Is your office chair killing you Singapore?

Have you ever thought that the thing that you spend most of your life with could actually be your enemy not your best friend? I’m talking about your office chair not your pet.

Two recent surveys (Medical Journal The Lancet and Leicester and Loughborough Universities in the UK) recently found that sitting down for long periods and with no movement was actually killing people faster than smoking. It’s a staggering thought that merely sitting at work, reading this could be shortening your life.

Movement gives you life. A sedentary lifestyle gives you death!

It all stems from what kind of chair you sit on at work as that is where you spend 8-12 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. This in turn depends upon what you do and where you work.

In many organisations you don’t get a choice but where you do you should be thinking about how your chair affects your ability to do your job and your physical well-being.

Even where you don’t get a choice you should be making the case for a more flexible chair in order to increase company wide productivity and purely from a selfish point of view, extend your life!

Singapore’s Health and Safety advisors at the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) actually advise companies that making employees “continuously sit (down) is a source of fatigue”. They go on to say that “frequent changes of body position helps to avoid fatigue” and “prolonged seating at work can cause backache and the curvature of the spine which affects the functions of the internal organs of breathing and digestion”.

Makes you think doesn’t it? All that from just sitting down too long and sitting in a seat that doesn’t allow movement.

As children we didn’t sit still. We naturally and constantly moved our bodies to find new postures. A child’s “workday” is extremely varied and they don’t experience tiredness in back and shoulders until they grow up and are told to sit still!

These days’ people sit in chairs for hours on end looking at a computer screen and it can be as negative for your health as flying on a plane for hours on end in the same seat and not moving around.

Have you ever noticed that just going to the toilet or the kitchen/pantry or Starbucks can be great muscle regenerator after you have been sitting in the same chair for hours on end watching a screen? It’s all about the movement.

When you watch TV at home do you sit upright and in front of the TV? No usually you are to one side, your body uses muscles on one side to hold up the other. You never have equal weight on both feet, shoulders, hips, it’s all on both side or the other.

This is natural. Most chairs don’t allow for that and are therefore helping to kill you gently by preventing movement your body craves to stay alive!

Your legs are the key if your office chair doesn’t encourage you to move your legs you will notice how tired you become. Moving our legs is crucial to blood circulation which in turn positively nourishes our bodies and influences are mind to become more energised which in turn makes us more effective and efficient at work.

Having your feet flat on the floor without moving is bad for you, moving them and having the toes touch at different angles is much better for you.

Walking around in an office can be as good for you as walking around a plane can be. Movement is key to not only your physical wellbeing but your mental one too. Any movement or excuse to move out of the chair will actually lessen cramp and increase mental focus.

The best chairs will allow freedom of movement for your arms and legs as that increases blood flow and that in turn feeds oxygen into all parts of your body and mind and increases your overall wellbeing. The bets chairs will also support your back and allow movement when you bend over your desk while still supporting you.

We as mammals are not designed to merely sit still all day. If Stone Age people sat back all day they would all die of hunger! We are designed to move and our bodies respond to movement by rewarding our thought processes and muscles with energy and vitality.

Our office furniture should therefore reflect this from desk to chair. Workflow to overall office design.

If you look at all the cool and creative offices these days from Google to Microsoft, they are all designed to empower movement in the workforce and not have people sat at one desk for too long. They encourage interaction and movement to stimulate creativity and productivity.

They encourage you to sit on a variety of chairs/sofas/cushions to get the blood and creative juices flowing. Ideas and productivity are inspired by movement.

The design of the chair is all important. They can range from the unconventional that mirror your body to the staid and upright. Bright and colourful to plain black.

As you are sitting in your chair for any length of time think about how comfortable or otherwise it is for you and whether you work more effectively and more creatively after you have moved around and out of your chair and come back with fresh stimulus and energy. It’s all in the chair! Don’t let it kill you!