Sitting Posture, Position and Duration Have Negative Health Effects

Can sitting  posture or positions tell the kind of person you are? Apparently yes. After all, there is a whole bunch of interesting write ups about sleeping positions. Some can even tell you how healthy your relationship is by observing the way you sleep. So it’s not far-fetched for psychoanalysis to gauge your mindset just from the way you love sitting.

While scouring online sources, I came across some, frankly hilarious write-ups about sitting positions and personality traits. If they were really true, I could consider myself a guy with multiple personality. Not the unhealthy kind. If you know what I mean. I adopt several sitting positions at any time. It just depends on stuff like if I want to ease the pain on my back. Or I’d look cooler in a different position. For a large chunk of my life, I have being sitting down. All those days spent sitting down in the classroom right from the age of 5. It got worst in the university where you find yourself sitting for hours on end as lectures follow each other back to back.

For me, the net effect of all that sitting could be my slightly bent shoulder. As if at one point, I decided to be a hunchback but change my mind quarter way through the process. Anyway, I don’t pay much heed to how my sitting posture affects my personality. But anything that has to do with health, gains a lot of traction with me. And it should with you. So it’s best we pay attention to how bad sitting habits can affect us physically and health-wise.

Bad Sitting Posture can Lead to Improper Digestion

It is common knowledge that sitting all day is really bad for you. Some people might be thinking how all day is possible. Truth is, for some people, putting food on the table means sitting down all day. And talking about food, if you sit too long and badly, you easily compress you digestive organs. Making them incapable of functioning at optimal levels.

The result of this is internal discomfort, constipation and inefficient metabolism.

Your Mood is Affected Negatively

A sitting posture that is bad can also have a telling affect on your mood. It all has to do with the depression associated with sitting in a bad position for too long. Studies show that those who sit for over 7 hours daily are much more likely to be depressed than those who sit for less than 4 hours.

Because sitting for extended periods lowers the internal and external activities of your body, your energy levels, logically, are lowered too. Invariably affecting your mood.

Formation of Varicose Veins

This is mostly common in women who sit for too long. Varicose veins are swollen or enlarged veins normally found in the lower limbs. In pronounced cases, they look like a huge spider is busy constructing a complicated web under your skin. It can be ugly. Bad sitting posture can lead to this as a result of increased pressure in the wrong places. Leading to improper circulation of blood around the body.

That is why after a long trip in a car, you discover your legs and feet are swollen. Fortunately, long trips don’t happen everyday, or most of us would be victims of varicose veins.

Stress to the Circulatory System

This mostly happen when you sit bent over as if you have permanent stomach cramps. Some people just love sitting that way. It is bad because it sorts of compresses your body. The heart and lung compensates for this by working a harder to pump blood and air around the body. This causes unnecessary stress to two important organs in your body.

Your Image

This is mostly about behaviour and people’s perception of us. Just like when you rest your chin on your palms while sitting down, people get the distinct impression you are sad or thinking of something sad.

People tend to associated a hunched sitting position with negativity. For instance, in the work place, hunched over sitting sends out vibes of lack of motivation, tiredness or inability to cope with work. While sitting properly, up straight, gives the impression of alertness and a can-do attitude.

Who knows, that could be a factor in how human resources (HR) evaluates your career path in the company.

To say that not sitting too long in a particular position would mitigate the negative impact of bad sitting posture is rather obvious. What is not so obvious is that standing up from time to time would do your body a lot of good. And while you are up, indulge your body in some re-invigorating stretches. Your body would thank you for it.

So, how do you cope during those long, and most times boring, meetings in the office? Or, at home, do you get lost in an interesting movie, only to come back to earth hours later to discover you never moved an inch from your position on the couch? Surely, you must have stories to tell about how you coped with the aches and strains.