Working from home may seem great compared to office life, but in practicality, it can end up being a huge pain in the neck (pun intended). Why is this the case? You may find yourself thinking, “I work at my computer all day in the office without a problem, why is it when I work from home, my neck and mid-back always seem to bother me?” To answer this question we’ll have to take a quick look at your anatomy and ergonomics.
The human species has been evolving for 5 to 7 million years, and for the overwhelming majority of our existence, we have not had 9 to 5 jobs that center around us bending forward looking at a screen all day. To put it plain and simple, this is NOT NORMAL. Seeing as this is not a normal position for the body to be in, prolonged exposure to this type of work leaves you ill-prepared to handle these demands. In anatomical position, the ears are centered over the shoulders, shoulders over hips, hips over knees, and knees over ankles. The body prefers this position because it takes the least amount of energy to maintain. When you slouch at your computer all day, your head creeps closer to the screen, your shoulders rounded forward so you can type/hold yourself up, and by doing so you dramatically increase the amount of strain on the muscles of your neck and mid-back. Instead of having the weight of your 11 pound head rest passively upon your neck, the further you lean forward, your neck muscles work orders of magnitude harder to keep your head upright. Now repeat this for approximately 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year (hope you get 2 weeks vacation), and 40 years until retirement and it starts to paint a grim picture.
Now to make matters a bit worse, you are working from home, phones going off, dishwasher just beeped, kids running around, and instead of being at your ergonomically sound chair and desk of your office, you’re sitting at the island in your kitchen on a non-ergonomic barstool staring down at your laptop that is significantly below eye level. Whew! That scenario makes my neck and back tighten up just thinking about it!
So what can be done to change this? For starters, we want to make your at home set up as ergonomic as possible. In order to achieve this, regardless of sitting or standing, we need the computer monitor set up directly at eye level. To prove the importance of this try this quick experiment. Place your index and middle fingers just below the base of your skull. Now, without moving your head, moving eyes only, look left, right, up, and down. What did you feel under your fingertips? You can feel the muscles of your neck firing even without moving your neck because there is a deeply ingrained reflex through millions of years of evolution called the “Cervical-Ocular Reflex” (neck eye reflex). When the eyes move, they communicate with the neck muscles in order to facilitate proper tracking of whatever you are looking at. Instead of being like our ancestors, who would hear a noise in a bush, turn their eyes and head at the same time to see the tiger coming that's attacking them, we look down at computer screens for hours at a time and this causes our necks to become extremely tight and painful. So having that monitor directly at eye level is absolutely crucial for minimizing strain!
Next we have to take a look at the shoulders to understand why the mid-back becomes sore. When you sit with rounded forward shoulders all day, supporting your body weight, your body begins to adapt to this position. The body will tighten the pec muscles (front chest muscles) in order to accommodate this position. In tightening the pec muscles and forward rounding the shoulders, this leaves your mid-back muscles in a constantly lengthened position. When we consider this is the primary position for working all day, that time under tension adds up. Once those muscles fatigue to a certain point, they will develop trigger points and will become tight and painful. A great way to avoid this problem is to periodically take breaks in your day to stretch and break up the monotony of your day. To do this pec stretch, simply stand in a doorway, raise your elbows to shoulder height, with your forearms flat against the door frame, take a small step with one leg forward through the doorway (doesn’t matter which leg, this simply helps you avoid over arching your back), and you’ll begin to feel a big stretch between your shoulders and your chest. Hold for 20 seconds and perform 3 times. Removing the tension from the chest muscles will help your mid-back muscles not have to work as hard and help keep you out of pain.
The main take home messages are as follows, sitting at a desk all day is not good for your neck and back. Get up and move around and STRETCH every so often throughout the day to avoid your body tightening up. Make sure your desk is set up in such a way that your monitor is at eye level, and that you are not over reaching to make contact with the keyboard. If you follow these simple recommendations you will find working from home has just become a little less painful! As always if you are dealing with pain for any amount of time, come get treated by our team here at Advanced Chiropractic & Sports Rehabilitation here in Sterling Virginia!
James Kennedy DC CSCS
