Have you found yourself feeling uncomfortable sitting on a chair? Sometimes chairs do not offer the best solution your body requires to feel free and comfortable while sitting on it due to the incorrect posture that hurts your body. Therefore, it is good to try sitting on a stool because it also offers a lot of benefits that you may be missing in your expensive chair at work or home. This article will take you through the ergonomics benefits of sitting on stools.
Is It Bad To Sit On A Stool Slouched Over All Day? No Back Support At All Either
Sitting on a stool the whole day without the back support is not good because the sitting posture is not correct instead of straight; that is, The ears, shoulders, hips, Knees, and ankles should align in a straight line. Therefore, slouching the whole day while seated on a stool creates an incorrect sitting posture, which is unhealthy because the musculoskeletal is not balanced; thus, when slouching becomes your habit, it can lead to back, shoulder pain, and neck pain. Developing back and neck pain is due to the excessive stress on the neck and spine muscle tissues without recovering. Other effects of staying slumped for a long time are as follows;
• Soreness and pain
It may feel natural being in a slouched position is not the correct alignment for your body posture, thereby causing your spine muscle tissues to work hard to withstand the stress caused by overstretching of the muscle tissues. Thus, causing a lot of discomfort to your neck, shoulder, and lower back leading to soreness and pain that could even be permanent. Secondly, slouching forces your head to come forward, which in turn forces your shoulders to come forward. If your head and shoulders move forward, it leads to taw pains and headaches, which affects your rib cage, which is not for your lungs and heart, shoulders, and pain.
• Less Energetic
As mentioned above, slouching interferes with your rib cage, which eventually affects your lung’s health, thereby impacting your lung capacity. Therefore, the other body tissues will not be sufficiently be supplied with enough oxygen leading to shortness of breath and cloudy thinking. Furthermore, you will feel tired and less motivated to accomplish your duties.
• Creates hump
Your spine is not like a trunk, which is straight and stable, but your body’s central support structure connects every part of your body’s skeletal is made up of a chain of bones, thereby making it flexible due to elastic ligaments and spinal disks. Therefore when you continuously slouch creates a lot of tension and stress on your neck ligaments that connect to spinal disks, thereby affecting to be loose and inactive, which eventually weakens your upper back muscles and creates a hump base of your neck. This condition is called kyphosis.
3 Reasons Why Bar Stools Are Better Than Chairs
Have you ever realized that sitting on a bar stool is much healthier and better than sitting on chairs? It would help if you were not surprised because it offers the following benefits, are as follows;
• It keeps you more alert or relaxed.
When sitting in chairs, it makes the core muscles fully relax, and you become lazy compared to using a bar stool. Stools offer a semi-standing and leaning stance design, which allows you to flex and relax the back and the core muscles, thereby keeping your torso stabilized. Thus, it improves your posture and keeps you awake, alert, and focused. But if you add an armrest and backrest to a bar stool, it will become comfortable and relaxing.
• Better to swivel with.
Whenever you sit on a barstool, your feet are always at rest on the footrest of a bar stool, which is located directly under your body. Being in this position offers you the best leverage to swivel with ease and be in action compared with swiveled chairs that only allow your feet to be always in front of you. This will put a lot of strain on your knees and abs, making you less comfortable and tiring because there’s is pressure build up on your hip and lower back.
• More comfortable to stand up or sit down.
Most of the bar stools do not offer a deep sitting area, which is good for the knee, hip, and lower back since it eliminates pressure and tension build-up at that region. Besides, the advantage with shallow seats is that you can also quickly get up to mingle and move around. Thus, offering you a break from sitting for prolonged hours, thereby improving blood circulation in your body, allows getting rid of pressure and strain in your knees, lower back, and hip.
Furthermore, stools are also great for parties where guests alternate sitting down and getting up to mingle, and again, when you are watching sports, it is easier for you to jump out of the barstool and cheer for the game.
Benefits Of Using Ergonomic Stools
Ergonomic stools are perfectly designed to offer you the best solution to your sitting issues while at work or at home. Therefore, investing in an ergonomic stool will provide you with the following benefits;
• Reduces Risk of Lower Back Pain
When sitting in chairs, it makes the core muscles fully relax, and you become lazy compared to using a bar stool, which is a semi-standing and leaning stance designed which allows you to flex and relax the back’s muscles. The core thereby keeping your torso stabilized. This will eventually help maintain muscle tone of the lower back muscle groups without overtiring them, thus preventing the lower back muscles either to arch or curve and promoting the healthy degree of lordosis. Therefore, using a stool allows your spine to return to the natural and gentle curved S-shape, providing stability, strength, and support to the entire body. Hence, eliminating the unnatural extreme curvature reduces lower back muscles from being overworked since it allows them to relax and recover well.
