Seattle Chiropractor Discusses the Proper Seating Posture For Sitting At A Desk

Hi, I’m Dr. Zapata with Seattle's Emerald City Spinal Care, and I’m here today to share another Tip of the Week. As a chiropractor in Seattle and being situated so closely to so many major tech companies (like Amazon, Microsoft and Google to name a few), I often see people who come in suffering from back, shoulder and neck pain which they often times will attribute to sitting at a desk all day.

So, with this in mind, I wanted to focus this Tip of the Week on a question I get asked almost every single day, which is “what is the proper posture I should be using while sitting at a desk”. So, this week I am going to go over seven specific things to consider when thinking about your sitting posture at your desk.

• The first is, you want to make sure that your computer monitor is at roughly arm’s length. This helps to ensure that you don’t sit hunched over, with your face only a few inches from your monitor.
• The next is shoulder position. It is important to have your shoulders relaxed while you are seated at your desk. In order to achieve this, you will want to shrug your shoulders to your ears, and then gently relax them down and back. This will ensure that your shoulders are at an ideal position while you are sitting at your desk.
• Make sure your pelvis is in a neutral position. If your pelvis is tilted too far forward, then your shoulders will be very tense. If your pelvis is tilted too far back, your shoulders will be rounded forward.
• Make sure that your forearms are parallel to the floor.
• You want to make sure that your knees are bent at a 90 to 110 degree angle.
• Keep your feet flat on the floor. Even if that means putting something underneath them. If you are one who has a standing desk, and you have a tall stool that you sit on, you will want to make sure that you are using the foot plate or the foot bar to rest your feet on.
• Last, but also one of the most important things to consider when you are sitting at a desk all day, is to ensure that you are moving every 30 minutes to an hour. Get up, move around, stretch. This will help to reset your spine so that muscles do not get too tight or tense.

For all you people out there taking care of business at a desk all day in Seattle, this tip was for you, we hope you enjoyed it! For more original content, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel or you can follow us on Facebook, where we post updated tips each week, plus a whole lot of additional content!

Thank you and have an amazing week!

- Zapata and the Emerald City Spinal Care Team