Desks, chairs, cars, and all modes of sitting are here to stay. Computers, tablets and smartphones, too…
As much as we have a love-hate relationship with our work tools — chairs and screens included — our bodies are always included in this complex relationship triangle.
In the physical world, what you do most matters most. As Katy Bowman, creator of Nutritious Movement, says:
“It’s not what you do with the best of intentions, it’s what you do most often that counts.”
If you’ve worked with us before, you know if you have come to us with aches and pains, we analyze high repetition behaviors first!
When you think of frequency, you probably don’t consider sitting a high-frequency activity – because it involves stillness and it’s the poster child for lack of movement.
But being sedentary is a kind of movement
It requires you to maintain your body in a position for a long period of time – on a scale of fully passive to fully active (think sitting on a couch slouched with a nice drink versus sitting on a stability ball with your core, leg and para-spinal muscles activated).
When you stop seeing sitting as passive and inactive, and you start seeing it as an opportunity to change how you sit and how you use your body’s structures to support you closer to the active end of the spectrum of sitting and as far away from the passive end of it, a whole new world opens.
The Top Three
The top three high repetition activities we focus on with our clients are breathing (10-20,000 times a day), swallowing (500-1000 times a day) and sitting (6-10 hours a day for most of our clients). The higher frequency an activity has, the more room for change – the more opportunity for new outcomes.
Back and neck pain, knee and ankle pain, migraines, fatigue, brain fog, lack of focus, digestive distress and constipation, vision challenges, jaw pain, sweet cravings, shallow breathing, mood swings, irritability…these are just the tips of the iceberg when it comes to the complaints we see connected to prolonged sitting.
I just got off two flights and a total of 20 hours of travel time, and I am spending my first day in Europe on restoring my quality of movement and helping my tissues recover from the long sitting. I feel it – in my mood, in my strength, in my vitality, I feel prolonged sitting as the loss of all those baselines of quality of life. And that’s where my commitment to shift it comes in. If I feel unwell, I can shift my behaviors and restore how I feel.
Some of us are better at tuning discomfort out, but over a long period of time that actually does us a disservice and can lead to the creep of insidious illness – if I had to choose, I would rather feel the discomfort of sitting and respond to my body’s need for movement nourishment other than be great at tuning it out.
It takes time to shift
Even with the best of intentions, it takes time to shift a habit. And to shift a habit, you need positive action steps and a system of implementation. Here is where the rubber meets the road, or I guess, when your hips leave the chair – you need to not just know that you have a chance to shift your sitting behaviors, but you need to understand how to implement the habits and harvest the gains of the change.
This is where we come in
We’ve created a new program, completely free, for any of you who are ready for step by step, incremental, effective, leave-a-mark-on-the-long-game-of-sitting change.
Are You Ready to Start?
5 Days To Break Free From Your Chair
Starts as soon as you join, so sign up now!
Desks and screens aren’t going anywhere, but that doesn’t mean you need to sit still and let them rule your life.
You are the master of desk, chair, screen, and human behavior navigation.
What will you do about it?
Start by taking just two minutes a day to free yourself from your chair!
Take 2 minutes a day to implement a new lesson and Break free from your chair!