Working from home and pain.

In the last year, most people have switched from working at the office to working from home. And with working from home, more people find themselves feeling more aches and pain than usual. There are number of reasons why the prevalence of neck pain, back pain, and headaches have increased in the past year.

One likely culprit to the increase in neck and back pain is the decrease in physical activity throughout the day. With working from home, office workers do not have to get up and go to a conference room for a meeting, they don’t get up and go socialize with co-workers, or they don’t have to get up and walk over to the photo copier/ printer. These lack of physical activities throughout the day adds up and can contribute to increase in pain.

Here are a few tips to help decrease the likelihood of getting back or neck pain.

1. Fill up a water bottle and drink it throughout the day. By doing so, you are forcing yourself to get up during your work day to use the washroom or to refill your water bottle. This helps increase your physical activities during your work day. This also has the added benefit of ensuring you are hydrated throughout the day, which is important for your body as a whole, as well as for the disc in your spine

2. Change the set up of your office. Move your home office around so that you are forced to get up every so often. This can be as simple as moving the printer/ scanner to the other side of the room to ensure you have to get up when you print something or have to scan a document. Once again, this add movement into your day, and prevents you from sitting for extended period of time

3. Plan your day. Try and plan your day so you split up your work days between sitting/ standing/ walking. For example, you can plan to do your computer work between 9 am to 11am, and make phone calls between 11am to 1pm. During the phone calls, you can get up and walk around, or stand while making the phone calls. Once again, this breaks up the time between sitting, and allows the muscles to take a break from prolong inactivity.

4. Finally, if you are experiencing ongoing pain, seek further medical attention in order to diagnose and treat the issue.