Archive for June 2018
Micro-Exercise: Suited to Your Busy Lifestyle
The power of micro-exercise is plain to see
Be honest with yourself- are you really too busy to workout? Look at it this way: you can’t really afford not to exercise; a compromise has to be struck. Micro-exercise, or micro-workouts, seem to offer the perfect compromise. On the days you are simply too busy to devote an hour to exercise, try to seek out smaller blocks of time. And yes we are talking seriously small: as few as 60 seconds is better than zero. What’s more, micro-exercise actually benefits your productivity and boosts well-being, meaning that it makes you more adept at dealing with a full schedule. So how does it work?
Yoga for Chronic Sitters
What does a day’s worth of sitting do to your back?
Sit up straight and brace yourself as you read: prolonged sitting is killing you slowly and this is no exaggeration. The human body was not made to sit for prolonged periods of time and as a result, it takes a serious toll on our physical and mental well-being. Here are some of the ways that sitting negatively affects your spine:
- Damages your spine by increasing downward compression
- Damages organs and
- Compresses your abdomen and interferes with digestion
- Encourages poor posture which carries over into other positions
- Tightens certain muscles and underworks others, leading to muscular imbalance
In the end, sitting is literally taking unquantifiable years off of your life. The solution is to get up and move; in fact, this is the greatest way to stay feeling young. If you are tasked with sitting on a daily basis, make sure you are proactive in fighting the risk factors that come along with it.
Lumbar Problems: When the Pain Won’t Go Away
Muscle problems are the most common cause of lower back pain
This rather large category can refer to tangible, definable problems like muscle and tendon strains and ligament sprains to the more nebulous muscle problems that result from years of neglect and mistreatment. Regardless, it goes without saying that your muscles are the main support for your spine- any problems in the musculature are going to directly affect the integrity of your spinal cord; the knock-on effect will come to define the way you feel and function in all activities. Therefore, controlling for muscle problems in the lower back is a signal way of increasing your overall wellbeing.