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Improper sitting puts pressure on your lower back, which can lead to long-term pain issues if sitting for extended durations. Adjusting position is essential for good health.
But you don’t always have a choice. Some folks with specific medical or physical problems must sit longer.
If you must, ensure you do so comfortably and don’t sit in one posture for hours. This piece highlights how to adjust an office chair for lower back pain.
Your lower back hurts when you sit in your office chair due to health, age, and posture issues. To ease this, you adjust your office chair for good posture by getting the correct height, seat, armrest, and footrest positions. Plus, you adjust your office chair back support by slight angling.
Table of Contents
Why Does My Lower Back Hurt When I Sit in My Office Chair?
The best solution for lower back pain while sitting relies on the source, which may be:
- Posture: Bad posture may aggravate lower back discomfort. Changing one’s position when sitting or standing improves body alignment.
- Injury: Incorrectly lifting something might cause a strain or bruise in the lower back. An injury can also arise from trauma, such as a sport or vehicle accident.
- Sciatica: This occurs due to pressure on someone’s sciatic nerve, which runs straight down to your leg’s back, causing discomfort all through. The ache may be sharp or dull.
- Disk herniation: Herniated discs bulge from the spine and press on spinal nerves causing pain.
- Lumbago disk problem: Wear and tear on the spinal discs (as one ages) cause this condition.
- Spondylolisthesis: It occurs when a lower back vertebra slips out of position, squeezing adjacent nerves.
How to Adjust Office Chair for Lower Back Pain
Lower back pain when sitting may not necessitate professional therapy. Frequently, you can reduce discomfort and prevent it from recurring at home. Amongst multiple remedies, setting up your chair correctly is the simplest.
How Do I Adjust My Office Chair Back Support?
A good desk chair features a contoured backrest. This cushioning should project into your low back at around waist level.
Backrest height adjustments vary. Loosen a lift or button near the backrest’s base. If there’s none, the adjustment must be a ratchet. Simply pull a click upwards as you check the position. The backrest returns to its beginning angle once it hits the peak.
In most cases, the backrest’s angle adjustment lever is to the right and has direction arrows. An ergonomic workstation encourages a relatively upright sitting posture. It is relaxing to recline the backrest while talking, during meetings, or reading from a computer monitor.
Also, read: 10 Best Office Chair for Lower Back And Hip Pain
How Should I Adjust My Office Chair for Good Posture?
Setting up your chair to lower back support doesn’t end with backrest alignment. You need a good posture which requires you to tweak other chair components as follows:
Adjust Your Chair’s Height
Height adjustment is typically on your chair’s right side with arrows up and down. Set your chair such that your elbows align with your desk’s height. Position the chair to your preferred height, then set your workstation to elbow height.
Angling the Chair Seat
The seat of an ergonomic desk chair is adjustable in height and incline. To employ these features, use the angle adjustment handle (usually in the back, right).
Sitting with your seat flat or sloping rearward is a soothing and okay position. However, it can still move you away from the workstation. Slightly angle the seat forward toward the desk. This position releases strain beneath the thighs, opens the hip angle, and optimizes back posture.
Adjusting Your Armrests
Armrests cause lousy posture if they prevent you from sitting close to your desk. If they are adjustable, place them lower than your desk’s height. This ensures you can sit near and work with your arms relaxed.
Also, read: 10 Best Office Chair with Flip-Up Arms to buy in 2022
Positioning Your Footrest
Sit back on the seat, feet planted on the ground. Good foot stability is vital for proper alignment and low back relief. A footrest helps improve your posture if your feet don’t properly rest on the ground.
What Kind of Chair Is Best for Lower Back Pain?
An office chair is best for lower back pain. A versatile office chair assists you in discovering the precise posture that works for you.
An adjustable chair can also assist in relieving back pain by allowing you to change your sitting posture more regularly. By touching a button, you effortlessly recline and lower disc pressure.
What Kind of Chair Is Good for Sciatica?
Since it’s one of the sources of back pain, an office chair is good for sciatica. Backrest angling eases the pressure on the sciatic nerve. As a result, it helps minimize pain in your lower back, down to your legs.
How Should I Sit With Lower Back Pain?
You should sit slightly reclined with lower back pain. Ensure your workplace chair’s backrest is about 100-degrees reclining or more. This way, you significantly reduce disc pressure as opposed to upright sitting.
Plant your legs on the ground with the thigh-sheen alignment at right angles. Recline to the maximum position whenever you’re free if you don’t want to move about or exercise your back a bit.
Conclusion
Once done with how to adjust office chair for lower back pain, it’s essential to give your body a break. You’ll realize that though these settings lower your back’s strain, they don’t eliminate the issue.
In between working sessions, take standing breaks. Did you know standing lowers lower back straining by up to 54%?
Alternatively, exploit the advantages of an overly reclined setup. Setting your chair to 135-degree provides an optimal position to eliminate back pain. However, you may not be able to work at such a recline.
Still, you can get or create your own supine sitting arrangement ideal for gigs like competitive gaming.
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