Healthy Sitting: Posture & Position for Your Back Health

Office workers spend more than half of their day working on their office desks and end up returning tired after a busy day. As an office worker, what you don't realize is that usually, it's not the work that makes you tired, but your sitting posture. Healthy sitting plays a vital role in keeping the workers active and ensuring they stay happy and healthy throughout the work hours.

You often underestimate the power of a proper sitting posture to make you more productive and have a better work experience. A good sitting posture not just ensures that you stay attentive at work but affects your performance overall, ensuring your muscles are not under any stress.

Adopting an ergonomic sitting posture is always a better idea when you have to spend long hours at work, as slouching puts a lot of pressure on your bladder and has other health hazards. These health hazards may exacerbate with time, making it more difficult for you to work in an office environment.

Often office workers are not even aware of what is counted as a healthy sitting posture, thus end up remaining tired and unhealthy. So, before we share our tips on how to sit with a better posture at work, let’s have a look at what accounts for a better posture.

A person sitting with a proper posture has:

• feet laying flat on the ground
• shoulders relaxed
• elbows held at sides, creating an l-shape with the arms
• Knees and forearms parallel with the ground
• Back laid against the chair
• Uncrossed knees or ankles
• A small gap between the back of your knees and the seat
• Ankles placed in front of knees
• Knees placed at a height similar or slightly lower than that of hips
• No strain on the neck while ensuring it is straight when you look forward

Best Practices for Good Sitting Posture

Once you know what accounts for a good sitting posture, the next thing that comes in line is the alterations that you need to make in your sitting posture to adopt healthy sitting. We have listed and briefly explained below all those minor corrections that you can make in the way you sit to have a better experience, so let’s read ahead.

1. Buy the right ergonomic chair

The foremost thing that you need to adopt in your office workspace is an ergonomic office chair. You can conveniently buy an ergonomic chair online from a reliable store like Autonomous that has a lot of flexibility in adjusting its chairs. These chairs have lumbar support, adjustable height, adjustable armrest, and a lot of flexibility in further angular adjustments to ensure the users have the best experience.

The right ergonomic chair will let you adjust the chair's height in a way that your feet lay flat on the floor. Buying an ergonomic chair with customizable features will make it easier for you to make all necessary adjustments in the way you place your arms, legs, and back, thus lets you to correct your work ergonomics.

2. Use a Standing Desk

Intermittent standing is known to do wonders in correcting one's posture. You can only achieve a healthy sitting posture if it is coupled with intermittent standing, where the worker tends to work while standing. Buying an office table with adjustable height (standing desk) will do the job here.

It is always better to spend some time standing in your workplace as that helps improve your blood circulation and avoid many other health hazards along with improving your work quality, productivity, and, most importantly, posture.

3. Use a Monitor Arm

It is vital to have your monitor’s screen at your eye level to ensure that you have the proper sitting posture. The top of your screen should never be more than two inches above your eye level. A monitor arm plays an integral role in adjusting your monitor or laptop screen at your eye level, as that helps you avoid clutter on your office desk as well. However, you may choose to use a stack of books to keep your monitor at a higher height if you cannot afford a monitor arm.

4. Use a Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard

It is much easier to move around a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard to adjust their placement as per your flexibility. Your keyboard should always be placed right in front of your monitor with a distance of roughly 4-6 inches away from your desk's edge.

As far as your mouse's placement is concerned, you are supposed to place it in a position that your wrist lays straight, your upper arm by the side, and your elbows slightly raised from your desk's surface. In this way, you can eliminate the possible strain on your wrist that may make you feel tired and fatigued while working longer hours, affecting your posture.

5. Use a handset to attend phone calls.

As an office worker, you might spend most of your time on call with clients. Bending your neck to attend to a lot of phone calls can make your muscles stiff and put them under a lot of strain. So, you can buy a handset to avoid this strain and have a smoother experience.

Adopt the Best Practices to Earn the Most!

We shared some of the best tips you can use to correct your posture. Along with these minor changes, you can also think of adding yoga to your routine, as yoga is known to help one have a good sitting posture. All these practices promote healthy sitting, hence helps you avoid common back pain problems and stay more productive and attentive at your workplace.