Neck, back, and shoulder pain are among the most common complaints associated with office workers. With the rise in remote work, more of us are sitting at computers, often without ergonomic settings at home, and for prolonged periods of time.
Sitting at your desk for hours at a time can be mentally draining, not to mention the physical tension that builds up throughout your body. The discomfort which ensues isn’t just uncomfortable, but it can also decrease your productivity. Here’s our top three tips to help keep these pains at bay!
The 2 – 2 – 2 Rule
Take a two minute standing break, every two hours, and perform two stretches or exercises. This is to break up your sedentary time and keep muscles from stiffening up.
Sedentary time has been linked to an increase in chronic health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers. By using active breaks interspersed through your workday, you are allowing for healthy blood flow which will help you feel more physically relaxed and mentally clear. Not to mention, it will keep your hip and neck muscles more limber and less sore.
Pick your two favourite stretches or exercises ahead of time and print them out, placed next to your desk. This will eliminate any decision-making paralysis when your two minute break rolls around. This small act of preparation will reduce excuses, and increase your likelihood you follow through!
Ready-Set-Posture
Have you checked your workstation ergonomics before? This quick assessment will help improve your posture; without it, you can count on neck and back pain impacting your daily life over prolonged periods of time.
Here are some tips when setting up your workstation:
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- Have your monitor at arms length away from your head and at eye level.
- Adjust your chair so that your knees are level or slightly higher than your hips – place a platform under your feet if you can’t achieve this through chair adjustments.
- While using the keyboard and mouse, keep your upper arms close to your body so you are not reaching, keep wrists straight, and hands at or slightly below the level of you elbows.
- Make sure that your shoulders are always in a relaxed and down position away from your ears.
Many offices are now providing this service, however for those who work from home, even getting a friend or family member to help you set this up is worth the effort.
Address your imbalances with strengthening and stretching
Often the root cause of neck and back pain is a lack of strength and joint stability, not simply muscle tightness. Here are some common muscle imbalances for office workers, and what to do about them:
- Tight Hips: Sitting for long periods of time causes hip flexors and quadriceps to tighten which can put excess strain on your hip alignment. This inevitably causes irritation of the lower back.
Incorporate a quadricep/hip flexor stretch during your 2-2-2 breaks or at any point throughout the day.
- Tight Chest: As we sit for prolonged periods of time, our shoulders tend to round forward often causing pectoral muscle shortening. This ends up perpetuating neck and shoulder pain and/or discomfort, leading people to think it’s back problem, and not in the chest.
Counteract this is by stretching out the chest and lats (side body, under your armpit) by pushing through a doorway or on the floor, or try a child’s pose and angle side to side.
- Weak Glutes: Weakness can develop in the posterior muscles (glutes, hamstrings, and calves) because they are underutilized on sedentary days.
Incorporate posterior strengthening exercises, such as glute bridges, hamstring curls, and deadlifts particularly on desk-heavy days.
- Weak Back: Prolonged screen time will inevitably cause some degree of neck and shoulder strain due to muscle fatigue. Building up muscle endurance in your back muscles can help prevent this muscle fatigue.
Incorporate strength exercises such as bent over rows, lat pulldowns, or the ‘No Money’ external rotator exercise.
Tackle those nagging neck and back discomforts. Remember to break up your sedentary time, take the extra time to do an ergonomic set up at home as well as the office, and stretch the right muscles in the right way.
If you are interested in learning more to help manage or prevent neck and back pain while working from home, and for more exercise ideas, Harrison Healthcare clients can reach out to their exercise physiologist. They will help you develop tools and exercises that suit your lifestyle and abilities.
