Knowingly or unknowingly, we all sit at our workstations the wrong way. We often lean forward and double the compressive forces on our lower back. This way, we increase the force on the neck, put our head in an awkward position and stretch our arms out to reach a keyboard or a mouse.
Apart from ergonomic chairs, good postural habits, frequent breaks and stretching the stiffening muscles frequently can help you sit in a comfortable position all day long. Here are 4 tips to improve your desk posture:
1. Maintain a 90-degree gap between knees and hips
If you’re regularly sitting in a chair, you want to have your knees and your hips at about a ninety-degree position. It doesn’t have to be exact ninety-degree, but you want it to be pretty much there. For this, you want your seat height and the floor height to be right.
2. Keep your arms parallel to the floor
If you’re at your desk and you’re working on your computer, you want your arms to be parallel to the floor. Seating too up high or too low is really going to change your position again. Adjust your chair height to keep your arms parallel to the floor.
3. Keep your feet on the floor
If your feet aren’t touching the floor, then you’re going to be hanging down and end up causing some numbness and tingling going into your legs. Some people who are a little bit shorter have a really hard time with this because most desks are really not low enough to get your feet to the floor. In this case, you can put a box or get a stool to keep your feet touching the ground.
4. Stretch
Now that you know how to have all that good posture at your desk, we are going to list out some exercises and stretches to help you keep that good posture.
Chin tucks are really good if you’re working at a conventional office desk. They will help you stretch your neck muscles and maintain better posture. Chin tucks are super easy to do and can be done anywhere.
The next one are going to be Shoulder Squeezes. While doing this exercise, make sure you’re squeezing those muscles back and getting that contraction. Don’t hunch up your shoulders and squeeze back, really relax them down and try squeezing downwards. Repeat them about five times to reset everything.
The last one is going to be a single Chest Stretch. When you sit on a chair for long hours, those PEC muscles end up getting tight. And, when these muscles get tight, sometimes you get numbness and tingling down your arms. They get cold, tired and fatigued. To do the exercise, just take your hands, clasp them back behind, and push down and out with your hands and then push your chest forward. Since this is a full stretch, you want to hold this stretch for 30 seconds.