SITTING AT THE DESK ALL DAY
Yes, it is a problem to be at the desk all day. There are lots of negative consequences from this if do not know how to deal with them. These problems can range from mild fatigue in the lower back through to soreness in the hips, sciatic pain or even piriformis syndrome.
The strange thing is that all of these problems occur from simply sitting for a long time in the same position - a position not seemingly "dangerous". In the beginning this position creates only a slight discomfort and nothing more - but left unchecked it will cause any (or all!) of the problems already mentioned.
Obviously there are questions: how do these problems occur and how do we prevent them? I will omit for now an extensive description and explanation of how it happens - but mention only that it happens because of rigidness of the held body position and the length of time that the muscles have spent fixed in this configuration. This eventually leads to the locking of joints and blocking of the blood and energy flow through your body.
It would be more useful to say how to avoid these problems rather than describing the condition. Well, the first thing in prevention is to understand this very simple reality: your muscles can tolerate immobility for just a certain extent of time. And this is not only about muscles but your nervous system as well. Together, they become entangled in what I call "improper perception".
What happens is that signals about our body position and muscular tension and even blood circulation are delayed and we are left with improper perception. Simply put, we neglect all negative signs that our body is overwhelmingly fatigued from holding the same position - being too busy with whatever it is we are doing. We miss all warning signs that the body's position of support needs to be changed.
This is a very intricate thing - to be able to think and talk about changing the body's position in sitting. It seems like it should be constant and unchanging. Nevertheless it is subject to the same rules that we operate under in fast movement: changing of support. Sitting in place doesn't mean that we are not moving. We do. But this movement is supposed to be very subtle. As we focus entirely on the task at hand - we do so at the cost of all the signals coming into our body and our muscles start to rebel - eventually memorizing this position as painful . The necessity to realize this, perceive it and perform it is essential to your whole well-being while working at a desk.
This simple reasoning will give you an understanding that your muscles can't be attached to the same position of the body endlessly. You have to constantly make re-adjustments and these re-adjustments go to the foundation of movement as support.
So the first thing we must learn is to move while sitting. This means that we need to change our lace of support.
There are several points within the body in sitting which can form points of support. They are the hips, the lower back, your arms, your legs and your feet. So you have to play with all of these elements - constantly moving your body through these points and not allowing your muscles to be fixed in any single position. If this is not enough, then you have to pay deliberate attention to the necessity to change your body position - breaking your sitting position by standing up and giving your whole body a rest. Take your muscles through specific exercises which deliberately challenge your body position - refreshing your perception of how it is supposed to work.
These could be strength, flexibility or balance exercises in any combination. In any case, it should be a very deliberate action for your mind to perceive the changed body position.
The exercises used could be tremendous in both number and variety but there is limited space and time here now to bring it up. So I will leave this for the next article on this matter when I will try to touch upon a logical sequence of exercises that can be used as preventative measures while you work at the desk all day.
Dr Romanov
