Why Workplace Ergonomics are Important for Neck and Back Pain

Do you know the toll sitting at a desk can have on your neck and spine? If you’re not careful, you can find yourself with years of neck and back pain. Ergonomics at work can help alleviate your pain and prevent recurring injuries. Here is what your desk at work should look like, along with exercises to help make sure you have a strong core to support your body. 

Understanding Workplace Ergonomics 

Workplace ergonomics is the science of fitting workplace conditions and job demands to the capabilities of the working population. Further, ErgoPlus explains that it is an approach or solution to help people with a number of problems, most commonly the problems associated with work-related musculoskeletal disorders. They further explain that, at its core, workplace ergonomics is about making a better workplace, giving you as an employee a better work experience. A few benefits ErgoPlus mentions of having ergonomics include:

• Lower costs
• Higher productivity
• Better product quality
• Improved employee engagement 
• Better safety culture 

When businesses improve workplace ergonomics, they put control measures in place to help reduce the risk of injury amongst their employees. 

How do you begin to offer better ergonomics? ErgoPlus continues by explaining what you can do to get on your way to better posture at your desk. To start, you should:

• Assess the risk and see what factors are putting you at risk for injury at your workplace.
• Plan improvements to reduce the risk of injury and enact the change within your office. 
• Measure progress after improvements are made to ensure no other changes are needed. 

What Your Office Should Look Like 

To have an ergonomically efficient workstation, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. The New York Times explains that your workstation should include having your:

• Eye level 2 to 3 inches below the top of the computer monitor.
• Head and neck facing straight with your shoulders relaxed. 
• Computer monitor sitting roughly an arm’s length away from you.
• Elbows at sides and bent at 90 degrees or more.
• Wrists fat at the keyboard, not angled up.
• Knees level with your hips or slightly below.
• Chair with lumbar support, recline slightly at 100 to 110 degrees.
• Feet flat on the ground or on a footrest. 

Risks of Poor Ergonomics

The biggest risk of not having a proper work setup is misaligning your posture. Spinal misalignments most commonly happen from repetitive use injuries from work or exercise, sitting for a long period of time, and weakened muscles. 

When the spine is misaligned, it affects your entire body. Your spine houses your nervous system pathways, when these nerve systems become compressed, compromised, or damaged, it can cause pain in different areas of the body. 

Correcting Poor Posture

At Texas Spine and Sports Therapy Center, we can help realign your posture using Egoscue Postural Therapy. This type of therapy is a 25-year old technique that is designed to help eliminate chronic pain of the back, shoulders, and knees that happens due to poor posture.  

Egoscue therapy uses our therapists’ expertise with technology to determine your posture. Subsequently, we create a personalized series of exercises and stretches that are designed to correct your posture and restore balance. 

Through these exercises, target muscles are tasked with then holding your bones in proper alignment. As a result, if you remain committed to consistent exercise and treatment, you can eliminate the postural dysfunction and eradicate the source of your pain. 

Overall, Egoscue therapy has been shown to treat the following conditions:

• Back pain
• Shoulder, elbow, and wrist pain
• Hip pain
• Migraines
• Knee pain
• Plantar fasciitis
• Ankle pain
• Jaw pain 

Getting treatment for the pain associated with postural issues can help prevent or solve chronic pain issues. It can also help sleep problems and other physical limitations. You can restore your quality of life to a higher degree.

Benefits of this type of therapy include long-term benefits, like improved posture, less pain, avoidance of surgery, better sleep, improved work performance, and balance too. 

Additionally, it can also help naturally treat a variety of issues, like arthritis, scoliosis, sciatica, tennis elbow, frozen shoulder, disc denigration, and other chronic pain symptoms. 

Get Back to Work Comfortably Today

It is time to stop living with chronic pain, poor sleep, or reduced mobility. If you find that you still have postural pain, even after correcting your workplace ergonomics, call Texas Spine and Sports Therapy Center today to make an appointment at (512)-806-0015. After one consultation, you can be on your way to becoming pain-free.