Bernard O'Shea: I've become addicted to sitting, but I have some tips to fix bad posture 

Bernard O'Shea. Photograph Moya Nolan

I’ve become addicted to sitting. I’m not messing. My addiction is so bad that when I enter a room I scan it for potential thrones. Nightly I browse the internet for comfortable chairs while sitting in a comfortable chair and I have had several daydreams of buying an Eames lounger similar to the one in Frasier.

But it wasn’t always like this. Do you know that person who will never sit down when they enter a room? The same individual will be told ‘There’s a chair sit down take the load off” it eventually escalates to “Will you please sit down you're making me uncomfortable” I was that person who wouldn’t sit down.

Now I relish oozing that “ahhhh” noise out of my lungs when I plump my butt into a nice cosy cushion. The only thing is my belly has become bigger than most cushions I sit on.

We all know that a sedentary lifestyle is bad for us. I know that sitting is the new smoking. I've known that for years. And now with more of us working from home, there is no need to pop out for a walk to grab a sandwich or just walk around the office pretending to be going to a meeting.

We have all see the pictures of “Emma”, the dystopian hunch-back life-sized human prototype which portrayed what an office worker could look like in 20 years' time if they stay sedentary and slouched. If you haven’t it's worth a google but be warned it's scary.

The evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman’s book Exercised was published last year. He debunks a lot of myths about exercise and sitting as the “new smoking”. He emphasises how we have evolved to sit from hunter-gathers for thousands of years.

However one of the main points he makes is not to remain motionless for hours on end. So when I was binge-watching season 2 of Succession last week I wasn’t cracking nuts, fixing pots or opening shellfish for sustenance. The only work I was doing was carefully and tenderly removing all the chocolate off a Tunnock’s teacake so I could gobble all the white fluff in one glorious gulp. This unfortunately is the modern-day problem with sitting. We work sitting we eat sitting and we chill out sitting.

Most of us were reprimanded by teachers or parents to “sit up straight” or you’ll get “a hunch in your back” growing up. I’m beginning to believe them. I saw my posture rapidly decline since lockdown and my back pain getting worse.

Instead of moving around a bit more and cutting back on the screen grazing, I decided to turn to my new best friend to sort out my deportment … Amazon.

Bernard O'Shea. Photograph Moya Nolan

In the last two years, I’ve bought all sorts of contraptions and forked out for online chiropractors, spending a mortgage on buying what can only be described as “shite”.

I know that it's a phrase not becoming of this fine publication and it won’t put me on the shortlist for a Pulitzer but before I brought them to the recycling centre last week I looked at them for one last time and thought “Why did I buy all this shite ?” I had spent my money on foam neck cushions, back and shoulder braces, male corsets and the comical named “posture pump” nothing had worked to abated my slouch or my back pain.

However, my slouch might not be so bad. A study conducted by The University of Limerick in conjunction with international collaborators in Greece, Qatar and Australia revealed that your sitting position possibly isn’t that important at all.

Dr Kieran O’Sullivan from the School of Allied Health at UL, explained: “The study builds on other recent research at UL showing that physiotherapists and members of the public have an unnecessarily negative view of ‘slouched’ sitting postures, and also that physiotherapists and manual handling instructors often promote very stiff, straight ways of bending and lifting, even though they are not shown to prevent or ease back pain”

So what can I do? I've tried the standing desk but I can’t concentrate or as I've learned type standing up. There are days when life gets in the way and going for a walk never let alone the gym is an impossibility.

This time, instead of relying on Amazon for the answer I got in touch with personal trainer Gillian Hynes founder of thebodyproject.ie. Her advice to me was to “catch yourself right now how are you sitting? If you're looking at a screen your back is hunched and your head is forward we all do it. It means that your lower back is not engaging those muscles they are not working and overtime they weaken.” 

So what should I do? “For starters have your screen higher it will lift your head. Bring your chin back as if you want to turn on a light switch with the back of your head and bring your shoulder blades together” As she was telling me what to do I thought I’ll forget this but almost on cue she told me to “set an alarm on your phone forever 20 minutes with a little code for yourself and take 2 minutes to do it it will become second nature after a week or so”

She also had another tip to help with my lower back pain. “People always talk about the core and think about the abs but that whole area is engaged with your lower back. If you suck in your tummy muscles gently you might get a little tension in that area but in a good way. The lower back should be doing work too”

So for the last week, a little alarm goes off on my phone every twenty minutes. I bring my chin back pull in my shoulder blades and pull my big belly in. It's defiantly eased my stiffness and improved my posture. The only issue is the family keep shouting at me “TURN OFF THAT ALARM”. They don’t care about my back pain to them my postural conversion plan is a pain the (líon isteach na bearnaí).