Top Tips for Desk Workers

Are you fed up with your desk set up, or simply find working at a desk (or nowadays a dining table) is causing your back a whole world of problems?

They say, ‘sitting is the new smoking’, meaning sitting for prolonged periods of time can be as damaging for your health as smoking. And yes, I am not sorry to say, I agree.

When we sit it compresses all the joints of the spine and leads to poor and improper movement over time, long term this will accelerate degenerative changes. But long before the degenerative changes happen, brain changes are already occurring.

Why? How?

How does the spine affect the brain? Simply put, ‘as the body moves, the brain grooves’. Your brain is fed off of movement from the body, signals move up the nerves of your spine to keep the brain firing and functioning at its best.

This is where the problem can begin, if the spine is not moving well, then less signals go to the brain, over time this can cause the brain to slow its function and not work so well.

Not good if we are trying to focus on our work and be productive, let alone for long term cognitive brain health.

But you CAN do something!

Here are my Top 3 Tips to set up your desk to protect your spine and brain.

1. Move every 20 minutes
Sitting as I have just mentioned is not good and really there is no hack, no special chair or stool that can sort it for you. All you need to do is be disciplined to move every 20 minutes, now all this needs to be is standing up and sitting back down. It does not mean a full break or a long walk.
Simply stand up, stretch up and sit back down. And if your colleagues look at you funny, you can smile to yourself and think, ‘at least my brain is working better than yours’.

2. Look up
Setting up the screen on your computer can hold the key to the health of your neck and spine. If your computer screen is at or below your eyeline then it is causing stress on your neck and body.
For the best set up you need to ensure that the computer screen is above your eyeline. The way to measure this is to put the bottom of the screen in your eyeline, you will therefore be looking slightly up whist working and encouraging a better alignment on your spine.

3. Blue glasses
This one is a little separate from the physical posture but knowing that our screens and tablets give off a blue light that is damaging to the brain, if you are spending a lot of time in front of the computer, you would be well advised to get a pair of blue light reflective glasses.
This will help reduce headaches and protect the brain long term.

Simple stuff but just think how long you spend at the computer and if you really want to enjoy your time away from work, it is a good idea to put the work in on your spine now.

Here is a short video to help you with your desk set up.

Desk Set Up Video

With love

Tom