If you work in an office setting and suffer from lower back pain, then you may want to consider how many hours you’re sitting at your desk. Why? Because it has been found that sitting for long periods of time causes lower back pain or further aggravates an existing back pain. Moreover, prolonged sitting forces your body into a static position, causing stress on your arms, shoulder and back, and ultimately causing undue pressure to your spinal discs. End result? Lower back pain. But don’t despair. There’s a simple maneuver you can do to help yourself out. Check out this article from the Reuters site that discusses a study involving office workers and what they did that may help relieve lower back pain during work hours.
Stints of standing while working may reduce back pain
(Reuters Health) – The evils of too much sitting include body aches, pains and fatigue, but a new study suggests that 30-minute stints of standing at work may relieve aching backs without harming productivity.
Australian office workers alternated between sitting and standing every 30 minutes for a week and felt less fatigued and less back pain and lower-leg pain than when they stayed seated the whole day.”
The results of this study suggests that taking regular breaks during your working hours can positively affect lower back pain as compared to sitting the majority of the day at work. However, it might not be possible to alternate every 30 minutes between sitting and standing at work, like the study subjects did. Moreover, the study used “an electric adjustable-height workstation”, which may not be a standard fixture in some (maybe most) offices. If it’s not feasible to sit and stand for 30 minutes at a time during your 8-hour work day, another option could be getting an ergonomic chair for your office. Check out this previous blog post titled “Ergonomic Chair Back Pain Relief“, and see if that would work for you. Although the study focused on overweight and obese office workers, it appears prolonged “chair time” at your desk job does not appear to matter how fit you are. Check out this article from the site NBC News titled “Why Your Desk Job Is Slowly Killing You“. Bottom line, if you care about relieving your lower back pain, take a break from sitting at your office chair from time to time.
Nice article and important things. Desk jobs might not seem physically taxing, but they can certainly cause us some physical problems. Incorrect sitting posture can damage spinal structures and contribute to or worsen back pain, when you sit in the office sit in a correct posture it will help to reduce the back pain.