How to sit at work without pain
Sit comfortably and to hell with the ergonomics
You need to know what’s good for you.
Most offices really don’t care (unless they’re afraid of breaching health and safety regulations). Even then, they’re only worried about themselves, not you.
Until office managers wake up, you need to take matters into your own hands. So you need to know what’s good for you. And the truth is that most ergonomics is crap: it’s based on the wrong question.
The wrong question is
“What is the best work-station set-up for me?”. As we’ll see, the best work set-up in the world won’t help if you don’t know the right question to ask.
The right question is
“How can I sit comfortably and alert for long hours?” (Obvious when you think about it, isn’t it)?
The answer has two parts:–
- How to sit comfortably the way your body works best.
- How to give yourself the breaks you need to keep going all day.
How to sit comfortably the way your body works best
This is something you need to learn. It’s much more than a few tips. It’s a life skill that’s rarely taught and that few people possess. However, with the Alexander Technique and with my help, you will be able to solve this first question perfectly without bothering your office manager too much.
How to give yourself the breaks you need to keep going all day
With this second question, we’re probably going to have to compromise. We’re going to have to compromise because most managers don’t care enough to make the necessary changes to your work conditions — or if they do care, they’re limited in what the company will allow them to do.
Mostly, we aren’t yet at the point where companies realise that taking proper care of their work-force would do wonders for their own bottom lines. Alas, even where companies do try take enlightened action, they look generally look in the wrong direction for help and advice.
Ergonomics is not the answer.
The problem with ergonomics
Ergonomics is about making your furniture fit you. It conveniently forgets that most people are already in pretty bad shape. Because most people are in bad shape to start with, if your furniture fitted you perfectly, it would actually stop you ever getting into good shape.
Getting yourself into good shape is outside of the field of ergonomics. It’s not quite about fitness either. Getting into good shape is about much more than fitness. To get into good shape, you need to learn how what you’re doing at the moment is freezing you into bad shape. How the accepted ideas of good posture don’t just feel uncomfortable: they actually make you stiff and unable to move properly.
While you won’t ever learn this in the gym, there are many disciplines that go part way towards helping you with this. Only one of those disciplines actually does the job properly: that’s the Alexander Technique.
Why even the Alexander Technique is not enough
What’s beyond even most Alexander Technique teaching is the answer to that second question: “How to give yourself the breaks you need to keep going all day”. The true answer to this question is in “The Hows & Whys of Semi-Supine”. That free booklet will teach you the proper way to take mini-breaks.
The art of compromise
Sadly, in most work places, proper use of mini-breaks isn’t even possible.
So you need to look after yourself and learn how to compromise between what works best and what is actually possible in your work-place. If, in the process, you can educate your managers a little, so much the better.
Until managers learn how to re-organise the work-place to enable the proper use of mini-breaks — and then train their work-force appropriately, productivity will always be way down.
So will worker satisfaction and loyalty. However, now that you know what’s good for you, it’s time for you to take appropriate action.
Your next step
First download and read “The Hows & Whys of Semi-Supine”. (This free e-book contains demonstration videos as well). When you’ve finished the book, the final section will tell you what your next step should be.
If you’ve been looking at getting a new chair, read this first: Bad Back Chairs: Why ergonomic chairs only give you a bad back.
Need help? Then email me
Let me know where you need help and I’ll point you in the right direction.
(Whatever you write is completely confidential).
37 Hope Street, Liverpool, Merseyside L1 9EA, England
Telephone: +44 151 708 6172 Mobile: +44 7872 905 154
Copyright © 2007-2012 Philip Pawley
SmilingBackMethod.com
