Why Your Ergonomic Workstation Won’t Fix Your Pain

You’re at work sitting in front of the computer and your back or shoulder is hurting. This has been going on for longer than you care to remember so you think it’s time to improve your workspace. Maybe you’ll get an ergonomic chair or one of those standing desks. Unfortunately, after you spend all that money, it’s likely that you’ll still have pains, just in different parts of your body.

While ergonomic furniture may help, it’s not the true solution to the problem. Why? The problem isn’t your work space, but rather your habits. It’s not just that you’re sitting or standing poorly, but that you’re in the same position for too long. Even if you sit in an uncomfortable chair, you can actually avoid pain if you reposition yourself in your chair and stand up frequently enough. Ergonomically friendly furniture can help you stay in one position longer before developing symptoms, but then that also means you are being inactive that much longer.

We’re not meant to be stationary beings. Even when we sleep, we move around quite a bit. And there’s a good reason for this. Our bodies need to redistribute body weight so that pressure points don’t stay on any part of the body for too long. Pressure reduces blood flow to affected body tissue which causes damage over time. If this continues long enough, your tissues actually break down and you’ll develop open wounds called pressure sores. This is what happens to immobile people such as the critically patients in hospitals.

To prevent this, our bodies warn us far in advance by sending pain signals and motivating us to reposition ourselves. Don’t ignore those signals and keep working through the pain. Listen to what your body is telling you and move.

Some people, such as stroke patients and those with severe Type 2 diabetics, can’t feel the pain and are at high risk of developing these dangerous sores. If you have one of these conditions, you need to be even more vigilant and proactive about changing your position frequently.

Positional pain can also come from your muscles and joints. Muscles help maintain posture, both good and bad. When we stay in a position too long, muscles get tired and the weight it was working against is dumped onto your joints. Your joints are not meant to handle this kind of load for long periods of time and become damaged, leading to pain. In addition to joint pain, your muscles can also become stiff, causing the common muscle tightness and cramping between the shoulders and lower back.

Ergonomic furniture helps reduce the stresses on your body by distributing your weight better and supporting your posture to reduce the tension on your muscles. However, no matter how much the furniture helps, the fact remains that there is pressure and tension on your body. The only way to prevent positional pain is to move.

So, the next time you start feeling your leg go numb or your shoulders tighten up, stand up (or sit down if you’re standing)! Move around, take a few steps, or even do some light stretching or some exercises, such as those from The One Minute Workout. This will not only resolve your symptoms, but help you perform better by increasing blood flow throughout your body. As a bonus, physical activity will also help your brain change states, which may help you figure out a problem you’ve been stuck on!

Trying to Lose Weight? Avoid the #1 Mistake Dieters Make

“I’m going on a diet!” That’s the first thing most people say when they want to lose fat or weight. But if that’s the first step you take, you’re already doing the wrong thing and setting yourself up for failure. Let me explain why.

Losing weight is as much a mental game of desires and discipline as it is a physical game of calories eaten and burned. Your body weight and composition reflects your inputs and outputs over time. If you change any of these for long enough, your weight will change accordingly. So, with enough time, any sort of change in diet will change your weight. But once you go back to your previous way of eating, your weight will return to that weight.

For example, you may lose a few pounds by starving yourself for a day or two. But when you stop fasting and go back to eating like you used to, you will return to your pre-starvation weight a few days later. All of that suffering will have been for nothing.

Fortunately, the same thing happens if you eat too much for a day or two. While your weight may go up for a few days, you can return to your pre-feast weight just by going back to your previous eating habits. So don’t freak out and punish yourself for indulging once in a while!

Now, how does this relate to going on a diet? When most people say “I’m going on a diet”, they are implying making a temporary change to their eating habits. Since they think it’s only going to be temporary, they’ll try almost anything to reach that arbitrary target number. Once they reach their target weight, they go back to their pre-diet eating habits. And to their dismay, their body goes back to the pre-diet weight. This is the #1 mistake people make when attempting to lose weight: trying to make a permanent change in their body by making temporary changes in their actions.

So, if dieting doesn’t work, what can you do? Rather than “going on a diet,” use the following mindset: “I’m going to change my diet!” This implies making permanent changes which will yield lasting results. In the end, this is what we really want for our looks and for our health.

With that in mind, choose methods that you can sustain indefinitely right from the beginning. In my book, The One Minute Workout, you’ll find a whole chapter called “What Should I Eat?”on making sustainable changes to your eating habits. One of the simplest techniques from that chapter that you can use right away is to only make small changes at a time. Doing so will enable your mind and body to adjust to the changes and allow them to become part of your eating habit. This is a lot easier than “going on a diet” where you do will-busting things like starving or depriving yourself of your favorite foods!

The #1 Problem with Fitness Resolutions and How to Beat It

Did you promise yourself to get in better shape or lose weight this year? If you’re like most people around now, you're really motivated and might even have a workout plan in mind. But will you be able to stick with it and reach your goal? More importantly, once you get there, can you maintain your results indefinitely?

This is the biggest problem with fitness resolutions and many workout programs. We all want to be healthier (and look better!) but we often don’t plan for the long term. What really matters is your current state of fitness and how long you can stay in shape. You could have been the fittest person on earth a couple of years ago but if you’re overweight and out-of-shape now, then your health is still at risk.

Long-term success is the result of consistency and a fail-proof way to be consistent is to turn productive actions into habits. When something becomes a habit, it becomes second-nature and requires much less, if any will power to do it. It takes priority in your mind over other obligations that compete for your time and attention. This is why people with good workout habits always seem to find time to exercise while others can never find the time and make excuses.

When you decide to get in shape, you may be tempted to jump right into one of the many intense workout programs out there. And that’s fine if you can do them consistently. Just make sure you don’t go overboard and end up injuring yourself as that’s the fastest way to sabotage your resolution.

Keep in mind that the novelty of the workout and your enthusiasm is inevitably going to wear off. The boot camp or workout program you saw on TV is going to seem a lot less fun and become a chore, especially as other obligations pop up and consume your valuable time. If you haven't established a workout habit, then there is a very high chance that you’ll stop doing it sooner or later. When that happens, any benefits you may have gained start going out the window, as though you never worked out.

A better idea is to ease into working out so it’s easier to establish a workout habit. Start with a regimen that is easy to fit into your schedule. This way, it’s not a Herculean task to regularly carve out time for your workout. 

Don’t choose exercises which are too easy since you’ll be discouraged by the lack of noticeable results. Also, don’t pick excessively intense workouts, unless you like frequent next-day soreness.

Instead, do exercises that push your limits just a bit. This will give you more positive results and less negative effects. As you get in better shape, increase the intensity of the exercise but NOT the time spent working out. This keeps the results coming without growing your workout into an unmanageable time-sucking chore. In other words, work out smarter, not longer.

If you’re looking for a sustainable workout that grows with you, take a look at The One Minute Workout. This time-efficient workout system (just 60 seconds a day) grows with you as you progress and is a great way to establish a workout habit that you can maintain indefinitely. If you end up using another workout program, remember to choose wisely and think about the long-term. Be consistent and don't let exercise consume your life. Time-limited programs such as the 30-, 60-, or 90-day challenges can be good but you'll need to keep working out even after the program is over. If you can't keep up with your workout, use something simpler like The One Minute Workout to maintain your gains.