It’s mid-April, 2020 and we are still stuck sitting at home. Sitting, while working. Sitting, while filing for unemployment. Sitting, while reading news online. Sitting, while watching TV. Sitting… All this sitting can become a problem! So today, let’s talk about the best sitting posture to prevent back pain, neck pain, carpal tunnel, and all those other nasty side effects of sitting!
I actually went through a lot of school, and learned a bit about posture from that, but, just for this blog, I decided to interview my cat. This was a visual interview, in which I scrolled through 427 cat photos on my phone. Here is a summary of what I found.
Notice anything? Yeah, she doesn’t have a usual posture. Every time she lays down, it’s delightfully different. What else did Chrissy teach me?
Let your belly out, there’s no need to suck in the gut, and in fact...
Never do anything uncomfortable, that’s just silly.
Explore the use of pillows and other props (Chrissy the cat recommends books and binders) to create the maximum amount of comfort.
Every time you get up, stretch a little
Change locations often - the house is your kingdom/ queendom.
How similar are we to cats though? In many ways, quite similar. The latest research recommends that there is no perfect posture, and that the best way to prevent and reduce back pain is through movement. We human creatures were never meant to sit in exactly the same place for 8 hours straight. Back pain after doing so is just your body’s cleverly annoying way of reminding you of this fact. However, work must still be done! So the best thing to do is to change your posture frequently. Every 15-40 minutes. Here are some human options: Try sitting in different chairs, standing at the kitchen counter, lying on your stomach, lying on your back, stand up and down several times when sitting for longer than an hour...
So is my professional opinion that posture doesn’t matter? No. Posture can make a difference! Some postures will be problematic for some people, but not others. Some postures will make you feel really good, but will make your roommate ache.
If you are having pain during your work-from-home days, please give Bridgewrights a call. We can do a home office assessment, help you make changes to your usual setup, offer individualized posture options, and provide you with targeted exercises to get you through the quarantine.