on the sofa or in the cinema and restaurant or at the computer gaming. But why is sitting harmful?
But why is sitting harmful?
We are physically very much identical to our ancestors who lived 10,000 or 100,000 years ago. Our bodies are the ones of hunters and gatherers, evolution has made us be long-distance runners.
No pain no gain
For our early ancestors to survive it was necessary to be out in nature to hunt or to gather edible plants. Sit in the cave all day, you starve. In fact, any living creature on the planet needs to be physically active to find food in order to survive. It is only recently, in the last hundred years with the invention of modern jobs that we spend our lives sitting. Runners we are not anymore. Maybe once or twice a week in the evening. But otherwise?
What happens when you sit?
Stone age people sat to rest and recover from physical activity. When sitting for a long time the metabolism switches to a low-energy mode, calorie consumption decreases. In addition, gastric energy is slowed while the blood fat levels are increasing. Also, circulation is restricted in sitting, especially in the legs. This can lead to gamers’ thrombosis which has the potential to be life-threatening
So the deficit in movement and exercise not only causes back pain and tense shoulders but also further health problems with inner organs increasing the risk of diabetes, hypertension, and cardiopulmonary diseases. The risk increases the more time of your life you spend sitting.
The importance of regular physical activity walking, running, working out, and so on, cannot be stressed enough. So get up from your chair regularly and do some simple office exercises!
Don’t Slouch- Sit Straight???
For decades, children at school or at home were admonished and urged: sit straight, chest out, head up, don’t slouch, don’t constantly fidget in the chair, just sit quietly, listen and learn. And we all know, sitting like that will hurt soon.
What hurts are your muscles. Monotounus sitting in the same posture is putting too much strain on the same muscles, they cramp and tense up.
Moving about in the chair trains various muscles and keeps them soft and agile. It also keeps the spine in motion, which is important for the spinal discs. The intervertebral discs are like a sponge, they also absorb nutrients by being pressed and then expanding again. In a monotonous posture, they “starve”.
The best way to avoid tensions, sour muscles, and a sour back is dynamic sitting. So move around in your seat, you can wriggle around in your chair to your heart’s content. This is now officially considered “the correct posture”.
If we can not escape sitting at least try to sit in healthy chairs and at ergonomic workstations!
Ergonomic PC chair
A good ergonomic chair has a solid five-legged base that rolls smoothly on quality casters. The height of the seat must be adjustable. The seat pan should be cushioned with high-quality foam and rounded at the front to not obstruct blood circulation. The armrests should be height-adjustable and rounded on the edges. An adjustable backrest and seat tilt feature is desirable. The backrest should also be anatomically shaped and provide support to the lumbar area.
An important feature, often overlooked, is to buy a chair that has the right size for the occupant. Most chairs are built for people of average size. But in today’s world of sitting all day, there are many people that are large and thus require a big chair to sit in comfort.
Desk working height
A good gaming desk must be height-adjustable so it can be individually adjusted. To test whether the chair and the desk are set up correctly, just sit on your chair. Is the seat at the height of your knees? Do the upper and lower legs form an angle of at least 90 degrees? Then the chair is adjusted correctly.
Now check the position of your upper body. Are your upper arms relaxed? Your forearms should be approximately horizontal with the desk surface while your lower and upper arms should be at a 90 degrees angle to each other. If that’s the case, everything is fine. Otherwise, adjust the height of your work desk accordingly upwards or downwards.
Monitor positioning
The monitor should be about an arm’s length away from your eyes, depending on the screen size. The view should slightly be inclined downwards, the top of the screen being just below eye level. The surface should be non-reflecting. When setting up the monitor for gaming, care must be taken to avoid glare. Good screens can be tilted backward to prevent glare and unwanted reflections
Keyboard
Best purchase a quality ergonomic keyboard and place it a hand wide from the edge of your computer desk. When using the keyboard be careful do not to have to bend your wrists upwards for more than about 11 degrees. A keyboard with a slight increase in the middle and an inclination of the keyboard field of 5 to 11 degrees also relieves muscles and wrists.
Mouse
Get the best gaming mouse you can afford. Regular PC mice are good for the office but for the best gaming experience, a fast, sensitive, ergonomically build gaming mouse will make quite a difference. Place the mouse near the keyboard so that it can be operated with an angled arm. The mouse should be large enough to fill the hand.
