SittingPosture.com

Improve Your Posture by Breathing More Effectively

Breathing is an important factor of having good posture at a computer. When I sat at a desk 40 hours per week, physical and mental stress would cause me shallow breath and posture that was poor. My shoulder tension was out of control. My shoulder blades were uneven. I had pelvic floor issues from sitting too long. The natural curves in my spine were always out of alignment.

lungs of human — Photo by Ilexx via Megapixl

It felt like the air I was breathing would barely pass below the airway in my neck, much less into my lungs. As soon as it would enter my lungs, I would exhale it out. The air was in my lungs long enough to keep me conscious. Instead of letting my breath work for me efficiently, my brain and body were always in more of a defensive state. All of my muscles were either compressed or overextended. They were all tight, especially breathing muscles like the diaphragm, abdominals, and muscles throughout my rib cage.

Nothing on my website is medical advice. It’s for informational purposes only. I share my experience, what has worked for me, and what hasn’t. I talk about the poor posture mistakes I’ve fixed and the good posture habits I’ve learned.

Health Benefits of Proper Hydration

The human body is usually between 60-75% water. Achieving proper hydration, then staying hydrated, is directly related to how good our computer posture is. It’s very important to keep our bodies hydrated. One of the biggest motivations for me to maintain proper hydration is simply preventing headaches. Staying hydrated also prevents many other issues, such as causing organs to function poorly, as well as tissues surrounding the spine. If the spine isn’t well supported by muscles, tendons, and ligaments, our computer posture suffers quickly. Drinking plenty of water also prevents the formation of kidney stones. These are just a few of the benefits to staying hydrated.

Drinking the correct amount of water per day can keep the body healthy and well hydrated. The amount of water I drink (or don’t drink) is directly connected to the extent of my repetitive strain injuries caused by sitting at a desk. When I’m dehydrated, my muscles tense up and tighten much quicker, causing my posture to suffer. When I stay hydrated throughout the day, my posture is always easier to maintain. Improved posture is just one of the benefits of drinking water for me.

Guide To Good Posture

Correct posture is incredibly important when it comes to sitting and standing at a computer desk. Poor posture doesn’t only affect our physical health. It also affects our confidence, mental health, blood flow, nerve health, and more. The first step toward injury prevention is to improve your posture.

Many people don’t think twice about their bad posture. They have no idea they may be contributing to future back pain, postural stress, muscle fatigue, rounded shoulders and more.

So, today I’m sharing my ultimate guide to good posture. By trying these tips, you could noticeably improve your posture and feel the difference too. I sat at a computer desk with poor posture for many years. One day, I took accountability for my bad posture and started implementing as many small, correct posture habits as I could.

Computer Posture Mistakes and Fixes

Posture is “the position in which someone holds their body when standing or sitting” (definition credit: Google and Oxford Languages). Having good posture includes many different variables and steps in the process. I’ve learned the most important variable to having good posture means having a balanced, neutral spine. When sitting for long periods of time, 2 of the most common posture mistakes I suffered from affected me the most. These 2 posture mistakes are sitting with a compressed spine and sitting with an overextended spine.

Bad posture used to affect my physical appearance and my self-confidence. The posture mistakes I made while sitting at a computer were also having long term effects on me 24 hours a day. Sitting at a computer for long periods of time can take a heavy toll on us physically and mentally. Improving your posture can help improve overall health and well-being. Starting my good posture journey has prevented muscle tension, joint strains, back pain, and many other physical injuries. The 2 most common posture mistakes can easily be corrected by quick posture fixes.

How to Sit Properly to Avoid Lower Back Pain

Sitting for prolonged hours used to put a lot of pressure on my back muscles and spinal discs. This pressure resulted in stubborn lower back pain. This pain was often debilitating. It was painful both when I was in a sitting position and when I was away from my desk. My improper sitting posture was the main variable worsening the pain.

woman holding her back and looking to Avoid Lower Back Pain — Photo by Anabgd via Megapixl

When in a sitting position for prolonged periods, the first instinct people tend to have is slouching forward. We reach for that keyboard and mouse. Everything goes downhill from there. Slouching can strain the spinal discs and overstretch the ligaments.

Years ago, my physical therapist was hitting me in the head for a $50 copay thrice a week. It wasn’t helping. I had to figure out ways to improve my sitting position during the time I was outside of the physical therapist’s office.

