Working From Home

For those of you having to suddenly work from home, or even for those of you who’ve been doing this for a while, have you ever had a look at HOW and WHERE you sit?

Our bodies are not designed for desk-based work, nor driving or sitting on the sofa. We haven’t evolved much beyond the hunter-gatherer body, which is why we have so many issues associated with desk-based working and our overall sedentary lifestyle (caveman didn’t have our lovely sofas, he had a manual job and no car – lots of walking and the occasional sprint to get away from a predator). 

Ever wondered why you get pain after a seemingly ‘normal’ activity? It’s probably because your body is already under so much strain day to day that it just takes one small extra twist / lift that is the one to break the 🐫’s  back. The vast majority of an outpatient physio’s clinic is filled with those who either can’t pinpoint a specific injury (they just wake up with the pain) or whose pain started with an innocuous movement eg. twisting round to talk to someone / bending down to the dishwasher. So there’s something going on in our daily lives that puts a lot of strain on our bodies; the question is, what can we do about it? 

REDUCE THE LOAD

1. Part of the issue is that we sit in awkward positions 🙇, or even good positions, for far too long in one go. 

Ideally we’d be moving around every ⏱️ 15-30 mins. In reality, maybe try getting up from your chair (get a drink / take a lap around the room / unload a few things from the dishwasher) / do some 🙆 seated exercises every hour. Every single time you do this, you’re reducing load through your body – it’s not just your brain that gets a break but the muscles that have been holding you up get a breather too. The more you do this, the more effective it is.

2. How are you sitting? Are you on a desk chair / the sofa / a dining chair / in bed?

How you sit is really important. And where you sit will impact how you sit. We all sit slightly differently, as we all have slightly different body shapes and sizes and anatomy and there are no ‘bad’ positions but when we sit in any position for an extended period of time (even 10mins), the strain on our bodies starts to build. Some positions will put more strain through our bodies earlier and to a greater extent than others will. This is why it’s important to think about how you sit when you’re planning on being there for a while. This is also relevant for the time when you’ve got the kids to bed and sit down on the sofa to allow your tired brain to decompress with some reality tv / favourite boxset.

Our bodies are designed to work a particular way. When we ask them to work a different way, they can cope but they don’t do it particularly well. Like you trying to do your colleague’s work when they’re off sick. It’s not your job so you’re likely not as quick or effective as they are at it. When we are asked to do someone else’s role for an extended time, problems start to arise. If we’re doing their work on top of our own, we get tired and may get sick. The quality of the work may not be great either (we’ve not been trained how to do it) and so other compensations come in to pick up the slack, which can cause further issues down the line. It’s the same for your body. So how you sit (and the position different parts of your body will be in), are very important.

🧠 Mini test: Try holding an empty box out in front of you at shoulder height (lower if needed) – fine right? Now hold it there for 30 seconds? Getting a touch harder? 60 seconds?  2 minutes? Now imagine how hard it is for your muscles to hold you upright against gravity, for 30 minutes or more. If you’re crossed legged in bed with your laptop in front of you or slumped on the sofa with the laptop on your knees, this is like trying to hold the box up above your head, with only one finger. 

Our bodies are amazing but they have their limits. Even athletes can only push the bodies so far before they reach a natural anatomical limit. If we’re asking our bodies to hold us up, particularly in positions that they can’t get a good ‘grip’ in (box above head / slumped on sofa), we are going to run into difficulties. 

The more we support our body against the chair / desk, the less your body has to work to hold you upright, so the less overloaded it gets and the more comfortable and less at risk of pain and injury you’re likely to be. And if we make sure we’re getting supported in a more natural alignment, we’re less likely to be using compensators that will themselves start to struggle.

See the picture below for an idea of good sitting position for extended periods.

3. Your desk aka. the dining table / your lap.

If you don’t have a proper desk for working from home, it may be time to think again. Or you may just need to adjust things a bit with what you currently have.

You can lower/raise your chair to match the height of the table but may need to compensate with a foot rest (this could be a toy box/plastic tub/large book turned upside down). If you’re so low in the chair your knees are above your hips, then it’s the table that would need to lift.

4. Desk Chair vs Dining Chair vs Sofa vs Floor vs Bed

First off, your bed is for sleeping (and other activities) but NOT for working. The mattress is too soft to provide much support and you’ve already spent 6-8hours on it. You both need a break from each other.

Floor – for most people this will be incredibly uncomfortable as there is NO support for your upper body and even with a plush carpet, it’s a pretty hard surface. Lying on your front will likely put a lot of strain through your neck and sitting leaning forward over a laptop will put your muscles in a very difficult position to be able to support you.

Sofa – not great but we can work with this. If the kind of sofa that swallows you when you sit on it, maybe not. If a standard non-carnivorous sofa, you can use a cushion to lift the laptop up to a better height. You may even want to support the natural arches in your spine with a cushion behind your back (a self-made ‘lumbar support’). As the screen is probably still pretty low (try not to have your shoulders up by your ears when typing),  it’s extra important to give your back, neck and arms a gentle stretch / move it out of this position regularly. 

Dining chair – we’re getting there! These tend not to have much in the way of arch support (your spine is not straight, it has natural curves to help absorb load) so you may need to add in a cushion / rolled up hand towel behind your back to allow your upper body to be supported by the chair. Try and rest the upper back and shoulders against the chair. If this feels uncomfortable, try adjusting the cushion.

