Bad posture at work can have great impact on your health. People spend most of their time on their office desk in front of a computer. Improper workstation arrangement, bad working habits all can contribute to your poor posture.
Nowadays, poor posture at work has become a major cause of back ache, neck strain and repetitive injury of hands and wrist. In fact many offices and workplaces train their employees the ways to maintain good posture, since bad posture has been found to reduce productivity and employee morale in a larger perspective.
How Bad Posture Affects Your Health?
Posture in true sense is ‘position of body’. Having good posture also plays a large part in development of person’s personality. Bad posture can cause misalignment in the joints, muscles and nerves. It is slow and ongoing process. Persistent bad posture will make the symptoms worse day by day till it becomes intolerable for the person at one point. Affected joints and ligaments can get strained over a period of time and lead to pain and stiffness.
The best example of work related postural problems is pain and stiffness in spine.
Misalignment due to bad posture can also put pressure on nerves leading to symptoms such as tingling numbness in hands and fingers sometimes not on the area of compression, but in body parts which it innervates. For example compressed nerve of lumbar spine may cause pain and tingling in thigh and lower leg.
Therefore by making proper arrangements at workplace, following good habits while working, and giving attention to posture it is possible to stay away from work related postural sufferings.
Simple Ways To Improve Your Posture At Work
By improving your posture at work, you can prevent pains and strains that may affect not only your work but also your regular life. Here are following tips:
- Whenever you are sitting on your desk, keep your neck straight so that your ears are in line with your shoulders.
- While sitting on a chair in front of the computer or even while doing desk work, keep your foot on the ground. Do not sit with crossed legs. If you do not want to place your feet on the ground, you can try to place it on a stand below the desk.
- Office chair matters a lot for people who sit constantly. Poor posture and lower backache are common among those who sit on a chair which does not have lower back support. Sitting on an ergonomic office chair is beneficial for lower back support.
- Avoid sitting on chair for long period of time. Take frequent breaks in between and just stretch or walk for few minutes to reduce stiffness of leg and back muscles.
- Avoid lifting heavy objects suddenly while you are at work. Avoid bending at the waist, instead bend at the knee.
- If you are in front of a computer, the top of screen should be at the level of your eyes. Place your neck in line with the shoulders and the keyboard should be at the level of your elbow. Maintain a distance of at least one foot from the screen. Rotate your neck clockwise and anticlockwise few times whenever you take a break from your work.