Hazards of sitting

Having been reading monthly occupational safety reports at work has increased my consciousness on safety related to work in general (very good for preventing some stupid home injuries) and electricity related risks (also very good thing to know if you are the kind of guy who doesn't fear to make some minor changes to home electricity, like installing a ceiling lamp that doesn't have the fancy and safe kind of a plug for connecting it). Other than that, I guess, for a guy who sits at the desk all day long the most likely accident at work is slipping on the office floor. And oh yes, I have once dropped a thick folder full of papers on my big toe, which resulted in a small bruise. Probably not reason enough to request for safety shoes with anti-slip soles and toe protection, though.

Those reports and subjective experience has also increased consciousness on the fact that long term sitting in front of a computer is a hazard to one's health. Not an acute one, though, and perhaps it is not that high profile on corporate health and safety agenda - except (hopefully) in software houses. Generally computer work is taken as such that it can be done in a condition where manual labour is not anymore possible (the most important muscle in a specialist is the brain, anyway). However, there is potential for many kinds of pain which might even be debilitating and thus affect productivity, so to me it looks a very real threat for working health.

I remember times when stiffness and tension caused by crouching over the keyboard was easily taken care of by some physical workout, stretching and a walk outdoors. By that time I didn't do yoga asanas, but I'm sure those would have worked, too.

I miss those times. Nowadays I'm happy if there is no notable tension and the stiffness is not painful. I've increased my awareness on the condition of my body as well as my posture, and I try to have short breaks during the day for doing some exercise and stretching at my desk. I do asana practice at least a couple of times a week, and have tried several kinds of treatments and therapies (different kinds of massage, acupuncture, reflexology...) and go to work by bike or foot. I ran into a good article on the subject and the theory given there on the reasons for the continued stiffness and discomfort seem very logical to me: the stiffness kind of works its way into the different tissues and thus in the end it's not just the muscles that behave badly.

So far I haven't used any occupational health care services since the situation is not outright bad, but I'm concerned of the directions of things for the sake of myself. I'm also pretty confident that the condition is indeed profession related (type of profession and condition do match).

The thing I'm happy about is that there is one common computer job related injury that I've managed to prevent so far - the carpal tunnel syndrome. I've been paying a lot of attention to hand ergonomy since pretty young which must have helped a lot. Maybe if I had been just as aware of the possible results of bad posture, too, things might be now different...

The reason I'm writing this is that during all these years I haven't met too many colleagues who would have indicated that they are really aware of these things. It's pretty common for office workers to go a gym regularly, and that is most likely a very good thing to do. Many might also have other hobbies that are good for the upper back area (I've heard that for example golf is great physical exercise in this sense). However, I fear that I'm not at all alone with this issue and it's worth the effort to bring up the subject.

Thanks for reading and now go do some stretching and make your body happy!