The importance of a good desk routine

Let's start this off by going through some things that we all already know. We sit too much, most of us need to sit too much in order to earn enough money to live, and we weren’t designed to sit (if we were, we wouldn’t have evolved two legs to walk with).

A quick google search will show us that the average person in the UK spends between 4 and 9 hours a day sitting. On average that that means we are spending almost 70 days per year sitting, which is almost one fifth of the whole year sat down. We know that we sit A LOT, we know that we HAVE TO sit to live, and we know that we WEREN’T designed to sit (which is why sitting causes so many problems in our bodies). Okay… this is now getting a bit negative.

But wait… let’s talk about how this doesn’t have to be negative and how we can reward our bodies for all the sitting they have to do for us. There has been research conducted that points out how the negative effects of sitting can be minimised by standing up and walking around the office for one minute every half hour of the working day. Honestly, this can just be a short trip to the water tank to grab a small cup of water (which is also really important by the way).

What this does for us is helps hydrate our discs (between the bones in our spine) which act as shock absorbers. If you are stuck in one position or stuck sitting for extended periods of time this results in squashing of the dehydrated discs and eventually an unhappy nervous system. This moving also activates muscles in the body which have been inactive while sitting, as well as, allowing certain muscles a chance to take a break and reset for when they have to help you sit up straight again. The added bonus of this is giving your brain that 60 second break from what you’re doing so you can get back to the desk, not have completely forgotten about your task and have that slight bit more cognitive power to smash your work.

Another thing we can do as part of our desk routine is occasionally sitting all the way at the edge of our chair. We want to get the bony part of our butt right the way forward on the chair with our feet flat on the floor and arch the lower back. This helps us temporarily get into “good” sitting posture, and by doing this occasionally for short periods (1-5 minutes at a time) throughout the day in the office - we are teaching our nervous system how to sit with “good” posture without thinking about it too much. We are also training the muscles and other soft tissue structures which support the spine to be able to maintain “good” posture for longer and longer.

Check out these articles from the NHS and Workplace Insight for more great tips.