6 Tips For Sitting Correctly at Your Desk Without Back Pain
Summer is right around the corner! That means a couple of things; the weather has already gotten warmer here in the CSRA, the kids are out of school, and we are in “National Correct Your Posture Month” in May.
That may sound like another silly national observance (like “National Spaghetti Day” or “National High Five Day”), but if you spend most of your time working at a desk, you already know how severe the lower back, neck pain, headache and shoulder pain can become without proper sitting.
In some cases, sitting at your desk for too long can be more likely to trigger lower back pain that standing on your feet all day. To help, here are six Grovetown Chiropractic-approved tips for sitting at your desk correctly without pain.
Benefits of Proper Sitting Posture
There’s more to adjusting your posture than avoiding neck or lower back pain – even if that is your primary concern. “Sitting is the new smoking” has become accepted as depicting actual morbidity as proportionate to the average number of hours you spend sitting in a day.
With the proper sitting mechanics you:
- Help keep your bones and joints properly aligned to avoid muscle pain.
- Reduce stress on your spinal ligaments.
- Prevent muscle fatigue.
- Help reduce the likelihood of injuries including strain and sprains while in motion.
Ultimately, the proper sitting posture at a desk helps to promote the health of the back and spine, and ensures you’re less likely to injure joints while working out or being active after long periods of sitting.
Tips on Best Posture For Sitting at a Desk All Day
Here are six of our favorite tips for the proper sitting posture at your desk!
- Fresh Horses. The unseen villain in the assault on your body that prolonged sitting can become is that many of your postural and phasic muscles can be exposed to prolonged isometric contraction which is exacerbating to musculoskeletal chronicities. In search of the perfect chair/keyboard/mouse/monitor arrangement and sitting position, it turns out the perfect position isn’t a position, it’s a variability of several of your best positions alternated as to bring in fresh horses- fresh muscles in the game to keep you from the fatigue and failure of muscles that prolonged sitting imposes on us.
- Don’t Overcorrect of Overarch Your Lower Back. Your pelvis should stay neutral to the back of the chair as often as possible. You may think overarching creates a healthier posture, but it puts unnatural pressure on the spine and pelvis, leading to lower back pain. Instead, try to pull your stomach in and hold it to get a good little toning workout for your transversus abdominis, the secret weapon in efforts to get a flatter stomach! Start with 15 seconds at a time for 3 sets 3 or four times a day and work up to 60 seconds.
- 90/90 or better. Keep your hips and knees at about 90 degrees of flexion +/-. You should not stay your entire shift sitting only at 90 degrees. Often times in order to attain “fresh horses” you need to lift or lower your seat to relax certain muscles and engage new ones. If your seat can not move up and down, maybe try a sit/stand desk or stand up often to help the muscles that are working to keep your hips and knees at 90 degrees.
- Make Sure Your Neck Isn’t Leaning Forward Towards the Computer Screen. You want to stay in your power zone, or zone of strength as much as possible. The power zone is when your neck is right on top of your upper back. This may happen unconsciously, but your eyes should always be in direct alignment with your computer monitor. If necessary, consider adjusting seat height or putting a block under your computer screen to keep it elevated to your natural eye level. Avoid stacking monitors on top of each other as often as possible.
- Keep All Items On Your Desk Within Arm’s Reach. Along with the monitor, the position of the keyboard and mouse are very important in the interest of idealized ergonomics. This is why a laptop is more punishing than a desktop. It is more possible to situate the mouse, keyboard and monitor to places where your body can be best accommodated with the separate components of a desktop than with the fixed components of a laptop. Also, if you need to reach for things like files or a pen, make sure those things are all naturally within arm’s reach instead of being spread out over your desk. This will help ensure once you’ve found the proper sitting posture at your desk that you aren’t accidentally moving out of it to grab something.
- Take a Break! This may sound obvious, but one of the best things you can do to avoid lower back pain is to get up and stretch at least once every hour. If you can’t set an alarm on your phone or watch as a reminder, consider committing to taking a small break on the hour or at half-past so you don’t forget. For a good long-term solution, some people have found a sit/stand desk to be very helpful in order to get a break from sitting, or just avoid it completely while being able to work comfortably.
Benefits of Chiropractic Care For Lower Back Pain
If you find sitting at a desk all day uncomfortable within the first hour or two of your workday, a chiropractic adjustment can help realign the spine to its natural position to alleviate pressure. Sitting can cause much more than just lower back pain. We see people come through the doors with neck pain, headache, midback pain, shoulder pain, upper extremity pain, lower extremity pain and radiculopathies resultant from sitting!
Combined with the occasional adjustment, these simple tips for proper sitting posture can help ensure you aren’t at risk for further injuries during normal activities!
At Grovetown Chiropractic, every approach to treatment is customized to your body and condition to maximize pain relief in the most natural and effective way. Book your appointment today by calling 706-400-4333 or schedule directly from our website by visiting the home page.