When you sit in chairs for hours each day, the spine doesn't get enough movement and fluid is leached out of the discs. This minimizes incoming nourishment because the discs have no direct blood supply and are fed by a process of absorption facilitated by pressure changes in the case of the spine.

Since the primary constituent of a spinal disc is water, it only makes sense to keep properly hydrated to prevent your discs from dehydrating. This means drinking at least half your body weight in ounces of water daily. A person weighing 200 pounds would need 100 ounces of water daily. I know for a fact drinking water can decrease pain in degenerative spines because I've seen it happen over and over again in my own practice.

When we sit much of the day, we typically don't get enough movement or exercise to keep the muscles and ligaments of the spine healthy. As our spinal discs dehydrate they narrow. This causes the ligaments of the spine to become progressively more lax.

This condition is a very common cause of spinal instability that typically leads to more serious lumbar pathology such as pinched nerve roots, disc herniations or arthritic changes that crowd the spinal cord and nerve roots. Symptoms suggestive of spinal instability include:

Sensing the need to manipulate or adjust your own joints (i.e. popping your own back or neck).

Pain or discomfort that is relieved by adjusting your own spine, particularly when the same or similar symptoms return and can again be alleviated by self-manipulation or manipulation by a trained manipulator. In addition to pain, such symptoms as tingling, numbness, spasm, muscle weakness and a sense of tension around a joint that are repeatedly alleviated by manipulation indicate spinal instability.

Popping or clunking sounds coming from a spinal joint(s) when performing a characteristic movement, such as rotating the spine in one direction, yet this symptom does not result with rotation in the opposite direction.

A trained professional will notice washboarding, which is hyper-activation of the deep spinal stabilizers in the region of the lax joint.

But, there is a solution to minimize the detriments of sitting too much -- the Swiss ball (Figure 5). As a sphere, the Swiss ball has a reduced base of support, moves easily underneath you and requires both the activation of your postural muscles and your balance mechanisms.

A study conducted by Swedish Naprapath Joakim Dettner and his colleagues found, when compared to massage therapy, simply balancing on a Swiss ball in a seated position for one-minute intervals with 30 seconds rest seven times in a row, in place of any other form of treatment, significantly decreased pain and disability.2