4 Better Posture Practices for Sitting at a Desk All Day
Sitting at a desk and staring at a computer is a common activity for so many of us these days. Now, more than ever, your work station set up is so critical to your own and your family's comfort and health.
Sitting at a desk and staring at a computer is a common activity for so many of us these days. Your work station set up is so critical to your comfort and health.
The position we place ourselves in for many hours each day has a significant impact on our bodies and one hour of yoga or stretching or working out doesn't magically reverse the damage we do to our spines during 8 hours of slumping and rounding and rolling backward on our pelvic bones.
Here are some tips for ensuring an ergonomically sound set up for your workday:
1. Start with your eyes. Your entire musculoskeletal system will organize around where you are looking, so set up your computer screen directly in front of where you will be looking the majority of the time. In other words, as you sit slouched on your sofa with your laptop on your lap (as I'm doing as I write this now), or at the dining table, notice that you have to look downwards. Just notice what you do with your eyes, neck and spine.
Essentially what’s happening is that your heavy head pulls your spine along behind it. One or two hours, here and there, is okay. But 8+ hours each day, 5 days/week will have an effect on your overall well-being.
2. Find a chair with a firm flat seat that allows you to sit with your thighs parallel to the floor and your feet flat on the floor directly under your knees. The firm seat will allow you to sense and feel your contact with your pelvic bones. Try rolling your pelvis a little bit backwards and feel how you round your spine—and notice how this affects your neck. When you roll your pelvis backwards so that you’re sitting on the back of your sitting bones, your head and chin are forced to jut forward in order to see your screen.
Now, roll your pelvis slightly forward until you notice a natural arch occurring in your spine.
And now, find the place somewhere between the two extremes where you can have a slight arch in your lower back and you feel centered on your pelvic bones. This position allows your shoulders to stack on top of your pelvis and your head to sit lightly on top of your neck. When your bones are stacked on top of one another, you won't need to use so much muscular energy to hold yourself up.
3. Allow your belly to be soft as you slightly arch your lower back and feel how much easier you can breathe when your belly is relaxed, than when you "engage your stomach muscles."
I know that conventional fitness coaching wisdom tells us that we have to "engage our abdomen to protect our lower back," but I beg to differ. Contracting your abdominal muscles might be useful when you're lifting something heavy or working out, but is not helpful or necessary during the day or for healthy sitting posture and constant contracting inhibits easy, flowing breathing.
4. Allow your arms to hang in a relaxed manner from your shoulders and bend 90 degrees at the elbow. Your wrists and forearms are resting on the desk surface. Muscular tension is not necessary in your arms, wrists and hands.
How to Relax Your Back and Relieve Stress with Blanket Roll Practice
This is a daily practice to help release all the muscles along your spine, as well as head and neck. It balances working out, sitting at a desk for hours, standing, being stressed and holding tension in neck, shoulders, and lower back.
This is a daily practice to help release all the muscles along your spine, as well as your head and neck, pelvis and legs. It balances working out, sitting at a desk for hours, standing, being stressed and holding tension in neck, shoulders, and lower back.
If you suffer from chronic pain that includes back, neck, shoulders, jaw, pelvis… this simple self care practice is designed to help you! To learn more about how to personalize your own self care practice, click here.
During this practice, I recommend that you give your arms, hands and eyes a rest from scrolling on your phone. Listen to your favorite relaxing podcast or music, or simply clear your mind. Use the time to relax.
Try it each evening for 15 minutes for 3 weeks and see what you notice. You can use this during the day to restore yourself or at home before bed.
Roll a dense blanket up so that it is the length of your head/torso and lay it on the floor perpendicular to a chair or couch. Make certain your entire head and pelvis fit on the roll. (The roll does not have to be large. It is simply a reference point for your spine. Do NOT use a foam roller. A yoga blanket is perfect.)
Place two bed pillows on the floor close to blanket roll for your arms and shoulders.
Lie down on the roll so that your head and tailbone are on the roll. Rest your lower legs (calves) on the couch or a chair. (Your knees should be at a 90 degree angle, parallel to the sofa; your feet are neither lower or higher than your knees.)
Rest your shoulders and arms on the pillows. Push the pillows close to your spine/the blanket roll so that your shoulders are fully supported.
Optional: place a small rolled up wash cloth underneath your neck (not as a pillow, but as a support for your cervical spine only). The towel roll should “kiss” your neck, not lift it— simply touch it so that your neck muscles can relax and feel supported.
Imagine that all the muscles of your entire back body are "draped" over the blanket roll.
When you are ready to come out of this resting pose, roll to the side and remove the blanket roll, then lie flat for a few minutes on the floor and notice the how your back feels on the floor. Do you feel flatter? Wider? Does your back feel as if it’s “spreading” onto the floor?
This is the feeling of relaxed muscles that are not in contraction.
The more you practice this, you will prime your brain. And the more quickly your muscles will release.
Enjoy!