The Ultimate Guide For Taking Care Of Your Body As a Desk Worker
The Ultimate Guide For Taking Care Of Your Body As a Desk Worker
Are you experiencing ongoing back, neck and shoulder pain from sitting at your desk for too long?
Maybe your office desk isn’t set up correctly? Or you aren’t taking enough regular breaks?
Whatever it may be, the use of ergonomics can increase your comfortability at work allowing you to feel more productive.
What is Ergonomics?
In simple terms, ergonomics uses a range of scientific principles to keep yourself healthy, safe, and improve overall wellbeing within a work environment.
The topic of Ergonomics is a crucial concept we should all become familiar with as it can enhance your workplace productivity as well as reduce pain which may lead to injury.
The most common workplace injuries arise primarily from the neck, back and shoulders. Did you know that 15-34% of injuries result from ongoing neck pain among office-based jobs? Back pain also accounts for 23-38% followed by 51.6% of shoulder injuries. These office-based workplace injuries are more common than you think.
But how can people get injured so easily working office-based jobs you may be wondering?
In fact, there are numerous potential risk factors individuals aren’t aware of which may be leading to these common injuries.
These risk factors include repetition and pace of work, sustained posture with no breaks, force of movements, environmental factors, poor social/workplace support, stress and limited physical activity levels etc.
Such risk factors may be contributing to these workplace injuries which are causing you pain/discomfort, injury and inhibiting your well being.
Sick of experiencing this ongoing pain and discomfort?
Try considering your desk space and how it is set up. A few key questions to ask yourself is do I have a comfortable chair with correct back and arm support? Are my feet aligned correctly on the floor? Is my chair and desk aligned in a comfortable position where I don’t find myself hunched over or looking down at the screen? These questions can often underpin the issues within our postural alignment.
Here is the ultimate guide to follow to ensure proper sitting posture and distance between you and the computer:
- Relax your shoulders
- Ensure your office chair has back and arm support
- Thighs should be horizontal
- Feet parallel and flat on the floor beneath
- You should be positioned roughly 18-24 degrees away from the computer screen
Prevent Pain with Dynamic Sitting
Did you know that dynamic sitting techniques have been proven beneficial in preventing pain and discomfort within the spine and discs?
Whilst sitting in your office-based job it is helpful to roll your neck a few times in a circular motion, shift your leg positions to whatever is comfortable for you, circle your hips and pelvis, stretch your arms and roll your feet in circles.
Why am I still experiencing pain and discomfort even with my desk set up correctly?
This is probably because you aren’t having enough if not any regular breaks. Taking active breaks throughout your work day can have a significantly positive effect on your posture.
These breaks should be taken when needed or every 20-40 mins. I bet you didn’t know that a break as little as 30 secs can assist in general discomfort and a further 1.5-2 min reducing symptoms of pain.
For maximal benefits, 5-10 min breaks are required. This can not only assist with pain and discomfort, but ensure you are maintaining a work life balance and enhancing your wellbeing.
What should you expect?
If you implement this guide consistently every day combined with quality breaks you should expect to get relief and feel better within days.
The key here is consistency.
You need to do this all the time in order to take care of your body, and in return it will take care of you.
If you ever are interested in what we do or want to try EMS our contact details are below.
Call us on 02 4210 9660 or enquire below.
