The Answer to 'Desk Related Aches and Pains' is Outside the Workplace

If you are getting aches and pains whilst sitting in your chair at work it would seem logical to assume that the answer to resolving these issues would be to address your workplace ergonomics. Whilst this may reduce some of the load on certain tissues in the body, it still isn’t addressing the major issue with desk-based jobs, prolonged sedentary postures. The body is designed for movement, it thrives on movement, and it requires movement.

Pain is a form of protective communication from the body, constantly responding to both internal needs and overall threats. Pain doesn’t necessarily mean that you have damaged the tissues, pain tends to be more protective rather than reactionary, the body has sensed the tissues aren’t getting utilised in the appropriate manner and is trying to motivate a change in your behaviour. Lack of movement is one of those internal needs that pain will help to communicate and aim to motivate behaviour change. To keep it simple, bones need loading, joints need movement, and muscles need to be contracted. These are basic necessities that help to keep those tissues healthy and happy. If those tissues aren’t getting the movement they need the body may use pain as a way to communicate that to you. This is why with a long car ride or plane journey we become uncomfortable and start to wiggle around, that’s your subconscious trying to get some movement into the body. At times, desk related aches and pains are just this, your body trying to alert you that change is needed.

With certain musculoskeletal pain, some specific interventions may need to be put in place to take control of the pain, however for the most part, the main intervention is just to move more. Obviously, the desired result of moving more is difficult to obtain at the workplace, we are paid to be productive at work and being productive is most often done at the desk. Chances are this isn’t going to change anytime soon. So, in order to take control of these aches and pains the change needs to happen outside of the workplace, and the change needs to be sustained. If you are sitting down for the vast majority of your time at your workplace, you need to have a good look at what you are doing in your time away from work. You need to choose activities and hobbies away from a chair that uses the body in a variety of different ways, like playing tennis, swimming, gardening, yoga or tai chi to name a few. By doing these types of activities away from that chair, you have given the tissues in the body what they need so when you are sitting at your desk your body isn’t screaming out (via aches and pains) for some movement. In a way, it’s like accumulating movement credit to allow for sedentary debits, where the aim is to stay in the green!

For better or worse, more and more jobs are revolving around the chair and desk, leading to a growing number of people experiencing these aches and pains associated with sedentary postures. Whilst it is cause for some concern it is by no means something the human body is not capable of overcoming. In order to overcome this, however, the individual must take control of their situation and adjust their life away from work accordingly. The employer can help by ensuring adequate ergonomic set ups at each workstation and breaks given to allow the body to get up and move, but at the end of the day it is the individual that needs to take control of their body for long term solutions.