It is a fine balance, trying to get everything on your daily ‘to do’ list done and still find time to stretch “like you know you should”. Habitual bad postures are well known to be the cause of many days off of work – with back pain, neck pain, aching shoulders and headaches being the most troublesome offenders. Any time your body has to hold itself in one posture for long periods of time, its going to get tired, and start to struggle to work well, like it should do.
If your workstation isn’t quite right for you, this also might be contributing to tightness and discomfort. Annoyingly, these work-related ailments often spill over into your personal life too. Certain areas become too tight, and others become weaker, meaning that when you do go for a run, swim, do some gardening, building, or anything else non-work related at home, injury may strike.
Most elements of ‘bad posture’ are reversible, with the correct assessment, treatment and advice. We haven’t met many people, (if any), whose working posture couldn’t be improved with a big positive impact on health. We will look at the things which are contributing to your aches and pain, talk about how you can do a few really simple things to optimise your desk set up, and get on with enjoying the things you want to do, outside of work.
Terry’s journey with osteopathy started with a swim:
“I work in IT support, so I’m often juggling long hours sat at my computer, often flicking between 2 screens which I know isn’t any good for my neck. Anyway, I’d been uncomfortable for a while, but we were really busy, so I had to push through it. I thought to myself, I should really go for a swim to do something different, so I did. Big mistake. I’d only swam 2 lengths when I turned my head to breathe and felt a sudden sharp pain – it made me feel a bit sick. Then, after about 20 minutes I had a raging headache and had to take painkillers and go to bed.
My wife rang the osteopath she sees – ThreeSixty – and they were able to get me in that evening. I was feeling so rough, I didn’t protest, but in my head I was thinking, “what’s this going to do to help”?
My osteopath asked lots of questions about my health, medical questions and how I had injured my neck. I didn’t think it was all related to work, but turns out it was. He said that because I’d been working so much recently, and not doing stretches or taking breaks, my body couldn’t really cope with anything else I was doing outside of this work posture. And swimming was the final straw for my neck.
I’m now completely converted to osteopathy. I’ve still got a way to go with my posture and I should be doing my stretches more regularly, but it has really helped.”
