Life is often tied to a computer and a desk. We have evolved to a society dependent upon the technology we created to make life easier. Students and professionals have become tethered to a desk 40+ hours a week creating new and more frequent occurrences of work-related pain. Ergonomics in the workplace provide preventative measures to decrease much neck and lower back pain.
Neck pain, headaches, upper and lower back pain, shoulder pain, carpal tunnel syndrome have all become more prominent injuries costing millions of dollars in healthcare related costs yearly.
How can we avoid and prevent these injuries? A standing desk that should fix everything, right?
Taking the time to set up your desk properly can go a long way toward prevention of injuries. If you found the best massage therapist, PT, or Boulder Sports Chiropractic (the best chiropractor in Boulder :) ) you can get pain relief. But if you’re sitting at a desk 40+ hours a week with poor posture then you’re fighting an uphill battle.
How to fix neck pain after working from home:
Step 1: Decrease your pain levels and inflammation for neck pain relief
Step 2: Fix your workstation posture by setting up your desk ergonomically to relieve neck pain
Here are a few tips to set up proper ergonomics in your workspace:
Posture - Sit tall with your ears over your shoulders. Anytime your head is in front of your shoulders you are promoting muscle tightness in your neck and shoulders.
Monitor - optimally, middle to top of the computer screen should be eye level and centered in front of you. If you have multiple monitors, we want them together so you’re not moving your head back and forth.
Keyboard/mouse - Bring the keyboard and mouse towards you. With shoulders relaxed and elbows bent you should be able to reach the keyboard. If you have to reach far forward, you’ll eventually fall towards the keyboard.
Standing desks
Standing desks are great for decreasing stress on your lower back and improve ergonomic positioning at the workplace. They can help to decrease hip flexor tightness and decrease pressure placed on your lumbar discs. However, you can still slouch when you stand. This means that the above tips still apply to a standing desk. If you don’t have optimal set up, you lower back may benefit, but your neck and shoulders may still hurt.
Standing 100% of the day is not optimal either. We typically fatigue and begin to kick one hip out, place all our weight on one leg if we stand too long. Aim for a balance between sitting time and standing time.
Stretches to fix Neck Pain after Working from Home
Below we’ve compiled a few stretches to help you combat the stresses of sitting. Give these workplace ergonomic tips a shot to help decrease tension and promote mobility.
For more stretches and tips on desk posture, check out our blog, 6 Stretches to do at your Desk to Decrease Pain and improve Posture.
Pain relief for Neck Pain at Boulder Sports Chiropractic
Active Release Technique for Headaches
Hands on, focused deep stretching muscle treatment. In ART, specific pressure is applied to the problematic muscles of the neck and shoulders to help improve motion of your body’s connective tissues (muscles, ligaments, fascia). Working in less than optimal posture creates microtrauma in the tissues that typically leads to adhesions between the muscular and fascial layers of the body. Active release technique at Boulder Sports Chiropractic helps to decrease muscle tension and restore normal movement or glide between the fascial layers.
Graston Technique for Neck Pain
Using a stainless steel tool, we can breakdown muscle knots and restore normal connective tissue integrity. This tool is excellent at crossing over multiple muscles and fascial layers to breakdown tightness. This is a wonderful tool for neck pain relief and decreasing headache tightness in Boulder, Colorado.
Dry Needling for Neck Pain and Headache Relief
When we need to release specific trigger points or deeper layers of muscle that we cannot get to with typical hands on techniques, we can use acupuncture needles in a technique called dry needling. The very small needle feels similar to a mosquito bite, sometimes you feel a little something while other times you feel nothing. The needle creates micro cuts in the muscle to help release the tension. Following the treatment, your immune system senses new trauma in that area and sends new nutrients to that area to help heal the lesion we just created. This helps to promote normal recovery and muscle health.
If you’re experiencing pain and stiffness in your neck and shoulders, schedule and appointment today for neck pain and headache relief. We have all of the tools needed to get you out of pain under one roof! Boulder Chiropractor, Boulder Physical Therapy, and Boulder Deep Tissue Massage. Call or email us today.