Take inventory right now. How are you sitting? Are both of your feet planted flat on the ground? Are your chest up and your shoulders back?

When you correct your posture, you realign your spine and open up your chest. This simple move eases tension and helps you breathe more freely.

I recommend to all of my desk-job patients to sit on an appropriately sized exercise ball versus the most expensive ergonomic chair. You see, while those chairs help reduce your ability to slouch, it’s still an outside source doing an inside job.

What do you mean Kelly?!

Your muscles are constantly contracting to hold you in any position. They don’t have the capability, the endurance or strength, to hold you in a proper position throughout your entire workday. When they fatigue, you slouch. When you slouch, more of your body weight is transitioned to your joints, which were not designed for this job.

We do this though because that helps the muscular system not have to work as hard to keep us upright. If the muscles completely stopped working, we’d slither right on out of our chairs.

An ergonomic chair keeps up from severe slouching, which is indeed helpful for protecting the joints and reducing aches and pains as a result of sitting all day long.

But do you know what really helps ward off aches and pains from sitting all day long plus helps keep your joints healthy?

1. HYDRATION – you’ve got to be taking in the minimum suggested amount, not less if you want any chance of your joints staying healthy. Think of the shock absorbers (a.k.a. cartilage) in between every joint like mini kitchen sink sponges. If your sponge is sitting on the counter, completely dry, how pliable and bendable will it be? Might it even be a bit brittle? RIGHT! So throw it into the kitchen sink that’s filled with water and now it can bend a flex with ease.

But is there any exchange between the water in the sink and the water that the sponge soaked up??? NOPE! That brings me to the second component of keeping joints healthy…

2. MOVEMENT – In order to get the water in the sponge to exchange with the water that’s in the sink, you have to actually squeeze the sponge right? That’s how our joints get their nutrition. They don’t have a direct blood supply that delivers them the goods while taking away the waste your joints continually make regardless if you’re moving or not. If you’re not moving regularly, the joints don’t get their necessary nutrients yet they make waste. It’s kind of like a stagnant pond or swamp inside of them as a result. Doesn’t that just sound bad?!

Sitting on an exercise ball keeps your muscles engaged more than sitting on an ergonomic chair. This keeps your weight distributed more in the muscles who were designed for this task. Sitting on a ball is also going to create more movement throughout your spine than the chair. A total win/win situation.

Now, if you’re going to make the switch to a ball from your chair, make sure you MICROPROGRESS your way into sitting on the ball for an extended period of time. You’re going to be using muscles throughout your body more than what they’re used to. It’s kind of like working out while you’re sitting doing your work. You wouldn’t go to the gym and workout for hours on the first day, right? No! You would hopefully ease your way into your workouts, especially if you hadn’t ever been to a gym before.

My suggestion, start with sitting on a ball for only 30 minutes the first day. If you’re feeling great with that duration over the next couple of days, then increase it by another 30 minutes working your way up to at least half of your workday to even the full day.

Don’t forget the key here is movement. Once you switch over to sitting on a ball, don’t forget to still get up and move around. There are numerous health benefits you’ll get to enjoy if you make movement part of your daily routine.

Do you already sit on a ball? Comment below to let me know, please.

Here’s to being Healthy!
#AreYouReallyHealthy #WellnessWednesday