Sitting in Front of the Computer is Literally Killing Us!

Video Link: http://bit.ly/2qgNdiG

My name is Doctor Brian Prieto from Yorba Linda, California and welcome to our section called “Questions that patients ask us”.

Did you know that sitting in front of a Computer for long periods of time is literally killing us?

We are starting to understand more that living a sedentary life like sitting for long periods of time in an office chair for 8 hours a day can’t be good for our bodies. Our bodies will function better when it is moving and if we are sitting all the time this will add up over time. Studies have shown that people with sitting jobs have twice the rate of heart disease as those who stand for a living.

So, what do we do? Simple get up and move around every 30 – 60 minutes. If you're sitting in front of your workstation for hours at a time, tension tends to build up in the neck, upper back, and the lower back and this will create problems. So, if you think about that over a cumulative period of time, you can develop neck and back pain and you may have to see someone like myself.

So, to avoid this problem let’s do a couple of simple stretches, however we will need a reminder to get us to get up and move. Go to the App store and download this free App called “Hourly Chime”. You can schedule the chime to go off every 30 – 60 minutes. Get up and go to the restroom, go to the copier machine, just get up and do something.

Here are the stretches you can do, stand up and stretch to the ceiling, lean to the left and then to the right, shrug your shrugs and this will engage your upper back muscles. Rotate and twist your body back and forth, rotate your head in circles and look to your left and right. The next thing you do are some lunges with your arm reaching forward and the other reaching backwards and you switch back and forth. And then you can walk in place.

You just want to get your body pumping with some blood to your muscles so get some stretching in every 30-60 minutes so your muscles don't tighten and shorten because of the length of time you're in front of the computer.

This is a really simple process that you can do every hour when you're at your workstation. So we hope this helps and that you can do this at home or at your work. Until next time, thank you for visiting.