Neck Pain, Low Back Pain, and Sciatica Pain Prevention
Chronic spine and pelvis pain is not a disease and it definitely can be improved and prevented. We will discuss the things you can do without the help of a doctor or therapist to prevent neck pain.
Sitting posture
This is the most important posture to be discussed as we spend most of the time in a day sitting. Sitting can be in any form if you are sitting for less than 30 minutes.
However, we need to sit in a position where it contributes the least stress to the spine and pelvis if we want to sit longer than 30 minutes.
These are the 7 attributes of a good sitting posture:
- Touching the sacrum to the back of the chair, that means sit all the way to the back
- Keep the shoulder to the back and downward.
- Do not lean the upper back to the chair.
- Keeping the top border of the digital screen at your eye level with condition 1 & 2 applied.
- Keep both feet on the floor and the knee bent at 90 degree angle.
- Keep the body moving every once in a while, a static posture is not a good posture
Chair matters
To sit with the least stress is to sit with the most stress on the sitting bones. Therefore the chair you sit on has to have a thick cushion padding to offload the sitting bones.
A thick cushion make sure that there is only minimum compression on the nerves and blood vessels that go near the sitting bones.
If your height is below average, you might want to consider resting your feet on a step box so that you can keep your knee at 90 degree angle while the table is not too high for your hands.
Mouse Pad
A mouse pad is not a luxury but a necessity to cushion the wrist. We realized that laptop and computer users who do not use a mouse pad often get right shoulder and neck stiffness.
This is a voluntary movement of the body to offload the wrist. A thick (~3-5mm) mouse pad ensure minimum compression on the nerves and blood vessels that go through the wrist.
Therefore, using a mouse pad reduces the engagement of the muscles that pull the shoulder up.