It’s 2pm and you’ve been feeling great all day; Energy levels are high and productivity is through the roof. However, all of a sudden, your middle back and neck starts to ache. You’re beginning to find it difficult to focus, remaining productive becomes almost impossible and that dreaded tension headache is looming. You’re sick to death of feeling sore and exhausted at the end of your workday. Eventually, you become more irritable and short with your colleagues due to fatigue and body aches.

Does this sound all too familiar? Being a Chiropractor in Melbourne, I often see my patients presenting with these familiar chronic symptoms and guess what… the common culprit is office work and extended periods of sitting.

Majority of people who work in an office spend 8-10 hours a day sitting. This combined with poor desk ergonomics and poor posture results in that dreaded pain described earlier!! Imagine this… Every inch your head stoops closer to the screen, your neck, middle, and lower back discs/muscles are being put under excessive strain. This spinal load is the equivalent of doing a 20 kg deadlift, 8 hours a day… 5 days a week! It doesn’t take a chiropractor to realise that this is detrimental to your long term spinal health!

It’s not all doom and gloom for all your office junkies; There are easy postural techniques which can protect your muscles and spine. First and foremost, it is important that your chair facilitates the natural curves of your spine, particularly in the lower back/lumbar area. If your chair isn’t particularly supportive then you can purchase lumbar support, or use a rolled up towel. You will find that this causes the weight distribution in your spine and torso to transfer to the back of your chair, as opposed to inclining forward. The result is a spinal column with an even distribution of weight, and relaxed neck, middle and upper back muscles.

If you suffer from postural strain in the afternoon you are probably sitting down for far too long with little to no breaks. The World Health Organisation recommends you stand up and move around every 20-25 minutes from seated office work. I’m sure you’re thinking this will destroy your work productivity, however, at Advanced Health Chiropractic Melbourne we have come up with alternative solutions to relieve your postural office strain.

Installing a hydraulic workstation is great so standing and sitting can be varied every 30 minutes at your computer. This is the gold standard workstation environment. If your workplace (like many workplaces) won’t fork out the several thousand dollars for you to have a standing/sitting hydraulic workstation then you can use some yellow pages, sturdy boxes or a chair to stack up your computer to standing height. Just make sure the chair doesn’t have wheels otherwise OH&S may have a stroke!

As a Chiropractor in Melbourne, I often prescribe a simple, yet effective exercise to my patients from the surrounding suburbs Thornbury, Reservoir, Coburg, Northcote and Heidelberg.

You can do this daily on your own to help activate the muscles around your shoulder blades that are often inactive in office workers. It’s called the ITY exercise. Simply lie on your stomach and with your arms make an “I’, following by a “T” and finish with a “Y”. Think Village People on stomach exercise to remember this one. Hold each position for 2 seconds and do 10 repetitions of each letter. (See image below)
Chiropractor in Melbourne

Chiropractor in Melbourne

I hope you find these tips helpful, however should you find yourself still experiencing pain, feel free to use our online booking system or call 9484 9185 to make an appointment with our qualified chiropractor. Preventative Care & Rapid Recovery Starts here.

Advanced Health Chiropractor in Preston helps patients manage their lifestyle and improve general health and wellbeing.

A single treatment at Advanced Health Chiropractor in Melbourne may include dry needling/ acupuncture to tight muscles, followed by massage, mobilisation, chiropractic adjusting techniques and Clinical reformer based Pilates exercises, making the staff at Advanced Health highly effective exercise prescribers for specific conditions and injuries.

Andrew Cunningham
Chiropractor, Clinical Pilates Instructor, Personal Trainer, Dry Needlist, Chiropractor Melbourne
Advanced Health
Upstairs 4/107 Plenty Rd Preston 3072
94849185
www.advanced-health.com.au

Chiropractor in Melbourne. Advanced Health provides quality care to those in the following suburbs: Chiropractor Preston, Chiropractor Thornbury, Chiropractor Reservoir, Chiropractor Coburg, Chiropractor Northcote, Chiropractor Heidelberg