Simply “sitting up straight” wasn’t enough to relieve this pain. I had to take an intentional, yet simplified approach. There are many ways to avoid lower back pain and other back related injuries. This article talks about the 4 most helpful habits I implemented on how to sit properly to avoid lower back pain.

4 Rookie Mistakes That Made My Posture Much Worse

Sitting at a computer desk caused the most stubborn injuries I’ve ever had. Speaking from experience, poor posture from sitting can lead to long term muscle pain and tension. Neck and back pain were the most noticeable for me. But I also had a lot of issues with my legs, arms, neck and shoulders.

The good news is, improving your posture doesn’t always require going to the physical therapist. The goal is to implement the most good habits into our daily routine, that will make the biggest improvement over time.

woman sitting that could make her Posture Much Worse — Photo by Andrea-Piacquadio via Pexels

Nothing on my website is medical advice. I share my experience, what has worked for me, and what hasn’t. I talk about the common posture mistakes I’ve fixed and the good posture habits I’ve learned.

You are your primary caretaker. Not your doctor, therapist, surgeon, coach, or physical therapist. They all play a role. But they also have their own agenda and their own motivation that’s not always in our best interest, regardless if it’s intentional or not. Do your research and make your own good decisions. Be the best advocate possible for your own healthcare.

Basic Computer Ergonomics

Office ergonomics involve many different variables. Obviously, posture and body positions are major factors. Others include hydration and sleeping habits. Following these simple protocols directly improved my workstation ergonomics. Anything that improves someone’s efficiency in their work environment can be classified under the term ergonomics. Some of these habits take place while we are physically in our work environment. Some of these can take place while we are not in our work environment. All of them directly improved my sitting posture, as well as my general overall health.

Basic Computer Ergonomics

ergonomics meaning for Computer Ergonomics

Posture and body positions

Years ago, I took full accountability of the poor posture I had in my work environment. I changed various workstation and computer ergonomics related to my computer screen.

The first thing I did was replace my very old monitor with a newer, larger monitor. This reduced my eye strain in a big way. That change obviously won’t apply to everyone, but it made a huge improvement for me because my monitor was very small and outdated.

How to Improve Computer Posture

“Sit up straight.” Or, “Use good posture”. We’ve heard things like this a million times. But what do they really mean? How do we really do it? And what are the specific cues? This article talks about a minimalistic way to improve your posture while sitting at a computer. Poor posture and ergonomics take a lot of work to correct. The human body is a complex system. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t simplify the sitting process as much as possible.

Whether you work at home or in an office, it takes a few simple changes and a lot of commitment to improve your posture. This article won’t apply to working at a stand desk. We’ll cover that another time. This article will cover how to improve your posture while sitting in an office chair for long periods of time.

Good Laptop Posture

Since I switched to a laptop from a desktop computer, my productivity has increased. But, working from a laptop greatly increased the risk of bad posture for me. Today, I’ll solely talk about the two main posture issues I fixed from working on a laptop.

The ability to take our laptop with us and work anywhere in the world is incredibly convenient. This article doesn’t necessarily talk about using a laptop during travel. I completely understand the value of being able to work away from the home office. The human body is very resilient. We can withstand poor posture positions for small amounts of time. We get in trouble with posture when we try to fight through these poor positions for long periods of time on a daily basis.

This article will talk about how to use good posture on a laptop while working in an office or home office. In other words, this article applies to any permanent location that we work on our laptop for long periods of time, where we have the ability to make a couple small changes to our ergonomic setup.

How Much Water Do I Need To Drink Per Day

The amount of water I drink (or don’t drink) is directly connected to the extent of my repetitive strain injuries caused by sitting at a desk. When I’m dehydrated, my muscles tense up and tighten much quicker, causing my posture to suffer. When I stay hydrated throughout the day, my posture is always easier to maintain. Improved posture is just one of the benefits of drinking water for me.

“90% of people are actually chronically dehydrated.” -Chris Powell, ABC’s Extreme Weight Loss

How much water do I need to drink per day blog post cover

Disclaimer: The info in this article is not medical advice. I talk about my experience of what worked best for me. Be the best advocate possible for your own health. Do research, make decisions that are best for you, and consult a doctor when necessary.

