Author: Todd Bowen

I used to do hot yoga on a regular basis. I stopped practicing back in 2013. Since then, my workouts have consisted of weightlifting and steel mace exercises. I’ve also spent a lot of time in the dry sauna before and after workouts.

But I don’t do exercises while I’m in the sauna. I focus on breathing deep and slow. The sauna helps improve my blood flow and warm up my muscles. It’s helped improve my workouts a lot. But I’ve been focusing a little too much on strengthening, not enough on stretching. I’ve been looking to add movement and stretches to my exercise practice, while focusing on my breathing in a heated room. So naturally, I’ve started practicing hot yoga again.

After getting back into hot yoga recently, the first 2 months were very surprising. Sometimes a pose will come up in class, I’ll immediately remember how painful that pose used to be. But surprisingly, I’ll usually get into that pose and feel better than I did back in 2013. I can attribute this to a lot of variables of my computer ergonomic practice. One, I’ve been practicing healthy posture habits at a computer since 2011. And two, I’ve been practicing low-toxin living since January of 2024.

Can Hot Yoga Improve Computer Posture?

This article will talk about my experience with hot yoga. I’ll cover how I’ve used yoga for ergonomic health at work. I’ll also talk about the posture benefits of a regular hot yoga practice. Most importantly, I’ll talk about how hot yoga combats computer-related pain.

Continue reading Can Hot Yoga Improve Computer Posture?

I sat at a computer desk with poor posture for 10 years until I’d finally had enough. Poor computer posture caused muscle tension, chronic pain, decreased work productivity, and lack of energy.

Once I committed to improving my sitting ergonomics for better health, I was surprised how simple most of the computer posture tips I learned were. It was one thing to learn the best ways to improve posture at the computer. It was another thing to maintain those posture correction tips on a daily basis.

This article will talk about 3 of my favorite methods to improve posture at your computer desk. It’ll talk about how office ergonomics is so much more than just a healthy sitting posture. These are simple posture hacks for office workers that are so easy, you’ll be glad you’re here.

Continue reading 3 Simple Tips to Improve Your Posture at the Computer

Sitting at a computer desk 8 hours a day is an endurance event. It’s working in a position of light-intensity, for a long-duration of time. Humans can get into this vulnerable position with no problem. But we’re not designed to stay in that position for long periods of time.

As office workers, some of our muscles experience excessive inactivity. The rest of our muscles are put through repetitive strain and overuse. Sitting posture causes some muscles to shorten and some to lengthen. With this type of muscle confusion, we need to make sure we are stretching and strengthening our muscles.

This article will talk about how I improve flexibility with stretching, as well as how I build muscle strength.

Continue reading Stretching Versus Strengthening: The Fine Line Between Balancing the Two

Computer ergonomics is one of those topics they don’t teach much about in school. The only time I learned about it was in college. And that’s only because I was an Information Technology major. It was a 101 intro class about basic computer knowledge. We covered ergonomics for about 2 days. That was it.

As athletes, how many times has a trainer explained how to do a squat correctly? Or how to improve our bench press, so we can push 10 more pounds?

How many times has a coach taught us how to shoot a basketball? Or throw a baseball?

Sitting at a computer may not be a sport, but it is an endurance event.

It’s very different from a marathon, which is high-impact and high-intensity. Sitting at a computer is a low-intensity, long-duration event that can cause repetitive strain and overuse injuries. These computer-related injuries can cause chronic pain, muscle tension, and joint dysfunction.

Posture is the position we hold our bodies at a computer. Ergonomics is the study of our efficiency at a computer. Posture is only one ergonomic variable. If you’d like to learn about computer posture tips, I wrote an article titled Computer Posture for Athletes.

The rest of this article won’t talk about posture, specifically. It will focus on the other ergonomic variables that are important for office workers who are athletes. These variables include sleep quality, hydration, breathing, and nutrition. Even though some of them don’t actually take place at our computer desk, they’re still an important part of my computer ergonomics practice.

Continue reading Computer Ergonomics for Athletes

Athletes are at peak performance when they’re active, strong, flexible, and energetic. But a computer user is forced to be the exact opposite of those adjectives. When we sit at a computer for long periods of time, we’re inactive, weak, tight, and tired.

These computer-related posture issues create big problems for athletes. Not only at our office desk, but also in the gym and on the playing field.

This article will talk about my favorite ways of computer posture correction, which will improve athletic performance. It’ll also cover ways of preventing future injuries from poor computer posture in athletes.

