Notes from an Osteopath: 3 Tips for Desk Workers

If you’re similar to the majority of adults, including me, you most likely find yourself commuting for roughly an hour per day, working at a desk for 8 hours a day, and the commuting home for another hour. These activities have a couple of things in common. They all involve flexion of the spine, in other words – we’re leaning forward.

You either take a train to work, either reading a book or using a mobile phone to catch up with the day’s events, or you drive to work, which for most people involves a posture where you’re leaning forward. On its own, a posture such as one of the above for an hour shouldn’t cause problems. However, spending the following 8 hours sitting hunched forward (we all do it!) doesn’t help matters.

So, what can be done to help avoid possible problems with the neck, back and shoulders?

1. There’s no need to ditch the mobile phone. Let’s face it, nobody wants to look out the window on the train, or worse still, have to spend time avoiding eye contact with fellow travellers. A better way to use the mobile phone, instead of looking at the screen, invest in a pair of good headphones and listen to an audiobook or do a similar activity that doesn’t involve craning your neck forward for extended periods of time.
2. You can’t do much about sitting at a desk (except a standing desk, but that’s a topic for another blog post), so instead we need to work against the forward head posture, and there is a simple exercise that can be used to help. The chin tuck; sit or stand up straight. Slowly move your chin back and slightly down so your ears are in line with your shoulders and you feel a stretch in the back of your neck. 30 repetitions of the chin tuck per day should be a nice start to working against our tendency to bring our head forward closer to the screen when concentrating. This exercise gently stretches the overworked muscles at the back of the neck as well as helping to strengthen the muscles at the front of the neck.
3. Next, we need to work against our tendency to lean forward (and flex our upper back) when sitting at the desk. A good basic exercise against this is the seated thoracic extension; sit in a chair that has a low back and looking up towards the ceiling, bend backwards over the chair until you feel a stretch. Hold the stretch. The good thing about this exercise is that it can be done at the desk at work, especially if you notice that you’ve lost track of time whilst concentrating and found yourself leaning forward for an extended period of time. It’s best done as a strengthening exercise rather than an extended stretch at first, so aim for 10 repetitions 3 times per day. When you’re used to the exercise and feel the need to also stretch, you can choose to stretch in that position as well.

Most importantly, however, prevention is better than cure so being mindful of posture when driving (or commuting) as well as having an ergonomic assessment at work are paramount. An ergonomic assessment is relatively easy to do – but definitely best done in person. As a simple initial tip – very often screen users have their screens too low. I’ve never seen someone have their screen too high. Chances are, you could benefit from raising your screen higher.