Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE

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Sitting - A pain in the bum?

"Why stand when you can sit, and why sit when you can lie down?" said F.M. Alexander. Great advice from an inspirational innovator who developed a technique to help us stand and move more easily than we've probably experienced since we were aged three. Lying down is great if we're tired, sitting's a relief if we've been on our feet all day. But sometimes sitting can be a real pain, particularly if we've got some postural problems, and also if we're doing it all day working at a desk. Let's look a bit closer.....and I don't mean at your bottom.

Child sitting in a squat.
Firstly, sitting is a pretty unnatural thing for us to be doing; it's a position that is neither standing or squatting, but half way between. Some bright spark invented sitting a few thousand years ago, but in primitive times we would certainly have squatted on our haunches, like some some people still do in Africa and India. Just have a look at young children; they rarely sit at all, moving between standing squatting or lying. We teach our children to sit by showing them and by our own example. But as we cease to squat and move to chair-sitting and the tendons are no longer stretched in this deep bend, the natural tendency for them is to shorten. After a few years we will probably find that we can no longer squat comfortably for any length of time. Also, with a diet that is over acidic and with stress of modern living, our joints may become stiff, develop arthritis which will limit the amount of movement that is comfortable. So sitting in a chair is what we end up needing to do having started at an early age.

To avoid pain or discomfort when sitting, we've got to allow our body to respond to the same natural forces as we do when standing, mainly being properly balanced in response to gravity. When standing we're on two small feet and being upright creatures we will fall over unless we are in balance or stiffen. But any constant stiffening when standing off balance will cause severe pain and deterioration of the body. Needless to say, the gravitational pull is working all the time and just because we're sitting, it makes no difference; we need to be in balance to avoid strain.

When we're sitting, we're 'standing' on our sitting bones. Are you familiar with your sitting bones? To locate them, sit down on a firm chair and place your hands palms-up under your bottom from your sides, beside your hips. Let your fingertips extend right underneath you, and more than likely you'll feel two bony protuberances. If you were on a hard wooden bench for any length of time, you would probably start to hurt on these two bones. These are your sitting bones, or ischial tuberosities. When sitting, these are what we need to balance on, just as we balance on our feet when standing.

If we sit in a slouch, we are no longer sitting on our sitting bones, but they roll underneath us as we collapse our lower back into a C shape, then our whole balance is affected and we're under increasing strain. To compensate in this collapsed position, we'll probably pull our head back, arching our neck, compressing joints and cartilage.....not healthy and not comfortable in the long term. This tendency will do more than spoil your posture, affecting your bowel movements, circulation, breathing and digestion too. You'll probably also feel sluggish and tired and stressed and depressed.

A balancing ball can help us discover better upright poise while sitting, but it is not ideal for long periods as its softness does not give adequate support for our sitting bones, to encourage us to lengthen upwards.
When sitting upright, we need to be in upright balance just as we should be when standing. There are four curves in a healthy spine and these should still exist when sitting...the nape of your neck goes in, your thorax or upper back goes out, the lumber lower back goes in and the sacrum and coccyx goes under. These curves should not be forced. Your body will take on the appropriate curvature if you're in balance, free and wishing to be upright. Never use effort to change your curves. It will happen naturally if allowed and encouraged by good use. (The Alexander Technique helps this.)

Our feet should be flat on the floor to allow our hips to be released and free, so you could lean forwards and backwards from your hips if writing at a table or drinking soup; you can move freely from your hips with a tall back, just like a drinking bird. You also want to keep your neck free as much of the time as possible. If you can maintain good balance when sitting which is free and upright, you'll manage to remain sat in a chair for lengthy periods of time without discomfort or causing harm to your body.

But of course, sitting in a chair is not a 'natural' thing for a creature to do; it's very demanding and we really shouldn't do it for long at all. So if you've got a desk job that requires you to sit for 8-10 hours a day, make sure you get up regularly; go and get a glass of water, fetch or deliver things, go have a stretch. You should really get out of your chair at least every half hour to avoid getting 'stuck' and becoming stiff. Move. Our bodies are much better 'designed' or evolved for movement rather than sitting.

When sitting, it's important not to get stuck in one position. Just because you think you've got the perfect sitting poise and you're free and in balance, doesn't mean you must 'hold' it or maintain it all day. Move around and don't get fixed. Also, use the back of the chair! Get your bottom to the back of the chair and lean back and use the back to support you. Relax. Don't try and 'hold' a good posture. 'Think tall' as you're sitting, but don't force it. Sit back in the chair as well as sitting upright. This requires the back of your chair to be adjusted if possible for your own shape of lumbar curve and height of armrest. If your chair is not adjustable, use a cushion behind your lower back; in a cinema or theatre place a folded sweater or scarf behind your lower back. Make sure your feet are on the floor to help release your legs. After a while, vary your position by bringing yourself into an upright poise and let your weight go down through your sitting bones. Vary it. Don't get stuck.

However perfect is our chair at work, we're going to come across thousands of other chairs that are not perfectly shaped for us. Until designers come up with better designed chairs that support us well, we need to cope for ourselves as best we can. Even the perfect chair for one person will most likely be inappropriate for others because we're all different sizes and shapes. We need to look after ourselves. F.M. Alexander said "We can educate ourselves, but we'll never educate the furniture". Needless to say, some lessons in the Alexander Technique will help you improve your manner of sitting so you're healthier and more comfortable.

Sitting need not be a pain in the bum.....or back or neck. However, as we're not 'evolved' to easily sit for lengthy periods of time, we need to look after ourselves. A little conscious awareness of how we're sitting can make all the difference.

Posted by Noël on June 27, 2007 7:51 AM | Permalink