If you sit at a desk for more than 30 minutes a day for work OR pleasure, then keep reading!

Sitting puts abnormal stress on our body, muscles, and spine; in turn making our bodies work on overdrive to support our system and giving less energy to what we are trying to get done and focusing on while sitting.

Ergnomics: If your work place has access to professional evaluation, we recommend taking advantage of it. Having someone optimize your work space can help improve your work efficiency and overall health.

Here are some helpful tips to help yourself on your own, OPTIMIZE your work space.

As we emphasize here at Life Chiropractic- its all about alignment.

Start with your arms bent at the elbow at 90˚ by your side, allowing your shoulders to be relaxed (not shrugged up high or pulled down low as if reaching out), this is where your keyboard should be. Your monitor should be straight in front of you not to one side or the other, and at EYE LEVEL. Your chair should allow your feet to easily reach the floor and I recommend that it be at an angle that your hips are slightly higher than your knees so as to not over compress the hip muscles. You should have good lumbar support to maintain a gentle curve in your lumbar spine and keep you upright.

Other options: Instead of using a chair you can stand, or sit on a yoga ball periodically throughout the day to keep muscles active while sitting.

Exercises to do at work at your desk:

Shoulder rolls, chest opening stretch, seated decompression breathing, straight arm dips, chin tucks, neck range of motion, trunk and low back range of motion. Do these through out the day 2-5x, get some motion once an hour at a minimum when sitting at your desk and computer. If your able to get up and take a walk outside bonus points for you 🙂

For more tips on the stretches that you can do, make sure to follow our Upper Cervical Chiropractor Oakland website.