Continue reading Computer Posture for Athletes

In 2011, I was broken from poor computer posture. I also had low energy, brain fog, and low work productivity. That same year, I implemented as many healthy computer habits into my daily routine as possible.

Proper desk posture, while working on a computer, is the most important variable of computer ergonomics (in my opinion). This article will talk about how to improve posture while using a computer, as well as how to prevent computer-related injuries.

Continue reading Computer Posture Guide

Chronic neck pain was one of the worst issues I had before I corrected my computer posture. But the act of “sitting” at a computer didn’t cause my neck pain. Because computer-related neck pain can also occur when working at a standing workstation.

So if it wasn’t the act of “sitting” that was causing my pain, what was it? This article will talk about a few different computer posture mistakes that caused my chronic neck pain and tension. It will also provide office work neck pain solutions.

Continue reading Why Does Sitting at a Computer Cause Neck Pain?

For 10 years, I sat with poor computer posture everyday for 8 hours a day. I didn’t even know what the word “ergonomics” meant.

Ergonomics means “the study of people’s efficiency in their working environment.” But in my opinion, ergonomics doesn’t only take place inside the “working environment.” Posture takes place in the working environment. And posture is an important variable of ergonomics. Arguably, the most important variable.

But what about sleep quality. If I get terrible sleep the night before work, I’m going to get to work tired. This means my computer posture will suffer much quicker that day, opposed to a day where I got 8 hours of quality sleep the night before. In my mind, sleep is an important variable of computer ergonomics.

This article will talk about different variables of computer ergonomics that’ve helped improve my posture. Some of them occur in the working environment. And some occur outside of it. The computer ergonomic variables covered in this article will be:

• posture
• hydration
• nutrition
• sleep quality
• breathing

Continue reading The Ultimate Guide to Ergonomic Computer Posture

A sedentary lifestyle causes excessive muscle tension, dysfunction, and computer-related pain. When sitting in an office chair, some of our muscles are not used at all. These muscles are constantly deactivated while sitting, so they get weaker. At the same time, other muscles are overused to a point of dysfunction.

But what muscle is affected the most? Is it an underused, or overused muscle group? This article will talk about the tightest muscle I had from sitting at a computer. The answer might not be the muscle you would expect.

Continue reading What is the Tightest Muscle Caused by Poor Computer Posture?

Spinal disc degeneration is very common among office workers. Slouching forward at a computer for long periods of time is one of the most common causes of this painful posture problem.

I found out about my spinal disc degeneration by accident. In hindsight, I’d had symptoms of degenerative disc disease. There was pain and dysfunction in my neck and back. I just figured it was from overtraining, weightlifting, or running. At that point, I didn’t even know what spinal disc degeneration was. And I had no idea my pain was a computer-related injury.

But then I got rear-ended in a car accident. I got hit pretty hard, but it wasn’t serious. I went to the chiropractor to get x-rays done as a precaution. That’s when I learned about my disc degeneration. My chiropractor told me this wasn’t from the accident. Disc degeneration happens when the spine is held out of its neutral position, for long periods of time. This is the moment my chiropractor and I realized, sitting at a computer for a living was sending me down a painful path of degenerative disc disease, including neck and back pain.

Continue reading What is Spinal Disc Degeneration?

A common phrase among office workers is, “Sitting is the new smoking.” We all know it’s unhealthy. But what are the actual causes of poor sitting posture? We need to learn what computer posture mistakes to avoid first, before we can implement healthy habits of a sedentary lifestyle.

You would think our bodies are at rest when we sit. That’s true for a lot of our muscles. They are deactivated and underused when sitting at a computer. The rest of our muscles are constantly activated. This causes repetitive strain and overuse injuries to those muscles and their tendons.

Continue reading What Causes Bad Sitting Posture?

I’ve suffered negative effects from sitting on my glutes for years. Just because we sit 8 hours a day, it doesn’t mean we’re successfully resting our muscles during that time.

Sitting at a computer for 8 hours a day is an endurance event. Most of our muscles are deactivated, but the rest are being overused excessively. Repetitive strain and overuse injuries are occurring in some muscles. While others are inactive, causing weak muscles that sometimes stop firing altogether. This is what happened to my gluteus muscles, after many years of sitting for long periods of time.

This article will talk about (in hindsight) the signs of glute inactivation. It will also talk about different negative effects of sitting on glutes. Finally, it will go over how to fix (and prevent) dead butt syndrome.

