Is your desk rig your size?

“Well, that is a game-changer.”

I’ve heard those words several times recently while giving remote lessons to people in their home offices. While my goal in teaching is to help people understand the use of themselves — how they are thinking as they move — sometimes the game-changing information is more obvious, like, is that chair too big for you? The use of ourselves is affected by our thoughts, our structure, our history, and our furniture.

Like gravity, movement is constant. We are always moving. Even sitting, as we breathe we are constantly making small re-balancing movements. So to create the possibility of movement is to cooperate with the truth of our always-moving state. When I look at someone’s office rig, I am looking for ways to support that possibility of movement.

Here are a few things to look at in your own workspace, along with tips on no-cost solutions.

Are your knees poking up higher than your hip creases?

Could your seat be too low? This may force you to rock back on your pelvis, which will take some of the lovely curves out of your spine, which will mean you have to do something extra elsewhere to stay upright, which is tiring and might make you cranky, sore, unable to care about your work.

TIP: Try raising your seat or sitting on a cushion and see what happens. It might allow you to roll your pelvis forward a bit, bring back those lovely curves, and using your bones to hold you.

Are your shoulders creeping up toward your ears?

One desk size does not fit all. Your upper arm bones are a certain length. If your desk, or kitchen table, is too high, you might have to raise your shoulders just to get your hands to your keyboard.

TIP: See what happens if you add height to your chair seat. You may also want to add a footrest if the new chair height pulls your heels off the floor. One or two reams of paper can work nicely, or a phone book if you are so lucky to have one.

Do you keep sliding down low in your chair?

Maybe your chair is too deep for you. This is a classic one for me personally. The geometry of me just simply doesn’t match most modern furniture.

TIP: Put a bed pillow behind you vertically to effectively make your chair seat more shallow.

Or, could you be scrunching down to see your laptop? As a rule, less time scrunching is better.

TIP: See what happens if you raise your laptop closer to eye level, on a stack of books. Does it give some relief to the scrunch but cause extra work in your arms? If you have an external keyboard, use that with your elevated laptop, or switch it up during the day. Maybe you can elevate your laptop for meetings and put it back down for typedy type time.

We humans are so adaptable that sometimes we don’t notice when things aren’t working for us. Helping people make small adjustments to their workspace, in combination with learning the essential principles of Integrative Alexander Technique, is so satisfying because I know it will open up new possibilities for them in their work life. While the things I’ve talked about here are solidly in the practical realm, I hope they might help you get the most out of your workspace so that you can create, communicate, and keep moving.

Schedule a complimentary Inquiry Call to see how we might work together to get your desk rig right.