Three Tips and Tricks to Maintaining Good Posture
If you work in an office, it's highly likely that you spend most of your day restricted to your desk and slouching over your computer. Considering that a majority of your waking hours are spent in this position, it is not surprising that you eventually develop chronic backaches due to bad posture. One way of combatting these adverse effects of earning a living would be to enrol in regular chiropractor sessions that would facilitate the proper alignment of your spine. However, the benefits of chiropractic therapy can become lost if you do not consciously try to maintain good posture as you go back to your desk job. Here are three handy tips and tricks to help you keep good posture and minimise neck and back pain.
Have a timer to keep you on toes
Setting a reminder in your head to sit up straight may sound great theoretically, but chances are you will end up forgetting when swamped with emails, endless deadlines and other work-related responsibilities. A better approach would be to have a physical timer that you set to help you remember to check your posture. With the limitless options in technology, the timer could be placed on your computer, your phone or even your smartwatch. Have a key-phrase to remind you that you should be sitting with your back straight and set the timer to intervals of half an hour or so. As you get used to responding to the timer, you inadvertently train yourself to have better posture while working at your desk.
Get up and move around
Most people will only get up from their workstations for three main reasons – food, bathroom break and leaving to go home. Without adequate movement throughout the day, your body feels stiff and sore from being in a sitting position for an extended period. Try to get up and move around every other hour so that your spine can readjust from being in one position.
Place visual cues at your workstation
If a timer seems too intrusive for your office, another alternative that you could consider would be strategically placing visual cues that would remind you to sit up straight. A nifty way of doing this would be utilising sticky notes around your desk, computer or the walls of your cubicle with phrases that would remind you to correct your spinal alignment. On the other hand, you could train yourself to associate specific objects with remembering to straighten up. For example, frame a picture of yourself looking your best and place it in your line of sight. Whenever you look at that picture, you should immediately remember to sit up straight and look your best in your seat.