Working From Home (Pt. 1)
Don’t Wreck Your Body Doing So!
Shifting from Your Professional Office to Home
The sudden shift from working in a professional office to making do with a home office is taking a toll on our bodies. What felt like a temporary change some months ago now feels just endlessly achy for our backs and necks and shoulders. At your office, you may have had an ideal situation; an ergonomically designed chair, a suitable computer set-up, and breaks away from your screen for in-person meetings (remember those?!). Now, we are bound to our screens for endless Zoom meetings or just endless computer work. And what are you sitting on? A dining room chair? The couch? Your bed? One client told me that because he did not have a company-issued keyboard, he has to work without one at home. No wonder you hurt.
If you can get your office equipment (chair, keyboard, headset, etc.) into your home, do it! Many of us will be WFH for some time, so take the time to make arrangements – fetch whatever you can from your office. If that is not possible, here are a few simple, no-or low-cost solutions for your home office.
How to Sit More Comfortably
Let's start with a little background on sitting. We do 3 types of tasks while sitting:
upright work (this is what most of us do, and is what we do at a computer)
forward work (think: using a microscope, dental work, or making ceramics on a potter’s wheel)
reclined work (such as watching a movie, or reading in bed).
Since most of you are seated working on a computer, let’s talk today about upright work.
1. Figure out your chair first.
For upright work, be sure that your chair height is such that your hips are slightly higher than your knees. This will help your pelvis tilt slightly forward (if your pelvis was a bucket of water, tip the bucket so that the water spills slightly toward your thighs), and help maintain a slight inward curve at your low back, without having to work to keep it. If you have only a flat chair at home, get a foam sitting wedge to help elevate and tilt you forward, or sit with a rolled-up towel or cushion under your sitz bones (the bones you sit on) to help. Your feet should still be on the floor.
Lots of my clients ask me about sitting on a big ball. As long as the ball is big enough so that your hips are higher than your knees, a ball can be a great way to sit and still move a little (bounce or weight-shift side to side or front to back). It is still possible to slump while seated on a ball though, so be diligent about maintaining that lumbar curve!
Just in case you were wondering: sitting on the floor, with your laptop (or phone or iPad) also on the floor is a recipe for disaster! You will lose your lumbar curve and your head will jut forward and tilt down to see the screen.
2. Next, get your screen right.
Once you make these changes to your chair, your posture is taller, and sitting feels easier, look straight ahead. Your eyes should be looking at the center or upper third of your computer screen. If you are working on a laptop, this means that you will have to put your laptop on a stand or a stack of books. You can find lots of laptop stands on the market today, including some that can be raised and lowered, or be used reclining in bed (more on that later).
3. Where should your arms and hands be?
With your laptop or computer raised up several inches (my stand lifts my laptop about 6”), it’s built-in keyboard will be too high for your arms. Your separate keyboard should be positioned so that your elbows are about 90 degrees or slightly more open. For laptop users, a separate keyboard is essential. You probably have one at home somewhere, right? Drag it out, dust it off and use it!
4. Make sure your eyes are not working too hard.
If there is a window behind your computer screen, pull the shades closed when the light is bright. Ditto if there is strong light coming at your screen from the side.
5. You got to move it, move it!
The human body is not meant to stay in one position for long (including working at a standing desk – more on that later!). Before computers, we had to get up to change the paper or the typewriter ribbon. Now, we can work for hours at a time without moving anything other than our hands, and this is not healthy progress! Sitting, even with ideal posture, still puts tremendous strain on our backs and increases pressure on our intervertebral discs.
Here's what you can do: Set a timer to get up and move! Take a call while walking around your home. Put some music on and dance for a few minutes (no one is there to see you, so why not?!). Stand up and stretch. Drink a big glass of water every 15 minutes so that you at least have to go to the bathroom frequently! There are helpful computer programs or phone apps that will remind you to move. There are also posture minders that you can clip onto your shirt and buzz when you start to slump. Whatever helps you have better posture, keep it, and then changing positions will help you feel less sore, fatigued, and crabby at the end of your workday.
6. Ask for help.
If you need help, ask for it! If figuring out your home office is not working for you or you have questions about how to do it, make a telehealth appointment with your physical therapist! Ergonomic instruction is one of the most successful and efficient ways of utilizing telehealth. I often have clients send me a photo of them at their desks and then we problem-solve together. Physical therapists, being experts in posture, can help you overcome challenges to healthy posture. We are here for you; little changes can have BIG positive results.
Stay well!
Kathleen McDonough
PT, MA, NCPT Physical Therapist &Nationally Certified Pilates TeacherMarin County