How to Have Good Posture at Your Desk

The majority of the employed population are required to work (while sitting at a desk) for a long period of time. Prolonged sitting and poor posture has caused me neck pain, back pain, headaches, and shoulder pain. The repetitive strain from sitting at a desk has also caused chronic tension and dysfunction in my muscles and tendons. All these not only affected my productivity at work, but also my quality of life away from my ergonomic office. Most of the factors that affected my posture were within my control. Once I learned how to correct them, they were not hard to change. But, these good posture habits took some commitment to maintain.

person using the computer to show good posture at your desk — Photo by Vojtech Okenka

How to Have Good Posture at Your Desk

Maintaining proper sitting posture is a life-long process. There are many variables to living a healthy lifestyle while sitting at a desk. Hydration, nutrition, breathing, body awareness, and self-healing are also some important variables when it comes to maintaining proper posture during a long day. I’ll get into those in more detail in other articles. Today, let’s start with how I changed some bad habits and got into a good posture position.

How Often Should You Stand Up From Your Desk

When working at a computer, prolonged periods of sitting time resulted in an increased risk of backaches and body pains for me. A sedentary lifestyle of 40 hours per week added up quickly to be a tremendous health risk. I’ve had many health conditions caused by the negative effects of sitting for long periods of time. Luckily, I was able to avoid serious negative effects like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. But many people aren’t so lucky. Many have experienced these issues due to an increased risk caused by a sedentary lifestyle. Sedentary time can add up over the years and cause these conditions.

people stand up from your desk — Photo by TheStandingDesk on Unsplash

Fortunately, I’ve been able to change my lifestyle away from the typical 40 hour week grind. I’m not chained to the desk anymore. I no longer sit at a computer for long periods of time. I can pretty much make my own schedule. However, for those of us who don’t have that luxury, there are still plenty of ways to improve a sedentary lifestyle, even while working a demanding schedule that requires sitting for prolonged periods of time. *Disclosure: From time to time, I use photos from royalty free photo websites that feature products. I’m not affiliated with, or compensated by any product sellers or manufacturers.*

3 Benefits of Good Posture

Posture is the particular way that we hold our bodies. We could be holding our bodies like this consciously or subconsciously. Sometimes, you can correct your posture very easily. Other times, improving your posture can be extremely difficult. Sitting at a computer causes stubborn tension in our muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia.

Think about how many years you’ve been sitting at a computer desk for 40 hours per week. Healing our chronic pain, that’s caused by sitting at a computer, is a long and complex process. We’ll need to approach it from many different angles. The first step towards improving your posture is to increase your body awareness.

woman working and sharing 3 Benefits of Good Posture — Photo by **Andrea Piacquadio** from **Pexels**

Good posture is important. Before we can have posture that is right, we need know what we are doing wrong. Posture can be a way that we sit, stand, and even lay down to sleep. It’s not so much the position we are in, but how long we are in that same position. That is why I chose to sit and stand, switching often, throughout my workday.

Maintaining good posture is important. It can affect our overall well-being in a big way. Bad posture affects us physically, as well as mentally. I’m very interested in the direct connection between physical, mental, and emotional stress. I’ll get more into this in another article.

How High Should a Standing Desk Be

Standing desks are beneficial to me for many reasons. My blood circulation is improved throughout my workday. It improves my mental clarity, which makes me more productive and creative. The option to stand up straight at work allows me to activate muscles that would otherwise be neglected if I were sitting all day. Standing also allows me to keep a balanced activation between my anterior (front) muscles and my posterior (back) muscles.

If we were sitting instead, the anterior muscles are typically compressed and shortened all day. The posterior muscles are also compressed all day, but they are lengthened instead of shortened. This caused a major imbalance of functionality for me during exercise, sports, running, walking, sleeping, and even waking up in the morning. Using an adjustable standing desk has reduced the probability of straining my back either while working or exercise. Plus, my back just feels healthier and stronger.

Hypervolt Massage Gun Benefits

One of my favorite massaging tools I use to improve my posture is the Hypervolt massage gun. It is made by a company called Hyperice. I’m not compensated by Hyperice in any way. I’m simply a customer who loves their products, which I paid for with my own money. All the info in this article comes from my personal experience of using the product.

There are three different versions of the Hypervolt massage gun. They all provide rapid bursts of pressure by giving a percussion massage, also known as a vibration massage. The version with the lowest intensity of pressure is the Hypervolt GO. The version with the highest intensity is the Hypervolt Plus. I own the version that has the output intensity in the middle of these two models. My version is simply called the Hypervolt. The Hypervolt is the model I will talk about here in this article, not the Hypervolt GO or the Hypervolt Plus.

Posture Related Injuries from Computer Use

The American office worker spends an average of 40 hours per week sitting at a computer desk. That equals 2,000 hours per year. If someone had a desk job for 20 years, that equals 40,000 hours of loading on the spine in poor sitting postures.

