How to Reduce Back Pain at Work in a Chair?

One of the biggest problems with sitting all day is the things it can do to your posture. How many hours have we spent hunched over a phone or computer screen during the workday? Imagine what that does to our backs! The office chairs have become our enemy, and you’ve probably started feeling the back pain from the office chair.

No one wants to feel back pain at work in a chair, especially not the one they might be sitting in for the next several hours. The solution that most people would think of first is - buy a new chair. However, what if the problem wasn’t the chair, but how you were sitting in it. What if you could remove all your pain by making a few simple changes?

You can use several tips to change up your posture and reduce the chances of suffering lower back pain at work. It all starts with how you sit, and then we go from there.

Looking At Your Elbows

The elbow is one of the first things that we need to change to prevent your back pain from the office chair problems. Since we are hunched over a keyboard all day, our elbows are hunched over too. Having our arms tucked into us like a T.Rex isn’t the best way to support them, and it certainly doesn’t support our backs!

One of the first things to do is sit as close as possible to your desk. Stretch your arms at your sides and make sure they are parallel to the floor. Then, reach out to touch your keyboard and make your elbows are at a 90-degree angle.

It might feel peculiar at first, especially since you are used to hunching over at a 45-degree angle for your elbows. However, you should instantly feel your back straighten, and instead of staring down at the keyboard, you should be looking straight ahead.

Handling Your Legs

Next up, your legs need to be put into shape to prevent all that pain from your office chair to avoid office chair back problems. Reach down with your hands and make sure you can slide your fingers underneath your thigh. This should be pretty easy to do, but if you can’t get your hands underneath your thigh comfortably, then you should prop your feet up.

If there’s plenty of space in between your thigh and the chair, then look at raising up your workspace. Once your thighs are done, we need to look at your calves. Press your rear against the back of the chair, make a fist, and try to pass that fits between your calf and the back of the chair. It is helpful to prevent back pain at work in a chair.

If your fist can’t fit, you might need to adjust the chair or get an entirely new one; perhaps an ergonomic chair to help with your posture.

Fixing Your Arms and Eyes

The armrests of your chair should lift your shoulders and arms just a little bit, just enough to take the strain off of your neck and back. Ensure that your armrests are sturdy and firm, and try to rest your arms on them whenever you can. This can prevent back pain sitting at desk.

Finally, with all these posture changes, you should be sitting up pretty straight at this point. Close your eyes and sit as comfortably as you can. Don’t worry if it feels a little weird; after all, this is all new to you, and you don’t know about ergonomic sitting posture just yet.

Your eyes should be aimed at the center of your computer screen. If you need to crane your neck upwards or downwards to see the screen, then the screen needs to be moved until you can comfortably rest your gaze on the center without trouble. This is useful to avoid back pain from the office chair.

Taking Care Of Your Back

Now we can take a look at the main casualty of your office chair back problems, your back. Several factors can cause back pain at work in a chair, but hopefully, fixing some of your other posture problems has somewhat alleviated the pain. Now we target your back and give you some lumbar support.

Do your best to keep your back straight and imagine that someone has shoved a rod down your back and you need to rest against it. Use the back of your chair for guidance if you have to, and with practice, sitting up straight at work should become second nature, even in a non-ergonomic office chair.

Always try to be conscious about how your posture and back look, and you should be surprised at how many times you have to correct yourself. Once you correct yourself enough times, however, you can start showing off your new good posture everywhere.

Fixing The Chair

You may find that you are doing all of these things, and your back still hurts. In that case, it’s not you, but it is the chair. You might need an ergonomic chair for back support, and if that’s the case, you need to find the chair that can work for you.

Now you might be asking, what does ergonomic even mean? To put it simply, it is the study of efficiency in the workplace. An ergonomic chair is supposed to help you become more efficient by reducing your back pain at work in a chair.

Ergonomic chairs are designed to not only be comfortable, but also to support the natural shape of your body. Humans were not designed to sit inside of a chair and stay hunched over a screen all day. The chair supports your spine’s natural curve, so you don’t need to worry about maintaining your posture as you work. The chair does it for you!

A good ergonomic chair also keeps your hips where they need to be. It also prevents the slouching and craned neck that can lead to back and neck pain. This is also why your computer monitor should be directly in front of you, so you aren’t tilting your head to see it.

The ergonomic chair’s health benefits do work, and if you can find the right chair that supports your specific posture, you can remove your back pain from the office chair. With no pain, think about how much work you could get done!