Thrive
Yoga and Wellness

Top Tips on How to Sit Safely

How to sit safely

In this video, you'll see demonstrations of how we can practice sitting up straight, and why it's important.

Sitting is the New Smoking...

(Posture Photo at Right courtesy of http://www.ergonomics-info.com/posture-pictures.html)

Did you know Sitting is as Deadly as Smoking?

Sitting up Straight is HARD

Sitting Kills

Americans are now more sedentary than ever.

We went from being an agrarian society, where people work from sun up to sun down to a society spent in the seated position. Sitting has been called the “new” smoking. When we sit for long periods of time, certain muscles that hold us up right start to atrophy and some start to shorten. This leads to an imbalance in the way we stand which can create a myriad of issues from low back pain to even headaches.

If you add in childbearing, sports injuries, or other trauma, you can see how this can have a compounding effect on our bodies.

Lateral View Stacked Joints

Front View, Standing Up Straight

Yes, I am Crooked, especially after this last child.

Tips to Sitting up Straight

Elevate your hips over your knees
Tilt the tailbone down until abdominal muscles engage
Pull your shoulders away from your ears
Press the Chest up towards the sky slighting
Top of the head reaches for the sky, which may feel like the chin is tucking slighting.
If your legs are outstretched, place blankets or bolsters under your knees to support them.

When you Sit up Straight

The benefits of sitting up straight (besides a stronger core) is that it also helps you to breathe better. When you breate better, your body gets more oxygen. More oxygen does things like cleans the body, wakes you up, helps you recover better...the list goes on.

Remember, we have a video on how to perform boat pose already posted on our YouTube page (Yoga East Chattanooga is our handle). Strength in the core is essential to sitting up straight. Don't forget, we will be coming very soon!

This week, as you think about sitting up straight, I hope it helps you to immediately feel better. I hope that whether you're at work, at home, or in the studio, you take a second to check in with your posture, and see if you can feel when you're being lazy (we all do it!) and when you're sitting in a strong position.

Thrive Yoga and Wellness