Remedy for Desk Workers

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A lot of us have desk jobs or jobs that require us to sit all day and not able to move around much. Do you sometimes feel like your butts are stuck on the chair and your shoulders are stuck under your ears? Some of us are fortunate to feel no pain after years of desk work, but from my experience, most of my clients who have had desk jobs for many years have very similar complains in their bodies. 

Do they sound familiar to you? 
– low back pain while sitting
– stiffness in low back when standing up (or waking up)
– neck pain
– pain in butts
– upper back and mid back stiffness and pain
– elbow pain
– wrist pain
– hip flexor tightness and pain
etc…

Most likely, your pain is coming from the inactivity of your body while you are sitting. The posture you are in while you are sitting and working determines how you feel as well.

Sitting all day also makes your glutes weak and inactive and makes your hip flexors shorter. Core often times is not engaged well so the low back is either pulled forward (arch) or backward (slouch). This posture causes a lot of imbalance from the pelvis up and down. 

What can you do to prevent and reduce pain every day? 

MOVE, MOVE, MOVE. 

1, Stand up and move your legs, pelvis and spine as much as possible
2, Lunch yoga or lunch walk
3, Reverse the position (sitting) after the day of work, which means extend and open the front of the hips, extend your spine, and open up your chest
4, Create an ergonomic working station such as standing (and sitting) desk
5, Move before/during/after work such as going to the gym, running, doing yoga, walking, engaging yourself with any sports that is not sitting, even doing some cleaning and chores at home will help move you more. 

If you are commuting with a car, that’s also a sitting time. If you have been working at home, there may be no commuting but you want to make sure that you are not just sitting at home after work.

I really emphasize on the “moving”. It’s not that sitting is bad…It’s the same posture that you get stuck for many hours at a time is bad. It’s important to break that same posture once in a while during your work by “moving” in some ways or another. You can set up a timer so that every time you hear it ring, you have to get up and move or stretch, or you can change your posture slightly. You can use the ring to also check your sitting posture. I often forget how bad my posture is when I’m staring at my phone…(head forward and slouching), not just when I stare at my computer. I think it all starts with awareness!

Other things that might help you: 
– Getting massage (You can get Thai Massage with me!)
– Getting in a hot tub/sauna
– Relaxing and breathing
– Going into the nature/outdoors

I’ve been fortunate not to have a desk work in my entire life. I have chosen my careers so that I am not sitting all day. When I was a student (college and any school I went afterwards), I always had a low back and neck problem for sitting for a long period of time, so I knew that desk job was not going to be sustainable for me…So, if you choose the job you have now consciously, make sure you continue to take care of yourself outside of your work, so you will have a longevity in your career and healthy in your body and mind. 

I have been teaching Tue/Thu 11am Zoom Yoga since March 2020 and people have been very consistent with attending twice a week. They all tell me that yoga practice in the middle of the work day (or at the end of the day) has been helping them in so many ways! 

If you like to consult and work with me on this further more, please contact me at contact@yogayuki.com
We can work on getting you to feel less pain and more freedom in your body!

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