Poor posture can eventually cause injuries if not corrected early on. The sooner these poor sitting postures can be corrected, the less severity of posture related injuries from computer use will occur.

Posture Related Injuries from Computer Use — Photo by **Andrea Piacquadio** from **Pexels**

I used to have an office job at a large company. Along with myself, the number of co-workers who were affected by musculoskeletal disorders from computer use was staggering. When I first started my blog, I would get emails from co-workers that I didn’t personally know. But we all sat at the same desks, in the same office, for long periods of time. They would ask for advice or help with their common computer-related injuries. I’d give them my favorite ways that I improved my different sitting postures. Before long, a large percentage of my co-workers were interested. In order to prevent musculoskeletal disorders from computer use, the first step I would recommend is to learn proper sitting posture. That’s why I created a free ebook. You can download it at SittingPosture.com/ebook.

How to Sleep for Better Posture

We use intention and pay attention to the way we move during work hours. We overlook the fact that sleeping in the proper position can also help improve a person’s good posture. There are many benefits of recovering in a good sleeping position. We rest better, recover better, and wake up feeling refreshed. Sitting with good posture at a computer desk for 8 hours is an endurance event. It takes strength, energy, and balance. The less our sleep quality is, the quicker we get tired the next day. The earlier we get tired in the day, the quicker our good posture turns into bad posture. Conversely, using more healthy sleeping habits will directly improve the posture we have throughout the next work day.

How to Sleep for Better Posture

Sleeping with bad habits can easily cause muscle tension issues and repetitive strain injuries. To improve your sleep quality, practice these good sleeping habits to prepare the body for a good night’s rest and recovery.

How to Choose a Good Pillow

My personal choice of pillow has both a medium density and a medium thickness. It’s not too firm, so it doesn’t feel like I’m resting my head on a hard foam yoga block. It’s also not too soft or too thin, which wouldn’t support my head, neck, and spine correctly. The medium density, medium thickness type of pillow that is ideal for me supports both my neck and head when I’m sleeping on my back. When I sleep on my side, I will fold the same pillow in half, doubling the thickness of the pillow, which is perfect for keeping my neck and spine straight and well supported (which avoids neck pain). We’ll talk more about each sleeping position later in this article.

How to Properly Sit at a Computer Desk

The average American office worker sits at a computer desk 40 hours per week. That’s over 2,000 hours per year. Multiply those 2,000 hours by how many years you’ve had a job working in a sitting position. That’s a lot of repetitive strain to undo before we can sit with correct sitting posture. Learning to sit properly in an office chair is going to take patience. The good news is that I’ve been obsessively learning and testing different good habits for years. My story is based on my own experience. The different ways I corrected my poor posture aren’t medical advice. Choose which info could be helpful for you and your situation. Talk with your doctor and be the strongest advocate possible for your own health.

It’s super easy to hunch over a keyboard when you’re working for prolonged periods of time. It’s the most common poor posture habit when sitting in a desk chair. Reading a monitor from arm’s length, as well as using a keyboard and mouse, are all actions that occur in front of our bodies. These actions naturally force a large amount of muscles and tendons to constantly pull us out of sitting up straight.

Not sitting properly at a computer desk causes many negative effects. The short-term effects that bothered me the most were being tired constantly and having a cloudy mental clarity. The long-term effects I suffered from were pain in the neck and back, poor blood circulation, weak legs, stiff neck, tight hips, and weight gain.

Welcome to SittingPosture.com

Welcome to my website, SittingPosture.com.

I’m incredibly proud of the website’s design and content. I’m excited about the future and this quick article will give you a preview.

3 Ways to Improve Computer Posture Immediately! Book by Todd Bowen — Ways to Improve Computer Posture ebook, by Todd Bowen.

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What is a repetitive strain injury?

re·pet·i·tive strain in·ju·ry – a condition in which the prolonged performance of repetitive actions, causes pain or impairment of function in the tendons and muscles involved (definition credit: Google)

Many people talk about how sitting for long periods of time causes many different injuries (heart problems, joint pain, weight gain, skeletal alignment issues, headaches, etc etc). However, notice how the above definition for repetitive strain injury only contains 2 body parts: tendons and muscles. When it comes down to it, the health of our muscles and tendons is where we need to put our ergonomic focus.

When I say improve the “health” of our muscles and tendons, this doesn’t mean go and overtrain in the gym.