Easy Ways to Help Your Posture at Work

Many office workers spend hours at their desks each day with little awareness of how their posture is impacting their overall health. The result is a proliferation of completely preventable workplace injuries. You can prevent these possibilities from happening to you by paying attention to a few simple but key posture tips.

1. Stand up from your desk and move around every so often throughout the day. Standing up regularly helps relieve the weight on your spine from sitting, allowing it to stretch back out and straighten again, while moving around a bit helps keep your muscles from getting locked in any single position.

2. Adjust your workstation heights for optimum ergonomics. Adjust your seat so that your feet rest comfortably on the floor and your thighs are in line with your hips. There should also be no bend in your wrists when you type on your computer keyboard or write on your desk. If necessary, use a wrist rest and/or raise or lower your keyboard as necessary. Lastly, adjust your monitor so that when you sit up straight and comfortably, your eyes look straight ahead or at a very slight downward angle to read the text on the screen. If you must tilt your head up or down at all to read the monitor, then you are not adjusted properly and could hurt your neck, and by extension, your entire spine.

3. Center yourself straight in front of your monitor or desk so that you are not twisting any part of your body at an angle as you do your work.

4. If you talk on the telephone frequently as part of your job, wear a headset so that you're not crooking your neck every time you're on a call.

5. Keep objects you use often or repeatedly close by. Avoid having to stretch to reach for things, or worse, twisting your body into an awkward or uncomfortable position to grab an item you need. Instead arrange your workstation so that everything you regularly need to perform your work is within easy reach.

The most important thing you can do for your postural health in the workplace is to listen to your body. Your body's aches and pains are indications that something needs attention. Maybe that's simply a short break to move around. Maybe it's a complete adjustment in the arrangement of your workstation. In any case, the easiest way to help your posture at work is when your body speaks, listen.

About the Author: Clarissa is a guest contributor from Corporate Office Interiors, a Lansing furniture store that offers both refurbished furniture and new furniture.