How to minimise Injury at work.

How to minimise injury at work due to sitting down too much has been a fascination if not even a frustration of mine for quite some time. I see it often with my 1:1 clients, they have  back, neck, shoulder and knee pain. I also see tight hips and painful knees. These are areas where people have symptoms / pain and there can be a range of different diagnoses. The most common ones you would hear about are herniated and bulging discs. Sciatica, shoulder impingement, bursa inflammation in shoulder and knee and patellar tendonitis. 

Injuries at work statistics. 

The Office of National Statistics show that in 2018 the second highest reason for absence of sickness from work in the UK was musculoskeletal problems. This would include back, knee, shoulder and neck pain and more. 

There is a report done by Annual of internal medicine that shows an association between prolonged sitting and premature death. Even for those who exercise regularly and I have talked about this before. Even if you exercise 60 minutes per day but sit down for the majority of the day then that has little effect on your daily movement. 

There is also more pressure on your spine and discs when sitting down compared to standing and of course lying down. No wonder we get injured from sitting down. Since most of our sitting time is related to work thats where we need to start making improvement. To minimise injury at work.

How to prevent Injuries at work.

This in theory should be an easy fix but I know it is easier said than done.

The main things I would encourage people and workplaces to implement that don’t require too much of a restructure are

• Encourage walking meetings when possible, even standing up ones.
• Desks that can be adjusted to a standing position
• Allow time for movement in the work day eg dedicated breaks
• Truly promote a healthy work life balance. 

Being injured also often results in even less movement due to fear of making it worse. 

In fact, movement is medicine. If you go to a physio they will give you some sort of exercise / movement to rehabilitate the injury and manage symptomes. There is also a gap between seeing a physio and exercising on your own, where many feel they don’t know what they can and can’t do. 

Perhaps not the most exciting post for some but really important especially now when people might sit even more in less than ideal working positions.