Why Sitting At A Desk For Many Hours a Day Does Not Hurt My Back

And why your back hurts

Are you sitting right now?

How are you sitting?

Does my last question even seem like a real question to you?

Probably not and that is okay. You can develop awareness of your posture.

You may have the question - Why Bother?

I will share a story.

Mario Alonso Puig is a surgeon and a public speaker with 2.4 million followers on Instagram who regularly sells out speaking events. I had no idea who he was until a few weeks ago when someone told me a story about a keynote speech he gave at a conference.

In his keynote, he shared how earlier in his life he was suicidal. The first thing he worked on to reclaim his hold on life was his posture. He said how in the first year of climbing out of the darkest trench in your life, the best thing to start with is your posture.

This resonated so much with me as I was able to start my process of overcoming so much grief last year by reconnecting with my body. By understanding how my shoulders curving forward and head drooping downward signaled to my mind that I was defeated, I was able to update my internal reality by changing my posture.

Starting a yoga practice helped me to develop awareness of my posture. But you do not need to practice yoga to improve your posture.

How Do You Improve Your Posture?

If you take away nothing else from this article, remember this:

Sit Like Duck, Not Like Dog.

Unless you have been fortunate enough to attend one of Lal Maharajh’s yoga classes at Maha Shanti School of Yoga on Isla Mujeres, you are probably asking yourself…

What?

Let me explain.

Imagine you have a tail sticking out from the base of your spine. Rather than tucking your tail under your bottom like a scared dog, rotate your hips until you could imagine that you were able to wag your tail behind you like a duck.

As soon as you do this, your torso and spine will not be able to curve like a banana. This may alleviate a lot of pain you would otherwise begin to experience in your back after sitting for long periods. As proof, I will share a story from when I went to an Indian wedding with my family this past March.

I flew into Austin, Texas to meet my family to attend a friend's wedding. On the first day of ceremonies, I reminded my Dad to sit like a duck and not like a dog as I sat like a duck alongside him.

On the second day of ceremonies, we were two hours into sitting and watching the event when my Dad turned to me.

"It makes a difference," he said, in reference to sitting properly.

He was sitting up tall. With his tailbone turned outward like a duck. Not puffing the chest forward, but not letting the spine round either.

"Yup," I said.

I used to dread sitting for long periods at events. The pain was always inevitable. The funny part is - it is avoidable.

Sitting with the tailbone tucked in is comfortable and relaxing. However, it will lead to pain and discomfort. Whereas sitting like a duck does not feel natural or comfortable at first, but your capacity to sit for long periods of time without pain will improve.

Sick of pain?

Sit better.

P.S. I heard filling out the survey from last week was too much work because of the Substack login. I feel you and I am sorry. I would not have done it either. I created a new survey that does not require any login.

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