Troublesome chair

“Who is sitting on that empty chair?”

We all spend time sitting on different chairs, at home, in office, coffee shops, and class rooms every day. We are sitting for various time durations. People working in offices, tend to sit a little more while working on computers, or there are some other jobs requiring sitting for long hours. People sitting for prolonged hours and working often complain of pain in back. Therefore, they choose the best chairs for them, more comfortable, cushiony, something that feels soft on our backs and comfortable on our buttocks and might trouble us a little less.

Ergonomics says, there are certain angles of knees or elbows that should be attained while sitting on chair and working. According to ergonomics, the posture that is attained after adjusting the measurements imposes lesser stresses on our body and is less harmful and relieves pain. We often use cushions, back rests or arm rests that modifies our chairs and looks much more comfortable. These ergonomic measures are absolutely useful, “BUT, they are not enough to save your body from damage”.

Choosing the right chair.

This is an ordinary chair, with no fancy modifications, A wooden chair, with no arm rests, hard and tough seat, not so satisfactory back rest. Something that you might go with in coffee shops or cafeterias where you spend no more than an hour each day. But would you choose the same chair for you cabin? No! Right?  

Why did you reject this for your office? Because you think this might hurt your body, might cause backache and will not go well for prolonged hour working. Well, you are correct if you think so.

What will you go for then?

 May be a chair like this?

Looks much more comfortable, with proper back rest, Head rest and arm rest. You can choose this for your Work place. 

Or maybe this one, (particularly if you are a gamer).

This is some high tech modified chair, which is super Comfortable and cushiony, easy on your back, Absolutely amazing hand and back rests to support your lumbar spine. This is perfect keeping in mind the long working or gaming hours. This might not be harmful for your body and you will have no pain complaints at all. Right? If you think this is the right chair for you, You are a bit WRONG!

“Because chair is not the problem, your management is”.

No chair in the world can solve your problem of body ache, if you do not take appropriate actions to save your body from damage. Now what are these ‘actions’ that you are required to solve your problem. Shift your focus from ‘chair’ to these important components.

1.     TIME

How long are you sitting is the matter of concern. Anything too much is harmful for you. No matter how expensive and modified your chair maybe, if you sit in the same position for 8 hours a day, it will always create a problem for you. The solution is, take appropriate breaks in between, after every hour. You have to change your body position and stretch a little. You often get up from your chair, stretch your arms backwards, opening up the chest, rotating your back, bending forward to touch your toes. These techniques are absolutely correct, but, the execution of these techniques isn’t. In an 8 hours schedule, you do this for maybe 2 mins after every 2 hours, which is not enough for your body to eliminate damages. Make a little change in your timings. Make it 5 mins in each hour. This makes up 40 mins of stretching and mobilization in an 8 hours office schedule. How about that? Were you doing this before?

You always try to take out maybe half an hour from your schedule for exercise and it never happens, how about 40 mins of physical activity every day?

2.     MICRO-BREAKING

Micro-breaks as the name suggests are the mini breaks you take in between while you are working for prolonged hours. These breaks unfreeze your frozen working position. Stretching and mobilization can also be accompanied with walking around. Maybe to get a glass of water or a walk to the washroom. When your knees and hips are in a constant bent position, the muscles are continuously contracted. The muscle adapts the position and remains shortened. Now it becomes difficult for you to straighten the knees and hips and it’s painful. So it’s important for you to maintain the muscle length by taking small breaks and hence changing the positions. Although a 2 mins walk is not really enough, but “something is always better than nothing”.

Chair is not really the problem.

So, the conclusion here is that “chair is not really the actual problem”, any chair can be good enough for you to sit without causing damage to your body if you keep in mind a few precautions and you are good to go. Just focus a bit more on time duration and physical indulgence. Our posture needs to be changed frequently while sitting to avoid the forces on our bones and muscles that are being oriented in a particular direction while attaining a particular posture. The loads need to be distributed to other muscles or at least released for some time.

How soft my chair should be?                                                                    

It is always good to look for a chair which doesn’t cause you pain while sitting.  The chair should not be too hard or too soft, choose something in between. Although, the concern should always be on the physical activity and time management, a fairly good chair will work as a precaution to avoid further damage to your body. You don’t have to look for a magic in a chair, just feel comfortable according to your body size and weight and that’s enough of a precaution.

So, looking for a modified chair will always be secondary. The priority is your working habits which influence your body mechanism to a large extent. Indulge yourself in a healthy way of living and you don’t need external aids to relieve your pain, “Because health is not valued till the sickness comes”. Create healthy habits.

Take Care,

Jasrah.