Desk Chair – not all desk chairs were created equal. The benefit they have other other chairs is their adaptability. The go up and down (hopefully) and you can often adjust how upright they are / use arms rests / adjust the lumbar support / utilise a head support. it’;s really important that you set these up for your individual body. The way you would when you get into a car (or at least we should). You can;t drive a car if you can’t reach the pedals and it’s not helpful to sit in a chair when your feet can’t touch the ground.

🧠 Mini test: slump your lower back (tucking tailbone under and tilting pelvis back) and then, keeping your lower back slumped, try and lift your chest – pretty hard right? Now stick your tailbone out / tilting pelvis forwards, try and lift your chest – much easier! If we’;re not supporting your natural lower back position (slight arch), then it’s incredibly difficult to get your upper back in a good position.

4. Laptop Vs Desktop:

Laptops are increasingly common and incredibly useful, compared to their large, heavy and non-mobile counterparts. Now more of us are working from home, you may have been supplied with a work laptop or be using your own. You may even be using a tablet. 

The issue with laptops is the same thing that makes them so useful: they’re small and self-sufficient – no external keyboards or mice required. The screen may be much smaller than you’re used to working with and much lower down. The keyboard is fixed (no moving it around without also moving the screen) and potentially also much smaller and more awkward to use. And touchpads can be a complete pain in the butt. 

So what to do?

Screen Height: If propping your laptop on a stack of books or magazines doesn’t work for you (you can get specific laptop stands), you may want to use an external screen (as you would for your desktop. This is particularly important if you need a larger screen than your laptop or need multiple screens. Ideally the top of your screen, be it laptop or external, will sit at your eyeline, to avoid us over-extending our necks if too high or slumping forward if too low.

Keyboard: Not all laptops have separate keypads – you may need to get an external one if you have to input numbers throughout the day. The keyboard may be too compact  – forcing your arms and wrists into awkward positions or for you to see the screen effectively, the keyboard may be too close / too far away for comfort. Thankfully, if not already provided by your workplace or you can’t sweet talk them into it, keyboards are relatively cheap to get hold of. You can even get ‘ergonomic’ keyboards (bit pricier) that are often split and angled, to mimic your more natural hand and wrist position.

Touchpad: If this drives you insane or you spend a lot of time using a mouse normally at work, a mouse may be a good investment.

Wrist support:  the position that your wrists are in is pretty important, when they are being held and used in that position for several hours a day. I recommend everyone get some form of wrist support. The aim is to take the pressure off the nerves that run through the palm-side centre of your wrist and to get your muscles and tendons into a more effective position.

Internet: With the rise in video calling and having to access work servers for all the files you need to work with, alongside work email, you may be heavily reliant on your wifi (as many laptops don’t have ethernet ports) to get your job done. Wifi signal can be a nightmare – if you find yourself practically sitting on the router to get a decent signal, it may be worth having a look at your provider’s website/help section as many will give advice on how to boost your signal at home.

5. The phone

If you spend a lot of time on your phone, you want to be able to use it without putting extra strain through your arms or neck. If you’re working from home, you’re likely using a mobile. With the family running around in the background, it may not be practical to have calls on speakerphone due to background noise/privacy issues. This is where headsets and bluetooth earpieces come in handy. No more holding your phone to your ear, exhausting your arm or giving you a crick in your neck.

INCREASE YOUR LOAD TOLERANCE

This goes hand-in-hand with reducing the load. If we can improve how much load your body can handle (like the number of tantrums you can tolerate before you lose your Zen or the drinks you can imbibe before you end up on the floor), our work will have less effect on our bodies. Happy days.

There are a few ways to do this:

Flexibility – if you’re stiff, you may struggle to get into ‘good’ positions. I recommend getting into as good an approximation of the position as you can, using supports as needed, and work on building flexibility over time. This won’t happen overnight. Yoga and dance based activities are great for building flexibility but always remember to start a new activity gently and slowly (trying to do 6 hours of yoga a week when you normally do 0 is likely to end up with a lot of pain and frustration). Rome (and your body) wasn’t built in a day.

Strength and Endurance – your body needs the strength to be able to hold you upright and its needs to be able to do so for fairly long periods of time. And we’re not light. Your head is incredibly heavy and yet is only supported by a thin short support (your neck) which isn’t even all muscle (important things like blood vessels, oesophagus and wind pipe). So activities that build muscle strength and endurance eg. Body weight resistance exercise, weights and sports etc can be very useful in allowing your body to deal with the demands of work.

Good Muscle Control and Activation – it’s all very well and good doing activities / holding positions that are designed to work specific muscles but if your muscles have gone on strike from poor working conditions, they may not be ready to join back in yet. If ongoing pain, muscles tend to avoid activating (‘pain inhibition’) and it’s well known that any back or lower body issues naturally turn off your glute max (hence the prevalence of ‘yoga’ or ‘mum’ butt).

We may need to ‘wake up’ these muscles to remind them what their job is and even get them awake enough to allow us to strengthen them. Just because an exercise is a ‘bottom’ exercise, does not mean that is what you are actually working.

SUMMARY

If, like many others, you’re trying to create a work environment within your own home and are either struggling to figure out how to do it or feeling the effects of it, the tips and tricks above will hopefully have given you a few ideas.

If you’re in pain or want someone to look at your home set up to maximise it for you, you can book in for a Physiotherapy Initial Assessment, which is tailor-made to your own needs and goals.