“Time to stand.”
Has your Fitbit, Apple Watch, or other fitness tracker told you to do that yet? Mine has. Mine even tells me when to take a deep breath, as if I forgot to breathe. Technology is amazing and, as long as you are OK with it logging everything you do, it can actually help you develop healthier habits.
One habit we need to develop is standing, instead of sitting all day. You wake up early, just to sit in traffic for an hour. Then you sit at work for another eight hours. You sit in the car on the way home, sit while you eat dinner, and even sleep in a sitting position when you sleep on your side. Sit, sit, sit—that is all we do and our poor hip flexors stay tight all day long. 
When you finally get a chance to stand, it hurts because the hip flexors have been contracted for so long that any stretching of them burns when you try to stand. So, what should you do? Stand, stand, stand.
Any chance you get, you should stand. Get a standing desk, walk around the office once an hour, take the stairs instead of the elevator. It’s not rocket science. You know what to do, you just have to be aware of it and act on it.
Unfortunately, tightness of the hip flexors also can cause low back pain and sometimes even spasms, which can cause bones in your spine to misalign and cause additional problems. If you have back pain from sitting all day, and the tips above do not help, give chiropractic a try and see if it helps.
By Dr. Andrew Payne, contributing writer and owner/chiropractor at Lake City Chiropractic.
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