The Ultimate Guide to Preventing Back Pain for Writers and Desk Workers

Learn 3 Essential Ergonomic Strategies to Prevent Back Pain for Writers

We don't typically think of writing as a backbreaking activity, but many of you reading this would probably beg to differ.

There are many mechanisms by which an activity can lead to back pain, and writers are very susceptible to one of these.

The most common mechanism by which writers (and desk workers in general) develop back pain is through spending too much time in prolonged postures.

First, let's get something clear...

There is no perfect posture.

Every posture has its upsides and its downsides. Every posture is placing more stress on certain tissues and structures compared to others.

When we feel the need to move or adjust our posture, this is our bodies' way of telling us that certain tissues have had enough and it's time to make someone else pick up the slack for a while.

You may have already spent hours building out the ergonomic setup of your dreams. While I am certainly not suggesting that was wasted effort, sitting even in a “perfect” posture for a long enough period of time will eventually lead to stress concentrations in certain tissues.

Don't believe me? Give it a go. Force yourself to remain in that one “perfect” posture for as long as you can. Eventually you will start to develop pain somewhere as a result of the stress this prolonged posture is placing on certain tissues.

So how do we avoid back pain as writers?

We need to implement strategies that regularly migrate these stress concentrations so we can avoid over-stressing particular tissues in ways that lead to injuries and pain.

After all, how effectively will you be able to follow your passion if every time you sit down to write you're in agony?

If you can't look after your own health and happiness, your writing will be good to no one.

My Top 3 Strategies to Avoid Back Pain as a Writer

Back pained writers sometimes find themselves at a bit of an impasse.

You work hard to develop the ability to get into a flow state with your writing, with a true flow state involving a total loss of your sense of time. Hours pass as your mind and fingers meld in a beautiful and friction-less symbiotic relationship.

You have probably had an experience where you suddenly notice the room getting a littler darker. You look outside and realise the sun is setting. The entire afternoon passed by in an instant and you didn't even consider if you needed to eat...drink...use the bathroom...or MOVE.

This is a beautiful experience and if I were to suggest you avoid it, you would probably stop reading this immediately. So I am not going to do that. And I hope you are not experiencing some significant back pain issue that prevents you from having some long writing sessions like this.

I will suggest however, that when not in a flow state you should implement a regular practice of the following strategies. Doing so would enhance your capacity to sit for a long period of time when you actually do get into a flow state!

So take care of your body, keeping it healthy and capable so you can make use of it when you need it.

1. Motion is Lotion

Nothing beats regular movement to support our health in a myriad of ways, including mitigating physical stress concentrations and keeping our spines happy.

It doesn't need to be complicated. Walking is a core component of my treatment for almost every back pained client I see.

Walking is very therapeutic to our spines, which shouldn't be surprising really. It may perhaps be the most fundamental physical activity we perform. It might be the one activity we are the most optimised for. It certainly is not up for debate that it is almost always a beneficial activity for us to perform.

Take regular breaks from your writing to go for a walk. Make walking a default activity you turn to when you need to step away. Whenever you hit a mental block and want to give yourself a break, go for a walk! Even a few minutes at a time can go a long way.

2. Do the Opposite

Writing usually involves a lot flexion (forward bending) or ‘hunched’ postures. In fact, even if you think you are sitting with good posture, the bottom of our lumbosacral spine is essentially always in some amount of flexion when sitting in a conventional chair.

Remember, spend enough time in any one posture and eventually it will cause you problems. We can mitigate the issues of prolonged flexion postures in our spine by taking purposeful breaks to do the opposite. That is, to extend our spines.

An effective strategy that is used when improving the safety of workplaces that involve a lot of manual labour is to develop systems that break activities up and avoid a worker performing repeated movements and postures.

This is sometimes something as simple as switching from performing X task for 2 hours then Y task for 2 hours, to performming X for 1, Y for 1, X for 1, Y for 1 instead. I am obviously leaving out plenty of nuances here in workplace health and safety, but you get the concept. Simple changes like this can often greatly reduce the risk of an injury occurring.

While writing may not be as physically demanding as manual labour, it does still come with physical risks. So we should mitigate them in just the same way.

My favourite option for a writer is to make use of the following standing extension stretch every 20 or 30 minutes. Here's how to do it:

1. Stand up and raise your arms over your head. Hold them there for 10 seconds.

2. Then extend your arms further back and push your palms up toward the ceiling. Hold this for another 10 seconds.

3. While keeping your arms pressing up to the sky, extend your neck to also look up towards the ceiling. Hold this for a final 10 seconds.

Take a deep breath and feel your chest and rib cage lift. Then exhale, lower your arms and allow your body to relax into a nice upright posture.

This simple 30-second strategy helps to extend and decompress your spine. It "neutralises” some of the stress certain structures were experiencing from the prolonged flexion posture you have been in.

3. Regular Posture Alterations

The core concept remains the same here. You are probably beginning to get a good grasp on the importance of changing our posture regularly. Let's just add some specific strategies to make it more intentional.

Standing desks are great, but most don't know the real reason why. I hope you now know having read this far into the article.

It isn't that standing is somehow magically better for your health than sitting. Too much of either can potentially lead to problems. But in particular, having a standing desk that moves up and down and promotes you to alter your posture more regularly throughout the day is a huge boost for many in supporting their spine health.

A chair can funnily enough be used for the same purpose. Not every chair, but some. Many ergonomic chairs have functions to change various adjustments like seat depth, lumbar support, seat tilt, back tilt, etc.

These adjustments are helpful to find the posture you feel most comfortable in, sure. But remember, that “perfect” posture isn't going to stay perfect forever. So don't feel bad about mixing it up throughout the day and playing around with these adjustments. These chairs allow you to significantly vary your posture while still remaining supported.

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Finally, you're a writer! So use your creativity and develop movement and posture change strategies that suit you. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Feel empowered to design health practices that support your career, and please share any unique strategies you're using with other writers in the comments!