San Diego Chiropractor

From a postural standpoint, one of the worst things that we can do to our bodies is slouch while we sit.  Sitting seems like such an innocent, non-injurious activity.  This is far from the case. 

I have been practicing chiropractic in San Diego for the last 15 years and what I have seen in practice regarding back injuries would be surprising to most people in non-medical careers.  The average person that I speak with regarding back pain and injuries is of the mind set that low back pain is the result of jobs that require heavy lifting or contact sports, golfing or car accidents. 

In reality, it is the constant stress and strain of postural stress that is the biggest burden on our spines.  The postural stress of sitting for hours on end in a task chair in front of a computer can become overwhelming.  When our bodies are exposed to a specific stress over a long period of time, the effects that the stress places on our bodies has a cumulative effect.  Over the course of months or years that cumulative stress expresses itself as pain, stiffness, pinched nerves or more serious symptoms. 

When I am explaining the ongoing cumulative effects of postural stress to my chiropractic patients I like to use the classic example of the Chinese water torture.  Those first couple hundred drops of water on the forehead aren’t bothersome – but a few hundred drops more will make you truly miserable.  The same process happens to your low back as the minutes, hours, days, months and years pass with you sitting in a computer chair.

There is a chart floating around that I have come across in several texts that relates your bodies posture with the amount of stress that each particular posture generates on the discs in the lower back.  As the chart demonstrates, the level of stress increases as the subject transitions from a prone position to a standing position to seated position to a slumped forward seated position.  The chart shows the pressure in the discs to equal 100% of your body weight while standing, approximately 125% of your bodies weight while sitting and over 140% of your body weight when sitting in a forward slumped position.

The reason that sitting is so hard on your back from a postural standpoint is due to the anatomy of the lower back vertebra.  When we are standing, your lower back naturally has a forward sweeping curve with the concavity of that curve facing rearward.  That curve acts to efficiently divide the weight of your body between the discs that separate your vertebra and the joints that run down the back of your spine.  When you assume a seated position, that curve straightens out transferring some of your weight from the posterior joints to the discs.  Slumping forward transfers even more weight resulting in more compression of the discs and more stress on the low backs discs.

As time passes, this increase pressure causes irritation of the overloaded spinal structures eventually leading to inflammation, spasm and pain.  This is the basic process with many injuries to the body that result from ongoing exposure to some irritating or stressful activity.     

How is this postural stress negated?  Well, unfortunately, all if it can’t be.  But it can be limited by practicing good posture and the right ergonomic principals.  A brief ergonomic evaluation of your work area can give you loads of valuable information that will help minimize the effects of your work environment on your body.

Sitting is a sedentary task but like most things in life, if you don’t do it properly there will be undesirable consequences.

Work Safe!

Dr. Jones

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