What is Good Posture When Sitting?

Adopting a good posture when sitting is vital to maintain proper overall proper posture. It’s also beneficial to have a healthy back and spine.

How to Achieve Good Posture When Sitting?

When you try to sit with a straight back and shoulders, you’re improving your physical health. It also makes you feel more confident.

Nowadays, more people are spending most of their time sitting down.

When they work in their office, they sit down.

When commuting, they sit down. And when relaxing at home, they sit down.

Unfortunately, prolonged sitting can lead to adverse health issues, including bad posture.

Read: Why is Bad Posture Comfortable?

What is Good Posture When Sitting? 

There’s no definitive rule as to what constitutes good posture. However, the key here is to ensure your body is correctly aligned. It has to support the right amount of muscle tension.

With proper posture, the strain on your body during exercise can be reduced.

It also lowers wear and tear on muscles, ligaments, and joints.

It also maintains balance while exercising and moving. Plus, it reduces the risk of muscle strain. Most of all, with good posture, you’re improving your spine health.

Deciding the Best Sitting Position 

Good posture when sitting can be achieved depending on your height and the chair you’re sitting in.

But you can improve posture by doing the following things:

• Keep your feet flat on the floor
• Don’t cross your knees
• Maintain a gap between the back of your knees and the chair
• Make sure that your knees are at the same height as your hips, if not lower
• Place your ankles in front of your knees
• Relax your shoulders
• Keep your knees and forearms parallel to the floor

Sitting for an Extended Period

If you need to sit for an extended period at your desk, you need to consider sitting in a healthy posture.

Here are some things to improve your sitting posture:

• Keep your monitor at arm’s length
• Customize your workspace by adding wrist pads or a backrest
• Use a standing desk so you don’t need to sit down for the entire day
• Invest in an ergonomic chair
• Reduce neck strain by using a headset
• Move your keyboard and mouse closer together to prevent yourself from reaching
• Check your posture every 10 to 15 minutes to see if you’re still sitting in proper posture

Poor posture can be corrected if you practice good posture every day. With time, commitment and awareness, your poor posture will be history.

How long it takes to have a good posture will depend on your commitment. To see a significant difference, you need to practice good posture for weeks or months.

Once you have good posture, you need to work at maintaining it. It means that you still have to check your posture now and again. If you’re slouching again, correct it.

Read: Tips for Good Posture

More Tips to Have a Good Posture When Sitting

Support Your back 

You may use an ergonomic desk chair to properly support your body. It is also helpful in reducing your stress and friction.

Unfortunately, an ergonomic desk chair is expensive. If you can’t afford it yet, you can just use a small towel. Roll it up and place it between your chair and lower back. It can help in maintaining good posture.

Don’t use a huge pillow or towel though. The reason for this is that you’re only forcing your spine into an awkward position. You’ll be in pain quickly.

There’s a lumbar cushion that you can find online if you’re not ready to invest in an ergonomic chair. It mimics the support of your lumbar rest in your chair.

Keep Your Screen at Eye Level 

Make sure that your monitor is sitting directly in front of you. It has to be an arm’s length away.

You should also adjust how high the monitor is. The top screen must not be more than 2 inches above your eye level.

If the monitor is too low or high, it can strain your neck and eyes.

You may use free-standing monitor mounts for greater flexibility.

Take Breaks 

Sitting for a long period of time can lower your blood flow. It also increases your risk of muscle fatigue. For that reason, you should consider taking regular breaks.

That’s why it’s ideal to invest in a standing desk. In this way, you can continue working on your computer while standing.

However, you still need to take a break. It means you have to walk away from your desk from time to time. Every 30 minutes, you must stand up and walk away from your computer to get your blood flowing.

As you take a break, consider practicing a few lunges.

If you can’t have a few long breaks, make sure to have several short breaks.

Every hour, at the very least, make sure to get up and move around.

Sitting is Bad for Your Health 

Sitting for an extended period can be dangerous to your health. To reduce your risk of disease from inactivity, make sure to exercise regularly and reduce your sitting time.

If you sit for long periods, then don’t be surprised that you have a slow metabolism.

Experts recommend breaking up long periods of sitting time with activity for two minutes.

There’s no conclusive rule as to how much time you can sit every day. But you can try to restrict your sitting time to one to two hours a day.

However, as much as possible, make sure to get up and move every 30 minutes.

Can Posture Corrector Help? 

Good posture can be achieved with commitment and awareness. However, if you’re having a hard time maintaining a good posture when sitting, you might want to invest in a posture corrector.

Use it as a tool to help you correct your posture. To make it an effective tool to correct your posture, you must wear it for 25 minutes a day. The longer you wear it every day, the quicker you achieve a good posture.

Summary 

What is good posture when sitting? There’s no consensus on what constitutes good posture. However, to achieve proper posture when sitting, make sure to play your feet flat on the floor. Your back is fully aligned with your body.

To shop for posture correctors, visit us here.