First I wanted to welcome everyone to our new website and thank you to everyone that has provided pictures and testimonials for all our viewers to experience. Secondly, I wanted to personally thank Darcy B for all her hard work the past two months tearing down and rebuilding our site. It came out better than I hoped!!!!!
Third I wanted to let everyone know that each week I will be posting healthy, educational and at times fun posts to let you know what has been going on at the office and utilizing this platform to provide insights to your health based on articles and books I have read and/or relevant topics which have been arising at the office. If you ever have a topic you would like me to address, please let me know next time you are at the office.
Finally, I wanted to thank all of our patients (which I proudly call our family) for allowing Nicole and myself to be a part of your healthcare team. We are always happy to see everyone, even when you are not feeling well or have developed a new injury. It is always a pleasure catching up with everyone.
On to this week’s post: I wanted to briefly address the topic of posture. I know, you all know I am always addressing this with the majority of you during your visits, however during the past 6 months during COVID, the majority of you have been shifting gears and working from home. Many of you have been trying to adapt your home “office” to meet your needs, but several have found this to be a challenge.
The most common issues which I have encountered involve sitting posture and working from laptop and also not getting up and taking frequent enough breaks during the day – Interesting many of you have been working longer hours now that you are working from home with less movement…this presents a problem.
Basic sitting posture at home:
- Always be looking at your monitor at eye level (looking down or slouching to be even with monitor does not count).
- Have both feet flat on the floor (for those that tend to fold one leg under the other)
- Support under your elbows when possible so you aren’t constantly tightening the muscles around the shoulders/upper back and neck.
- For those using a lap top: I suggest placing the lap top on a tray table on the counter or desk/table and then purchasing a detachable keyboard to slide under the tray top, this provides greatest opportunity to look at the monitor (middle of monitor even with eyes when sitting up tall).
- Take 2-3 minute break every hour and get up and do your posture stretches which I have taught all of you (if you need a refresher let me and I’ll go over with you again) – best way to do this is set your phone alarm to go off every hour and put phone out of your reach so you have to get up and MOVE to turn it off.
- Remember to stay hydrated and drink plenty of WATER during the day. You’d be surprised how many miss this vital nutrient throughout the day
- You can always stand and work – for those that have stand up desk, awesome. If you don’t there are ways to be creative, but if all else fails get up and move every hour.
- Text me your work station pictures to our work number 314-432-2329. Just sit at your desk and have some take profile picture and a picture from behind. This has been beneficial to several of our patients already.
This is just a quick reminder about posture and a few tips on how to help at your work station. This is just the tip of the ice berg regarding posture. I will be addressing this in detail and how poor posture actually diminishes your life capacity along with many other health issues in the coming weeks.
Look forward to seeing everyone soon!
Dr. Mike