How Much Sitting is Too Much?

By Stepy Kamei

If you've ever been told to take it easy and stay off your feet for a while after hurting your back, you should know that, as well-intentioned as this advice may be, it's actually more than likely harming your health on a long-term basis. Even though it seems to make sense that sitting and lying down can be a good thing for your body, too much of it can actually have a negative effect on your overall health, especially when it comes to your back and spine. Chiropractors and other healthcare experts first started suspecting this when they noticed a correlation between the rise of sedentary lifestyles and an increase of many seemingly unrelated health issues such as back pain, obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease -- among other things. If you want to keep your back and body in good health, you'll want to know how to find a fair balance between sitting, standing, and actively moving throughout the day. 

What's the Most You Should Be Sitting Each Day?

When trying to determine how much you should be sitting, it may help you to remember this bit of information: It's recommended that the average person spends no more than 60 percent of their day sitting down. This sounds simple enough, until you start assessing the average person's daily routine: Sit down for breakfast, sit down to commute to work, sit down at your desk, sit during meals and meetings throughout the day, sit while commuting home, and finally, relaxing at home before going to sleep. It can seem overwhelming to try to figure out how to prevent yourself from sitting down too much each day. A good way to break up these blocks of sitting is to set an alarm to go off every two hours during the day. Every time the alarm goes off, you must at the very least stand up where you are and stretch for two minutes, although ideally, you should go for a short walk outside. 

Lastly, you may want to consider utilizing chiropractic care on a regular basis for the best back and spine health you can benefit from. Walk on in to the nearest location of The Joint Chiropractic clinics to get started right away. You don't need to make an appointment or wait for very long, and many of our clinics have flexible weekend and evening hours to accommodate the average person's hectic schedule.