Are you sitting comfortably on your couch?
Then this might not be the most comfortable read for you.
Is your comfy couch causing you back pain?
Adults spend between 55 percent and 70 percent of their day sitting.
Your wonderfully soft, stylish, modern couch may feel amazing at the end of a long day and look beautiful in your lounge but it may actually be bad for you. Wooden chairs or upright furniture were more popular in years past, increasingly people are opting for soft couches with deep cushions to sink into and lay more than sit.
Significant amounts of people have reported back problems after buying themselves a new couch or after long periods of time spent sitting such as the current Corona lock-down. Thanks to on demand TV services and the infamous Netflix, we are spending more time than ever with our eyes glued to the screens and our bums to our couches.
Our practitioners have noticed that many couches cause us to slouch and leave the lower back in a flexed position. Night after night you repeat the same position. This lower back pain becomes your “normal.” Modern sofas and cushioned chairs can encourage poor posture as the soft upholstery may not give the spine and neck the support that is required.
At CostaSpine we are seeing lots of problems such as back, hip and hamstring pain to even digestive complaints, all caused directly by our favourite spot to lounge in our house.
When we are in a bad posture for a period of time a phenomenon called “creep” occurs. Our muscles get stretched or shortened; your ligaments stretch to abnormal lengths and your discs undergo a tremendous amount of stress. Long-term this can cause inflammation and pain, disc degeneration, sciatica, and arthritis. Simply, poor posture over time causes damage to the spine.
THE FIX
If you are lounging on a spongy sofa then try sitting with a pillow halfway under your bottom and another in the dent of your lower back. This will help you maintain a good neutral spine.
Try to take brakes from the couch between episodes of your series or movies.
Get your posture checked by one of our chiropractors at CostaSpine to see if there may be an underlying causing to your poor posture. This may be due to certain muscles that are weak, in which case some Pilates may help strengthen.
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