• Helps to Improve the Health of the Body’s Systems
Using an ergonomic stool, you will tend to move much more easily between the seated and fully resting position. Hence, you will intend to exhibit a better mobility and movement degree, thereby offering you the benefit to your digestive and cardiovascular system. The more you are in an upright position, it will also help reduce constriction in your digestive tract. Opening up your core allows the diaphragm to move freely, which increases your cardiovascular activity.
• They are comfortable
For instance, the ergonomic kneeling stool offers a non-conventional posture that allows the user’s knees and the back remains in a straight position, which gives them a flexible solution to alternating between standing and seated, reduces discomfort, and encourages them to stay comfortably standing during more prolonged periods. Thus, it attempts to minimize the effects of a static seated position, and it eliminates tension, stress, and pressure build up in your knee, hip, and lower back. If your work involves being placed the whole day in front of the computer, adopting an ergonomic bar stool will help you adopt a healthy sitting habit and make everyday tasks easier.
• Allows you to work in an upright position
Did you know sellers, equipment operators, or production line workers require them to remain standing for extended hours? Since standing is a natural position but it is not healthier to stay in an upright position during many hours within the same workday can cause swelling of the lower limbs, lower back pain, joint stiffness, and general muscular fatigue. Thus because of these effects, it will good if you invest in an ergonomic sit-stand stool to offer you a better solution to improve your workability and wellbeing while standing. Besides, sit-stand stool allows your body to rest and recover between the standing periods with the effect of being able to alternate between a resting posture and standing position, thereby reducing discomfort and eliminates the stress on the joints, ankles, knees, hips, and your spine.
• Increases Mental Alertness
The ergonomic stools’ ability to provide you with the core stance allows you to flex the leg muscles, thus naturally increases cardiovascular activity leading to adequate and enhanced blood circulation and oxygenation in your brain, which in turn contributes to a greater degree of your mental alertness.
• Reduces Risk of Lower Limb Circulation Problems
Did you know that leaning or sitting on the stool frees you to flex your lower legs’ muscles? When you turn your lower leg muscles, it increases the ability to pump blood and fluids through the circulatory system and, by doing so, to encourage better circulation in the lower legs. Thus, eliminating contributing factors in the development of edema (swelling of the lower legs).
Would Sitting On Chairs/stools Without Backrests For Short Periods Improve Posture?
Yes. Chairs/stool without a backrest provides a semi-standing and leaning stance which allows you to flex and relax the muscles of the back, and your body continually makes minor adjustments to stay balanced, which engages the muscles in your core and lower back, thereby encouraging good posture due to the absence of a backrest. Furthermore, the other reasons why stool/chairs without a backrest will help to improve your posture is because:
• The pivoting base engages your core to practice good posture.
• Your spine is in a more neutral position, taking the pressure off your lower back.
• The lack of backrest corrects postural problems by maintaining the natural curvature of the lumbar region.
How To Sit With Right Posture On Ergonomic Stools?
While sitting on a stool daily, it is always hard to apply the ergonomic rules while at work, which is dangerous because it puts your life at a greater risk of developing neck, shoulder, and lower back health complications. Therefore, learning to sit with the right posture on an ergonomic stool would benefit the health of your spine by doing the following procedures while seated on the ergonomic stools;
• Place your upper arms parallel to your spine, while the forearm and hands resting on the working surface, but ensure your elbows should be bent at a 90° angle. If they are not, adjust your office chair higher or lower, as necessary. If you do, this reduces stresses on your shoulder joints and the upper back, causing pain.
• Raise your stool to support your sit-to-stand movement to avoid bending your upper body more while attempting to get up to reduce stress on your hips, knees, and ankle joints. Besides, raising the stool’s height allows you to quickly place both feet on the ground and bend your knees and hips at a 90° angle.
• Boost your feet for support to reduce pressure on your legs and feet, which may decrease foot pain.
• Adjust your work surface to match your height to avoid regularly bend forward to type on your keyboard or reading, which will reduce strain on your back. Besides, raising your desk will then allow you to raise your stool to a more suitable and comfortable height for your efficiency.
• Then sit back on your stool, check the room between the front edge of your seat and your calves by making a fist and bringing it to the edge of the chair and pushing it on the calf. If you can fit your full fist between the chair’s front edge and your calf, you likely have enough space for blood circulation. If not, your chair is probably too deep.
• Re-evaluate your sitting posture by avoiding slumping or slouching, which can place extra stress on your lumbar discs and other structures of the lower back.
• Adjust your screen’s height by facing forward with your eyes closed, and then open your eyes, which should be aimed at the center of your computer screen. If not, adjust the screen, so it is level with your gaze.
• Adjust your neck back until your earlobes align with both shoulders, and your arms should slightly be lifted at the shoulders, but ensure your elbows should be bent at a 90° angle. You are okay to face the day.
Conclusion
Suppose you have been experiencing lower back complications, neck, and shoulder pains. In that case, it is high time to consider trying a new form of sitting habit by making the mentioned above ergonomic adjustments while sitting on an ergonomic seat to help you attain the right posture and relieve yourself from straining your shoulder and neck.
