How’s your posture? Maybe more importantly, how’s your posture when you’re working at your desk, computer, or workstation? With the invention of said things, our bodies are enduring physical stress that is becoming all too common. Every day, I think I see these physical stressors over time add up to spinal pain, as well as tension headaches and postural fatigue (to name a couple). How do we help with this?
One of the things that I enjoy to do is go into offices and do ergonomics evaluations of work stations. I enjoy these because they are fairly simple modifications in ones work station that can make a big impact on how someone feels while their working. Now, it’s not always easy, because some objects aren’t movable at a work station, so you have to creative at times and understand what your goal is.
One rule that I always keep is mind is what I call the “90 degree” rule. This is a reminder that when you’re sitting at your desk, try and keep your joints at a 90 degree angle as close as possible (with the exception of your wrists). Why? When we talk about our muscles.. most muscles have another muscle that does the opposite. So when one muscle is shortened, another one is probably lengthened. We want to balance this out so both are at equal lengths. Idealy, this helps with chronic muscle lengthening and tightening. Also, don’t be afraid to get up and walk around every 60-90 minutes. Our bodies love moving around.
You have any questions or would like us to evaluate your work station, give Allied Chiropractic a call at (320)251-6422 and we can work together as a team to get your work station set up ergonomically.
Healthy Regards,
Dr. D and Staff
The age-old question, “Should I use ice or heat?” I think I hear this question just about every day. Being in a relatively northern climate in Minnesota, people LOVE heat. We don’t like ice up this way. We live in and around ice around 6 months out of the year. But with heat, we can’t get enough of it. We’re the tourists in Florida and Arizona in the winter wearing shorts when it’s 50 degrees during winter. So when my patients injure themselves, they typically try heat first before ice. As they are using heat, they leave it on for a long time, and start feeling pretty good. Afterwards though is typically a different story. When heat is applied to an injured area, blood flow then increases to the area, and along with blood comes inflammation and swelling. With ice, the cold constricts blood flow and helps to rid the inflammation and swelling. Don’t get me wrong, the inflammation and swelling is there for a reason, which is to help the body heal itself. But it’s important to control the inflammation and swelling so they don’t do more harm than good, especially in the acute injury phase (24-72 hours after trauma). So clinically, when I have a new patient, I typically have them start with ice first. As a clinic, we have our patients do 5 minutes on, 10 minutes off, and repeat for an hour, 1-2 times a day. I also make sure that patients give ice a good chance to work. This isn’t totally a concrete rule by any means. Traditionally, the rule as been ice acute or new injuries, and use heat for chronic or ongoing injuries. I’ve told patients to use heat also, however, the use of ice for our clinic works pretty well as a general rule. So, next time you grab for that heating pad right away, think twice, and maybe think ice!!!!
