Working from home, your posture, and your wellbeing
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Credit:Getty Images under licence to PhysioQinetics Ltd.
With the current COVID-19 pandemic and country-wide social lockdown, the majority of us are currently either furloughed off-work or working from home. Either way, being stuck at home is never fun, and it does take its tolls on our body and mind in a number of ways.
Why am I getting back / shoulder / neck pain?
For those people working from home, our new daily routines seem to be glued to our screen either slouched on the sofa or working long hours in front of our laptops in our kitchen tops or our dining tables. Sofa or dining tables are never designed for long hours of work. The table height and back support (of the lack of) often cause poor sitting posture, which contribute to neck pain, shoulder pain or back pain. It is important to remind ourselves to get up periodically to stretch our muscles, and avoid prolonged work session in poor posture.
Having a good posture is essential to prevent posture-related pain, injuries, and fatigue. It is important to allows the equal distribution of weight through the body so that it can function properly and protect against strain. In sitting and standing, "good posture" is a gentle "S" shape of your spine with your head relaxed, balanced in the midline position over your shoulder and your shoulder in-line with your hip. Our physiotherapists are trained to help you with posture observation and education and, in conjunction with our hands-on soft tissue treatment, to help alleviate the strain, pain and stress of working long hours at home.
Still feeling sluggish and exhausted
For the majority of Britons, day-to-day life seems to be less regular and even chaotic. The lockdown measures are impacting on our 24-hour sleep-wake / circadian cycle, and this often make people feeling sluggish and feeling fatigue during the day, whilst insomnolent / insomniac at night. The lack of daily routine and regularity often manifest as irritability and inability to focus on a task.
It is therefore important enforce a daily routine and maintain sleep / wake hygiene.
The followings are tips to improve a your sleep cycle:-
- Avoid constant update on the pandemic - particularly avoid reading horrible pandemic news late in the evening to reduce unhelpful anxiety.
- Avoid day-time nap and try not getting into bed too early, only just before your normal bed time.
- Going to sleep at your normal regular bed time - although we are in lockdown, it is still important to keep the normal daily routine.
- Do not let yourself oversleep - maintain normal daily routine and get up at a reasonbale time
- Getting daily exposure to day light / sunlight is very important - light hitting our retina help set our circadian rhythm.
- Eating at normal meal time is also a very potent trigger in resetting our 24-hour sleep / wake pattern.
- Daily regular exercise, even just taking a short walk outside the house, can be very beneficial in maintaining healthy circadian cycle and also improves our mood and sense of wellbeing.
For those interested, we have a previous blog post regarding the importance and the science relating to sleep and cardiovascular health,
