Maintaining Spine Health While Sitting All Day

If you’re like many Americans, you more than likely have an office job where you sit at your desk all day staring at a computer screen.  Not to mention, the odds that you sit with perfect posture are not high.  The importance of maintaining spine health at work is crucial to your overall health because it will help to prevent any pain in your back and neck, which can lead you to a happier life. Here is what happens to your spine when you sit at your desk with poor posture:

Disk Damage: Sitting all day can put you at a higher risk of suffering from herniated lumbar disks due to upper body weight pushing on the spine forward.

Inflexible Spine: When you sit all day, the disks in your spine start to become crushed, causing a hardening of the collagen that surrounds the tendons and ligaments in the spine.

Strained Neck: If you are sitting with bad posture at your desk, you are more than likely pushing your head forward towards your screen; which puts a lot of strain on your neck causing you pain.

Luckily, there are a few changes you can make at work every day that can help improve your spine health.  They are:

• Drinking a lot of water to help maintain the soft tissue in your spine.
• Swapping your office chair for a medicine ball (if your boss permits).
• Bringing in healthier food options to help you maintain a healthy weight.
• Setting up your workspace so that it functions properly with your specific height requirements.

Your spine health should not stop there.  There are many at home exercises you can do to help improve the flexibility of your spine.  At Block Chiropractic Sports & Wellness, our team of highly skilled physical therapists and chiropractors can create a program of exercises tailored to your needs, centered around the stretching and strengthening of your spine. If you have any questions, call us at our Smithtown office at 631-543-0004, or at our Selden office at 631-696-4371 today!