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Think about how your body feels right now. Are your shoulders tense? Is your neck stiff? If you are reading this at work, there is a good chance the answer is yes. Here is something you rarely hear: posture affects more than pain. It affects your energy, your focus, and even your mood.
When your body is aligned properly, you think more clearly. When it is slouched, your body works overtime to get you by. At Achieve Spinal Health we help in posture correction in Kingston upon Thames with the latest skills and years of experience.
The Hidden Cost of the 9-to-5 Work Schedule
Nobody warns you about this when you take an office job on the computer all day that your body pays a hefty price. It’s called repetitive stress. When you slouch for hours, your ribcage compresses and your breathing could get shallower. Also, your muscles, joints and nerves work harder than they should slowly manifest to nerve inflammation and tight muscles. Over time, poor posture becomes your new norm.
Poor posture causes a tight neck by muscles pulling on the base of your skull, making it hard to turn your neck or cause neck stiffness and often pain.
Rebuild Your Desk: Three Adjustments That Do the Work for You
You do not need an expensive chair or a fancy standing desk.
Three things in the right place:
Your screen should be an arm’s length away at eye level. If you use a laptop, raise it on a stand or a pile of books and use a separate keyboard.
Your chair should support your lower back pain by having a lumbar support and your back touches the backrest and neck rest of the chair. Do not sit on the front edge of your seat. And check the seat depth: when you sit fully back, you should fit two fingers between the edge of the seat and the back of your knees. If not, adjust the seat or add a cushion.
Your keyboard should sit at elbow height. When your hands rest on it, your elbows bend at about 90 degrees, and your wrists stay straight. If the desk is too high, your shoulders are elevated or too low, and you have rounded shoulders.
The Essential Tiny Breaks
A body that never moves for hours cannot create good posture alone, it needs to be stretched or have motion.
Our Advice:
- Take short breaks every hour to move or stretch.
- Every time you finish an email, roll your shoulders back and forward several times.
- When you take a sip of water, lift your chin and look at the ceiling and turn head side to side.
- Stand up, reach for the sky or ceiling.
- Try the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. It relaxes your eye muscles and stops you leaning into the screen.
Posture Does Not Clock Out at 5 pm
Your desk habits matter, but so does the rest of your day. When you sit on the sofa after sitting all day at work, looking down at your mobile phone all day and night, in the kitchen, your sleep position, this contributes to your posture.
About Achieve Spinal Health
We are an osteomyology and chiropractic clinic based in Kingston upon Thames. We built our practice around one belief: you should not have to accept aches and pains as part of your job or the norm. Over the years, we have helped hundreds of workers find comfort in their own bodies again.
What makes our approach different? We do not just do spinal manipulation in Kingston uponThames but analyse your posture and discuss with you in detail about your daily lifestyle and what recommendations are needed to improve your posture.
Conclusion
You spend roughly a third of your adult life at work which can affect your posture.
Start with the basics: screen at eye level, back supported with a lumbar support, feet planted on the floor and set a time to get up and move every hour with a nice gentle stretch. If your body needs extra help for posture correction in Kingston upon Thames are we here to help you. With gentle spinal manipulation in Kingston, we can loosen what is tight and get you moving freely again and improving your posture.
