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Working from home

Many of us are now working from home. Following the COVID 19 pandemic, working practices have changed for many of us. You might be working from home full time, or have a home/office hybrid model or you may have started a new enterprise based from home. Perhaps you have had an optimised working environment at your workplace – you may even have had a professional set up and bespoke seating. So it is important now that we resist the urge to slouch on the sofa with our laptops or stuff ourselves into a cramped space.

Here are our top 5 tips if you are working from home but do remember that we are available for any treatment and advice.


1) Move, move, move.

We will talk about good posture for your workspace when working from home but that is the worse place to start. Even if you have the most expensive ergonomic chair, optimised monitor position and one of those fancy keyboards that looks like it came from a space ship – sitting all day is a really bad idea. We know that prolonged sitting is associated with significant health implications, a slower metabolism, stiffness and tightness in your spine and muscles, and reduced productivity. Research shows that it requires 60-75 minutes of moderately vigorous exercise to overcome a full day sitting at work.

Now that many of us are working from home, it is the ideal opportunity to reconsider our working habits. Here are some top tips to move more as part of your working day:

  • Set an alarm or timer as a reminder to move every 30 minutes. Just a short walk to grab a glass or water will help to rest your posture and activate all those essential postural muscles.
  • Develop healthy habits, for example, stand up every time you answer the phone or squat 5 times every time you receive an email from a  particular person.
  • Make regular necessities a little more active, for example, use the upstairs toilet as opposed to the one next door, do some simple exercises (squats, lunges, back movements) while you are waiting for the kettle to boil, etc.
Top tip: home working doesn’t have to look like 9-5 at the office! Perhaps you could go for a run in the middle of the day when the kids are at school or after the school drop off. Perhaps you could go for a walk at lunch time, try a Pilates class or have a game of squash with a friend.

2) Environment

You may have a pristine home office to work from or possibly, like me, you are fighting for space amidst the homework and toys. If I step on one more piece of lego in bare feet… Your working environment is important – it needs to be comfortable and enable you to do a good job.

  • It is beneficial to have boundaries between home space and work space. That way it doesn’t feel like you are always at work and vice versa.
  • Natural light and fresh air have been shown to boost productivity and well being. If you are involved in video calls, adequate light is important.
  • An extension cable is essential and will give you the freedom to set your desk up how and where you like.

3) Ergonomics

The text book answer with work place ergonomics is everything should be at perfect right angles to everything else. Neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists & hands, spine, pelvis, knees, feet all like an elaborate ‘jenga’ of small square boxes, one on top of the other. Add a chair with some lumbar support and you are almost hitting top marks! To be clear, there has been a lot of research into optimum ergonomics for an office environment and the attached picture is what you should be aiming for. Here are a few key things to get right to optimise your home office set up:

1) Monitor height. The chances are you are working from home on a laptop so to optimise your screen height you have 2 options. Either set up and external monitor or buy a laptop stand to raise the height of your screen – alternatively you could use some books. Note that if you go for the second (and more popular) option you will need a keyboard and a mouse.

2) Use a reasonable chair. If you don’t have an office chair at home, I suggest using a dining chair. Should you need more lumbar support consider placing and small cushion or preferably a rolled up towel in the small of your back. Should you want a tried and tested lumbar support, here at The Physios, we often recommend a lumbar roll. However, if you are experiencing back pain, there is lots physiotherapy can do to help.

3) Be careful of ‘forward neck posture’ or ‘poking chin posture’. Ideally your ears should be in line with your collar bones when working at your desk. If your head/chin drifts forward of this position it can cause neck pain and headaches. Again do consult with your physiotherapist of you are experiencing neck pain or headaches.


4) Sit to stand desks

Sit to stand desks have become very popular with lots of larger employers investing in these for employees with a current or historic injury. The point however is not particularly about standing, it is about having a more active posture and more importantly varying your position (see the first point!). There are a few hacks to create a similar set up at home:

  • If you are using a laptop, consider placing it on a high window ledge or bookcase for 10-15 minutes each hour. This can lend itself to less computer heavy tasks such as, making a phone call or reading emails.
  • It is still sitting but sitting on a gym ball encourages an active posture. Lots of my patients with lower back pain have benefited from this. You cannot be lazy when sitting on a gym ball – otherwise you will fall off!
  • Plan your daily tasks. As with the example above, consider tasks that are not as computer/desk dependent and get creative about how you do them.
Top tip: we have recently invested in sit to stand desks at The Physios. We got these desks and are really impressed with them, especially for under £300.

5) Exercise

Exercise is so important for our overall health and here’s the secret – exercise was important long before we heard about coronavirus. Working from home provides the ideal pause to reconsider their relationship with exercise.

  • Walking is accessible, beneficial and many of us can find a great walk from our doorsteps in the “outdoor city” of Sheffield. A general recommendation is 60 minutes moderate exercise so push your cardiovascular system a little. As a guide, walking should be effortful but you should be able to walk comfortably for a long time and certainly be able to hold a conversation while doing it.
  • Lots of people have taken up running during lockdown. Running guru, Jon Grayson, is adamant that we were all ‘born to run’ has developed a great resource for runners – Runners Hub. Be sure to check out his blog if you are considering running for the first time.
  • There are lots of dedicated exercise classes available that can from your regular commitment to exercise. As physiotherapists we think Pilates is an excellent way to exercise, particularly if you have a musculoskeletal injury as it focuses on balance, flexibility and stability. But there are lots of other coached exercises classes available to suit you (for example CrossFit, spinning classes or Yoga) or you could consider a bespoke personal trainer to help achieve some of those long-held healthcare goals. You may even want to consider taking up and old sport – I have recently started playing football with some dads from school which is great fun.
Top tip: all exercise is beneficial. It doesn’t matter what you do – just make it enjoyable, regular and consistent. Go on – dust off those old football boots, get your old tennis racket out of the garage or join that local gym!

Should you require our help now you can book an online consultation here.
View more articles from Johnny Cassidy


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