Office Life Is Destroying Your Butt
melmagazine.com
melmagazine.com
Consider that our bodies were not evolved to use toilet paper, and that hemorrhoids are virtually unheard of in third-world countries that lack TP.
(I haven't confirmed that latter claim. It's just something I read once, somewhere.)
Anyone who's been sick and had to go to the loo multiple times in a row will notice how painful it becomes. I'm not sure it would be painful if washing was used rather than rubbing.
My comment here is full of assumptions and wildly unsupported by evidence. But I thought it might be best to post it so that it can swiftly be disproven or shown to have a grain of truth.
The topic is gross, but it's a serious issue that you don't think much about until suddenly you have to.
Also, baby wipes work for adults too.
Genuinely curious, are there any studies that have shown that?
I base this on observations on the large numbers of advertisements for hemorrhoid treatment (most magazines, billboards, etc) in India, the fact that most people in India use water for cleanup and on the fact that squatting-type toilets are in common use in India. Again, just observation...
Most likely it's just physiology and diet.
https://www.nadialabs.com/pages/how-to-use-the-toilet-correc...
It takes me less time to pass a number 2, than to go number 1. It is not loose, but it is soft and just ... blooop, done. When it's like modeling clay - not getting enough fiber! :-D
It's also a great way to get some alone time and mull over what you're working on without distraction. Just as when I was a student studying mathematics and doing a bit of research, I've found that with programming sometimes a greater clarity of thought is achieved when you have nothing but your mind -- no pencil, no paper, no computer, nothing to write on, nothing to doodle on. It forces you to consider only ideas that you can fully manage in your head.
Instead of buying a transitioning desk I just hooked 3 monitors to my desktop where 2 are sitting and 1 (lg 2560px) is standing and created a small delphi app that switches the monitor for me every 30 mins. So far it has done some good for my back but i feel that doing this sort of circus destroys my focus. Still health is over everything so I'm sticking with it.
working on your butt all day is also horrible for your health
it’s as if ... some middle-ground moderation-like situation might be optimal ... my god who would have guessed
A quick google brings this up. It seems to me that being alive is the leading cause of death.
You still might need to move every once in a while though.
Though I can't stand the writing style, sitting while cycling is a real problem, especially if you're male. I bike year round here in Toronto, about 200 kms a week for most of the year, and I didn't know. It took almost a year for the ED to go away once I committed to standing while cycling 100% of the time. I was only in my late twenties when it happened and I figured it was something only old men get. I'm super happy I happened to come across a paper that talked about it.
The side benefit is that it made my arms huge and I've got real abs now.
Soft wide saddles are actually worse for this. You need a relatively narrow saddle, with a deep cutout in the middle.
And you need to have it adjusted right, so you end up sitting correctly. And if course you should slightly vary your position over the course of a ride.
A good bike shop will be able to find you the perfect saddle and fit.
I feel like the road runner sometimes.
Beep beep.
But if you ever feel the need to sit down again, taking the time to find the perfect saddle is well worth it.
(A) a cheap, DIY standing desk arrangement
(B) a cheap "stability cushion" to stand on so I'm neither standing totally still nor doing some repetitive exercise-machine
(C) squatty-potty (off-brand, DIY options are fine, lilypad or nature's platform style for better real-deal)
I've found pooping with your feet on your tippy toes like a ballerina also does the trick (while still sitting down of course) to achieve the elevation of your legs to be in more of a squat position when pooping.
If you ever go to China and have to squat to poop, that's also a good catalyst to finding the right squat position to best suit you.
People who want to do it (even in prep for a China trip) better work on simply spending time squatting in general. Apparently, westerners with sit-toilets actually lose the flexibility to do a relaxed, flat-footed squat at all.
I could concede that more blood might end up in the pelvis, but surely this is not the reason?
I guess we could say it's not the gravity itself, and it would be correct, but also like saying it's not the bullet that kills you, it's the hole.
The same phenomenon is observed when sitting on an airplane for a long time resulting in slightly enlarged feet due to blood distribution.
I always assumed this would only happen much later and technology would have advanced enough by then that I could have gotten a robotic lower back. But here we are.
This is even with doing a stairwell run every hour and standing up quite often, and sitting at what some article stated was the best angle, 135 degrees or something.
I also do Pilates... So even with all of this sitting for 14 hours a day has caused back issues for me. Sorry to deviate from the toilet topic. Luckily that is one department where I seem to be healthy :)
But stay away from the ones who think they can treat medical issues with spinal adjustments or weird arts.
I found a book that advocated sleeping on your stomach. It took about a week to get used to it, but I haven't had back pain since. Unless I do something stupid like lifting a heavy weight with my back or doing a lot of stoop-labor.
I'd recommend seeing a physical therapist. I had a similar issue, and my PT gave me a set of stretches that clears it right up as long as I do them daily.
Are you really sitting for 14 hours / day? That's insane, you need to move around more. You say you take breaks and do pilates, so maybe 14 is an exaggeration? If not you should try to be more active once you're home.
Also, standing desks are really weird in a cubicle situation where suddenly your neighbor is towering over the wall for an hour, peering into your space.
Also, does having a standing desk stop you from talking frequent walks? Have you seen someone who advocates standing desks recommend not having any other mitigation?
I've never seen cubicle walls higher than ~5'. Most people (and we're talking software devs here, so men) are a fair bit taller than 5'.
Other times, I do focus for a longer period of time.
I have a multi-monitor setup in my office but these days, I mostly work on a laptop that I'll take to different rooms around the house.
At home office desk is 100% standing, DIY table mounted on top of 2 wooden chairs. If I'm getting tired of standing and leaning around, time for a walk. My productivity is so much higher at home compared to my companies open office. Wish I could convince them to let us just make team "rooms" in the open office, ala Valve style.
They bought us all standing desks with wheels, but were not allowed to roll them around. VP of engineering jokes that after I brought it up all the desks would be wheel-less come Monday. Little does he know that if those wheels aren't gone next week my desk is moving were ever I find a space I feel more comfortable, anarchy in the engineering wing, eyes open, no fear, be safe everyone.
FWIW, I fidget, a lot, and have found that a barstool works best for me. Stand, lean, sit, prop (a foot), dance, whatever. Very flexible.
My neurosurgeon for the procedure was fantastic, but he basically said "humans aren't made to be in any position for prolonged periods of time". His recommendation was a sit/stand desk and to occasionally but consistently be changing things up -- re-positioning, standing/moving, using an exercise ball occasionally, etc..
Forgive my ignorance, but are there any predators that we actually can outrun? Pretty much every four-legged mammal is faster, except maybe elephants.
It'd certainly lead to more thinking before writing, maybe the tradeoff would be worth it.
The original statement seems false. Humans did not evolve to outrun their predators, but rather their prey.
I have a computer nerd neck... I’ve been thinking how to solve that. I think I should do front squats rather than the standard.
Front squats isolate the quads more - I prefer to do back squats, then isolate smaller groups with quad extensions and hamstring curls; the latter being good for the glutes too.
And I’m trying to find exercises that work in fixing this
Then use postural reminding aids (don't use a brace unless a physio tells you to), I put a small massage ball behind each shoulder blade and the chair when i'm working, if they fall I know i've slouched.
I went from people openly telling me I needed to fix my posture, to being credited with great posture in about 4-6 months. My posture actually still needs work, because I have pretty noticeable anterior pelvic tilt, but the forward-neck issues are mostly gone.
I have anterior pelvic tilt too— what are you doing to correct this?