A New Stress Uncovered!

Introduction

This book is a radically new and completely systematic approach to sitting and its relationship to your health. We cannot eliminate the act of sitting in this society, but by understanding how our bodies function at optimum level, we will better be able to adapt to the sitting posture. This will help you to have fewer problems, and spend more time enjoying yourself due to increased energy levels, decrease pain and discomfort and a greater feeling of well-being.

This book will introduce you to a hidden stressor in your life. That stressor is sitting. There are more detrimental effects due to sitting, both physical and mental, than you may realize. Let me list some of them:

• headaches, eye strain, visual disturbances
• neck pain, stiffness along with decreased movement
• arm pain, weakness, carpal tunnel syndrome
• rounding of the upper back, with weakness of the muscles
• low back pain, weakness and decreased flexibility
• degeneration of the entire vertebral column
  
• weak abdominal muscles
• generalized fatigue, inability to sleep soundly
• varicose veins, clotting of blood
• digestive and cardiovascular problems
• depression.

All these symptoms can be classified under the headings "The Atrophy of Disease" or "The Misery of Misuse".

You may be a little surprised at the wide range of problems that can be caused by the simple act of sitting. Researchers have been expounding the detrimental effects of sitting, and more specifically the instrument of torture - the chair - for over 100 years.

"Of all the machines which civilization has invented for torture of mankind…there are few which perform their work more pertinaciously, widely or cruelly, than the chair. It is difficult to account for the almost universal adoption, at least in this country, of such an unscientific article of furniture " (Aveling 1879).

"We cannot afford to ignore the sitting posture, primarily because  to do so creates such widespread misery. Secondly, because the costs, both the social cost of unnecessary disease and the direct costs in lost productivity, are more than any modern industrial nation should be prepared to pay" (Corlett 1981).

Your chair is detrimental to your health and to your daily activities. The majority of chairs are inappropriately designed, and/or their design is for the "average" body. How many people have the "average" body? Do you? As you sit in these chairs, they provide you with the minimum amount of support that your body requires. This lack of proper support and comfort causes your body, especially your pelvis, vertebral column and their musculature, to be directly stressed. Sitting is absolutely one of the most insidious hidden stressors on your body.