Sitting for a long time not only bloats the lower body, causing back pain, but also can lead to obesity, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases. Zheng Yunlong, an expert in spinal mechanics, pointed out six common incorrect sitting postures that are more likely to cause harm.
Zheng said that many people cannot stand up straight because of fascia stereotyping due to having prolonged poor sitting posture. On the “Health 1+1” program, he also explained how to correct bad sitting posture and relieve back pain.
The 6 Most Harmful Sitting Postures
Zheng said the following six kinds of sitting postures hurt the body the most:1. Hunching
This is the state of bending the back while looking forward. Sitting in this position for a long time can cause headaches, dizziness, dry eyes, chest tightness, stomach pain, shoulder and neck pain, and even chronic shoulder complications. The hunched posture with a raised head will squeeze the neck, and the tension on the cervical spine may be stretched further to the head and face, causing pain and other discomfort.2. Lifting the Legs While Sitting
This is a state of resting the feet (one or both) on a coffee table or chair in front. This posture can strain the hamstrings, making it difficult to straighten the waist and affecting the intervertebral discs in the lumbar spine.3. Sitting on a Low Bench or the Floor
This posture narrows the angle between the thighs and body, causing the lumbar spine to bulge. Sitting like this also makes it difficult to straighten the body and is a likely cause of hunchback.4. Half-Lying and Half-Sitting
If you slouch on the sofa like this, with the buttocks forward and the lower back not touching the sofa, there will be a gap between the sofa and the body. People who sit like this tend to slide backward and slouch increasingly with time. This posture will squeeze the lumbar spine backward, causing intervertebral disc problems, round shoulders, chest tightness, and cervical spondylosis, age-related wear and tear on your neck.5. Leaning One Way While Sitting the Other
This is when you sit on the sofa, feet on the sofa folded one way while your upper body leans either left or right. Many people get used to repeatedly leaning on the same side, which will skew the pelvis.6. Sitting Cross-Legged
This is when you put one leg over the other. This posture puts the knees higher than the hips, pushing the pelvis backward. If this becomes a daily habit, it may result in unilateral pelvic deviation, which is when the pelvis tilts laterally.3 Pathological Consequences of Improper Posture
Zheng mentioned three types of diseases these six postures most likely cause.- Lumbar flexion syndrome: For example, half-lying and half-sitting will cause the intervertebral disc to protrude backward, or the intervertebral disc will become flat and thin due to long-term compression, also known as degenerative change. This can make a person shorter and may also develop into spondylolisthesis dislocation, misalignment, disc degeneration, and even spinal stenosis.
- Cervical spondylosis: Nowadays, more and more young people suffer from cervical spine discomfort because they spend so much time looking down at their mobile phones, which damages the curve of the cervical spine. Half-lying and half-sitting can also cause cervical spondylosis because the body leans back, but the head is raised (like when viewing a TV screen). This posture causes the cervical and thoracic spine to flex, equivalent to a bowed head posture.
- Anterior pelvic tilt: Sitting like this for a long time keeps the thighs and body flexed for far too long, which will cause either the pelvis or the neck to tilt forward or other bad postures.