Continue reading What is Dead Butt Syndrome?

Irritable Bowel Syndrome has very negative effects on a sedentary lifestyle. It used to cause me decreased mental clarity, decreased work productivity, even time off work. IBS also contributed to my anxiety, depression, and fatigue.

I went to multiple doctors. One told me to take fiber pills. Those didn’t help at all. Another gave me a list of fiber-rich foods to include in my diet. But it just made me feel bloated. I even went to physical therapy that specialized in the functionality of the pelvic floor.

In theory, all these treatments would help. But what I didn’t understand was: the unhealthy, fast foods I was eating made healing irritable bowel syndrome an uphill battle for me.

This article will talk about the IBS diet and lifestyle changes I made at the end of 2022. Overcoming irritable bowel syndrome challenges wasn’t easy for me. Doctors didn’t help much. I learned most of these natural remedies for IBS relief either on my own, or on the internet. So, it only felt right to share my IBS personal success story in an article.

Continue reading Irritable Bowel Syndrome: How I Fixed my IBS

Figuring out what office posture errors we need to correct can be overwhelming. I started correcting my computer-related posture problems in 2011. I knew I was in an incorrect sitting position at a computer (8 hours a day). But I didn’t know where to begin. I decided to fix my workstation posture problems one by one.

This article will talk about 3 of the most common posture errors at work. It will also talk about how I corrected those bad computer posture mistakes.

Continue reading 3 Common Computer Posture Mistakes

When I got my degree in Information Technology, computer ergonomics was the topic that stood out to me the most. Probably because of my interests in sports and exercise. But from 2001 to 2011, I dealt with the effects of poor computer posture for 8 hours a day. In 2011, I started practicing as much sitting posture correction possible.

I’ve gotten great health benefits from correct sitting posture. This article will talk about 5 of those benefits. It will also include links to other articles about computer posture tips.

Continue reading 5 Benefits of Good Computer Posture

I used to suffer chronic neck pain and muscle tension from sitting at a computer. These computer-related injuries built up over an extended period of time. They didn’t really hurt, or affect my life, in the beginning. But after months, then years of sitting with poor neck posture at a computer, the pain and dysfunction came on strong. By that point, I had a lot of work to do before I got computer neck pain relief.

This article will go over my favorite methods of neck pain prevention for computer users. It will also cover my favorite computer neck pain remedies.

Continue reading Computer Neck Pain Remedies

When I was younger, I thought making a living from a computer was the way to go. And it still can be. The ability to make money from a computer is very valuable. But I had no idea how many increased health risks come along with a sedentary lifestyle.

Making a living with a computer doesn’t have to hurt. There are plenty of ways to improve computer posture, decrease pain, and prevent computer-related injuries.

This article will cover 6 of my most valuable desk worker health tips. Keep in mind that I talk about my own personal experience, while living a computer desk worker lifestyle. These are not necessarily recommendations for everyone. They are simply how I corrected my poor computer posture, and ways I prevent computer-related pain in the future.

Continue reading Desk Worker Health Tips

Posture is the position we hold our bodies in. Ergonomics is the study of people’s efficiency in the workplace. Posture is one variable of ergonomics. But it takes more than good posture to prevent computer-related injuries.

For example, if I have poor sleep quality, my computer posture will suffer quicker the next day. If I’m dehydrated at my computer desk, my muscles will tense up quicker. If my breathing is shallow due to stress, that will affect my posture negatively.

This article will serve as a computer ergonomics guide. It will go over healthy habits of how to have good computer posture. It will also go over ergonomic variables like sleep quality, hydration, and breathing.

Continue reading Computer Ergonomics Guide

Laptops are designed to be incredibly convenient. They give us the ability to work remotely from anywhere in the world. But they are not designed to be ergonomic, not at all. There are major health risks possible if we do not practice healthy laptop posture habits.

An ergonomic laptop setup is critical to prevent computer-related pain. This article will contain frequently asked questions (and answers) that serve as a laptop ergonomics guide.

Continue reading Best Posture for Working on a Laptop All Day

Most computer posture mistakes have easy fixes. Once we correct sitting posture at a desk, the hard part is consistently practicing these healthy habits.

This article will talk about 5 painful computer posture mistakes I used to make. Then, it’ll talk about the 5 computer posture tips I used to fix these mistakes and prevent pain at a computer.

Continue reading Computer Posture Mistakes