Are you an office worker suffering with neck pain? If so, you’re not alone. Office workers are one of the population groups most at risk of developing neck pain, with an incidence of around 55% in some countries.
If you are an unfortunate office worker suffering from neck pain, is there something that you can do yourself to reduce or prevent your neck pain rather than popping pills or going to see your OMT trained Physiotherapist?
The answer is, yes, of course there is!
The first and simplest things that you need to consider is where your monitor is positioned in relation to yourself on your desk (check our our desktop software designed to help you correct your computer ergonomics). A poor monitor position is one of the most common reasons why office workers suffer from neck pain associated with poor posture. It’s happily also one of the easiest things for to change to help improve poor posture that could be causing your neck pain.
Consider the following 4 monitor position scenarios. Do you see yourself in any of them? All of these poor monitor positions are high risk postures for creating neck pain.
- In this scenario, your monitor (laptop or desktop computer screen) is positioned too low on your desk causing you to bend your neck for too long, straining your neck and resulting in neck pain. This is quite common, especially for people working on a laptop or tablet. Mobile computer devices are handy to have, but they all need assistive ergonomic devices to help you work in a safe posture. Read this post on correcting a low monitor position to help you correct this problem.
2. In this second scenario, your screen is positioned too high for you, causing you to raise your chin and compress the joints in the back of your neck causing you both neck pain and headaches. This monitor position will cause neck pain faster than any of the others and is one of the worst postures possible for a computer worker. This posture is common in people who are aware that a computer monitor often needs to be elevated, but are unaware of their own posture and what the correct position for one’s head and neck needs to be to prevent or reduce neck pain. Correct your position asap
3. Here, your screen is positioned too far away from you, causing you to lean forwards away from your backrest and poke your chin out. This posture will cause both headaches and neck pain. Read this post on correcting a monitor positioned too far away to help you correct this problem and reduce your neck pain.
4. In this last scenario, you are working a lot from notes/papers/files and don’t use a document holder. This means that you are looking down too often during the day and this constant bending of your neck puts you at a very high risk of developing neck pain.
Alternatively, you’re working a lot from notes and have positioned them on your desk between your keyboard and monitor causing you to push your monitor too far away and take a poking chin posture.
Both of these postures will create neck pain and possibly headaches.
I will write about how to correct these postures and position your monitor correctly in the near future, make sure you come back to find out how you can help yourself reduce your neck pain.