Blog

radiologist holding x ray film of spine

Changing how you sit might help you avoid back surgery

I was a trauma surgeon for many years and I loved everything about it. Trauma surgery is unique in surgery because it is a specialty that is almost pure surgery: very little need for elaborate ...

mom and daughter practicing yoga to stay active

Can how you sit help lower your cancer risk?

We know not only that moving is good for us but also that sedentary behavior independently contributes to a host of bad health outcomes: obesity, diabetes and heart disease are the most frequently...

woman with back pain

Your Back Pain Isn’t In Your Back

Your Back Pain Isn’t In Your Back Pain is a universal experience, the result of ancient neurologic pathways evolved to keep us safe by alerting us to injury. While pain is universal, however, i...

walking shoes

Are 10,000 steps too many?

Are 10,000 steps too many? “Ten thousand steps” is now a well-ingrained idea that even epidemiologists embrace, but not because it’s true. Physicians have long known that walking is importan...

bowl of paleo food

The Paleo Diet is Debunked, But What About Paleo Sitting?

The Paleo Diet is Debunked, But What About Paleo Sitting? The paleo diet has had a good run, but for a bad reason. The underlying idea that our modern lives don’t match our hunter-gath...

guy napping with dog

Staying Awake at Work

Staying Awake at Work Staying awake at work has been a problem since the beginning of work. So, it’s not surprising that an array of anti-somnolence work-arounds have been tried over the mil...

man sitting at a desk taking calls with a headset

Better Posture

Posture is a seemingly uncomplicated attribute of our every moment. It is simply the habitual way we array ourselves in response to gravity, and is as individual as our personalities. But, becau...

chiropractor treating patient with sciatica

Sciatica:  Causes, Cures, and … Chairs?

Understanding the cause of sciatica Sciatica is simply pain that radiates down the leg from the lower back. While “radiates” is a term loved by doctors, patients typically describe their pa...

Two senior people in a Tai Chi practice

Active Sitting: Can it keep you young?

It is a personal failing of mine that I don’t monitor my phone very carefully, so I wasn’t surprised to find that I had missed another call, but this was a call I’m sorry to have missed. The messa...

Are You Sitting Too Much?  Here are the symptoms of “sitting disease”

Are You Sitting Too Much? Here are the symptoms of “sitting disease”

What is sitting disease? “Sitting disease” is not a specific disease recognized by doctors. Rather, it is a lay term that epidemiologists have adopted because it neatly captures the health ...

young woman practicing yoga

Mindful Sitting

Sometime ago I introduced a statistician programmer friend, Ramiro, to active sitting, and his eyes immediately lit up. But his first sentence took me by surprise: “When I sit on this chair, my mi...

Person running down a road

The inventor of the Barefoot Shoe loves our office chair

We recently connected with the inventor of the VivoBarefoot Shoe, and he loves our office chair. His idea for how minimal shoes help your body, parallels how active sitting in a minimalist chair su...

hands on a person's back providing relief from back pain treatment

Can active sitting help people with scoliosis?

Can active sitting help people with scoliosis? Possibly. In the least, it helped relieve the pain of sitting for one young woman.

Elderly person walking along tree lined river in Japan

Effortless Fitness: Why there are no gyms in Japan

Japanese people embrace walking as regular exercise. As a result, few people use gyms, but experience life-long health benefits. Could active sitting provide the same benefits as regular walking?

woman demonstrates exercise using QOR360 chair

Active sitting - what's it for?

“What’s it for?” Or, occasionally, “What’s it good for?” I get this question about our chairs a lot, and I have to say, it’s a hard question for me. Which may seem a little odd, because I’m the ...

Mayumi Ishii - Golf

Sitting for Sport

Every year, millions of people spend money on products that claim to improve their sports game. They might buy the latest running sneakers, or gloves for golfing, or refresh their daily yoga pract...

girl sitting in ergonomic chair

Somehow, Every Ergonomist Gets Sitting Wrong

The field of ergonomics hasn’t changed their approach and recommendations for chairs in many, many years, even while the rate of Americans with back pain stubbornly persists at 80%. With that sort...

three people working at a desk

Workplace Wellness Programs Don’t Work. Time for a Home Office Reboot?

We humans spent our first 3 million years as hunter-gatherers, and over that long period, we came to expect certain benefits: sunshine, fresh air, fresh food, and above all physical activity. And...

glass of water on a table

What if most of the advice you’ve been given is wrong?

We’re given a lot of advice over our lives, especially as children. And, because this advice comes from people we trust who want the best for us, this advice becomes the basis for how we live our ...

woman squatting on path in the woods

Squatting in the 21 Century

We force kids to abandon squatting so as adults, the position is nearly impossible and uncomfortable. Try this… drop a pencil on the floor and pick it up. Notice - did you bend over at the waist, ...

hands using laptop trackpad

You sit still, you get old

You sit still, you get old We often hear from folks who want to talk about our chair project; usually as emails but sometimes as phone calls. One of the most interesting comments lately was from...

healthy food fruits and vegetables on a plate

Obesity and Health: The roles of diet and activity

This week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine blandly recounts this stunning conclusion: “By 2030 nearly 1 in 2 adults in the US will be obese, and 1 in 4 will have severe obesity”. Th...

four cookies shaped liked stars

The limits of willpower (and how to hack them)

Willpower is a concept that we take for granted, because it seems obvious: an impulse arises, we think it over, and then decide whether or not to act on that impulse. Simple. But willpower actuall...

silhouetted man walking on wall with large body of water behind him and city in background

How many steps?

Tracking your steps? Add in your fidgets. How many steps do you take in a day? Once upon a time that would have been an absurd question but now, most of us have a device that simply tells us...