I hope after reading our first blog it helped shine a light on what TOP Physiotherapy is all about; providing expert physiotherapy services to the local community in around Olney.
This blog however is exploring the topic of working from home and all those aches and pains that seem to come from tirelessly being stuck behind a laptop screen. I understand your pain! TOP physiotherapy was built from me frantically working from home, splitting my time between a makeshift office and an intolerable dining room chair. During the Covid-19 Pandemic it forced many of the desk based workforce to work from home and for many there are no signs that the commute back into the office is going to be happening anytime soon. So what can you do to help your body cope with the stresses of working from home?
As a physiotherapist I know how important movement is for your body. We have evolved over 1000’s of years to move efficiently on two legs, however in the past 50 years society has quickly turned most of us into a sedentary desk based workforce. A whopping 81% of us spend between 4 and 8 hours sitting at our desk during a normal working day. The office of national statistics revealed that post-pandemic; half of us who are in employment are now predominantly working from home.
Let’s face it, at the start of the pandemic the working position most of us found ourselves in were less than ideal - does this look familiar to anyone?
This change in working environment has caused a massive rise in people trying to seek our help for their work/postural related neck and/or back pain. If this is you keep reading, you might just find the answer to your issues. The answers can sometimes be far simpler than you think!
Your next posture is the best posture
Before I go on to talk about the two most common desk based issues, I would like to first highlight how important moving throughout your working day is. I am sure you will have heard the advice before, but regularly getting off your bum and walking around for a few minutes is the simplest and most effective way to prevent any postural related pain occurring. It's not rocket science is it, but I understand that it can be hard to stick too. We all do it - we get so engrossed into our work that before you know it 2 hours has gone by and you haven’t moved a muscle (apart from your hands frantically typing on your keyboard). If you are going to change anything after reading this blog do this!
Break up your working day into 30 minute chunks. For the next 3 working days, set an alarm to go off throughout your working day at 30 minute intervals and every time your alarm goes off, change your position for at least 2 minutes. It sounds simple and is simple. If you stick to this for 3 days then sub-consciously it will get into your working pattern and the alarms will no longer be needed.
Most postural desk based pain is ischaemic and is caused by a lack of blood supply to the postural muscles in our body. Simply changing your position and walking for 2 minutes every half hour is enough to keep most of those aches and pain at bay.
Try it, what have you got to lose? If this doesn’t help and your problem persists, give us a call or book in, I would happily give you more specific advice over the phone or in clinic.
Postural Related Neck Pain
The most common cause of postural neck pain is a forward chin poke posture:
Your head is a very heavy structure and so the amount of strain it causes to the surrounding muscles and joints, if it migrates forwards is astonishing. That's why screen height is so important.
The average human head weighs around 5.5 kg. If you poke your chin forward 2 inches the amount of stress it loads on your neck rises to 14.5kg. If you poke your chin even further forward, 3 inches, the amount of stress it loads on your neck rises to over 19kg. A physio’s worst nightmare when it comes to forward chin poke postures are laptops. With the position of the screen being below your eye line encourages this forward chin poke posture. The easy solution is bringing your screen to eye level. That would be my number 1 top tip when it comes to postural related neck pain for our desk based workforce.
One of the most common issues I see in clinic is postural related neck pain. Most cases can be split into either those caused by a joint issue or a muscular tension, both of which can be treated here at TOP physiotherapy. We do a few simple tests to be able to distinguish the underlying cause of the issue and treat it there and then, leaving you to walk out the clinic doors feeling ready to get back behind that desk!
Desk Related Lower Back Pain
Lower back pain is not only common, it's the leading cause of absence from work in the UK and leading cause of disability. You would have thought, as the workforce over the last few decades have moved from heavy lifting roles on factory floors to being behind desks, the numbers of those suffering from back pain would have fallen, but it's quite the opposite. The back pain pandemic is only getting worse. As I mentioned above, one of the causes of this is not being prompted to move throughout the working day. That said, there are other contributing factors as to why the number of people suffering from desk related lower back pain is on the increase. The most prominent factor in my opinion is abdominal (tummy) and gluteal (bum) weakness.
I see 100’s of people a year with back pain and a large proportion of these people’s issues are due to their back muscles trying to do the work for other (lazier) muscles. Therefore causing their back muscles to get tired. We can ‘fix’ the lower back muscular tension with the hands on treatment we do at TOP physio, but if we don’t solve the surrounding weakness, another back spasm is likely to be around the corner. There are 1000’s of ways to try and strengthen your abdominals and glutes, but finding the right one which is appropriate to your level is the tricky part. Too easy and you won’t get the gain in strength you need, but too hard and you’ll end up using your back muscles instead of the very muscles we are trying to target. To find the right level of exercise we would need to see you in clinic to assess your abdominal and gluteal muscle strength and set the appropriate exercises to match your level. If that sounds like something you need and you are tired of just getting short term fixes, I would love to speak to you.
I hope this blog has given you some useful tips as to how to avoid some of the most common causes of postural related (desk-based) pain. This is however just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the possible causes of desk based pain so if you want to speak to someone about your issues then please don't hesitate to book in!
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