Transcripts
Dr. Sean Riley:
So these last few months, it’s obviously been very unusual circumstances for most of us. Commonly, we’ve been forced to work from home. Many of us aren’t set up for home offices. We’re typically used to getting in our cars, going to the office. Our office hopefully is set up ergonomically with a chair, a desk and so forth. But of late, these last few months, we’ve been required to work from a countertop island or our dining room table, whatever the case may be. So here’s three quick little tips, some things to think about if you are forced to work from home.
The first is your environment. What is your setup like? Ultimately, we’re not using our same desk that we had at our office, the dining room, the island, whatever the case may be, so I suggest that you pay attention to your environment. What type of table are you at? What type of chair you’re using. It might not be a bad idea to sit on a Swiss ball or so forth. So do your best to replicate some form of setup, if you will, that’s going to promote the best posture, thighs parallel to the ground, you’re sitting up straight and so forth, which will allow you to take stress and pressure off your neck and low back. So environment is big, we’re going to focus on ergonomics.
And secondly, I think it’s really important to have some form of schedule or some form of plan. And what I mean by that is as we’re working throughout the day, I’ve talked in the past about how important it is to get up and move and interrupt sitting. I think that we need to have some bit of a schedule that will force to get up, to get up and move. So whatever the case may be, every 20 minutes, that’s typically what I recommend to our patients, is that you’re going to get up and move. And with that, set a timer on your watch or your computer, something that will prompt you to tell you to get up and move.
And so, two things happen when we’re getting up. First off, we’re interrupting that compressive load. Obviously, the longer I sit at a chair, gravity is working against me, and it can increase stress and pressure on my neck and low back. And then, secondly, what that little break does is it gets us reset. And what I mean by that is, as you sit back down, we’re able to get into a better position, our posture should be a little bit better, because ultimately, we’re not wired to sit for extended periods. And so, that break is able to do so, so much for us, not only interrupting the load, but resetting our position, our posture.
And lastly, you’ve got to get moving. And what I mean by that is get out and walk, get out and move, get out and exercise. We want to work on flexibility, we want to work on motion. I think these uncertain times, like I said, we’re doing so many things that we’re not accustomed to, and with these uncertain times, there’s a fair amount of stress, working from home and we’re just doing things that we’re not used to. And so, I’m not only a big fan of exercise for feeding our bodies, but also for feeding our brains and reducing stress. So I think it’s very important that with that schedule or that plan, that you incorporate some form of exercise or motion, activity, whatever the case may be, into your daily routine.
So if you are working from home, three things to remember or focus on. Let’s focus on our environment, our ergonomics, our set up, the way our chair and our desk is oriented. Secondly, let’s make sure that we have some form of plan, a calendar. If you have to write it down, great. Just like you would at your office, you’re going to work and then you go to lunch and so forth, let’s do the same thing at home, every 20 minutes, let’s get up and move. And then, lastly, and most importantly, in my opinion, keep moving.
