I like yoga and there are plenty of YouTube instructions on this topic. But I miss the scientific take on the problem, what kind of exercise really works? How do you as office workers deal with reducing this type of problems?
Ask HN: How do you deal with neck and back pain?
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Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with neck and back pain?
#2Basic idea is to use more your back muscles. This is done by doing exercises aimed at using them.
Note that they are gentle exercises.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with neck and back pain?
#3Basically is a combination of bad posture + overcompensating the lack of strength/flexibility of some muscles. For checking specific exercises, Athlean-X usually gives good explanations while proposing specific exercises https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWmGArQBtFI
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with neck and back pain?
#4Ergonomic seating and table. In Germany there's is a law that forces employers to buy ergonomic stuff.
Proper seating and the proper height of the working table and the height of the monitor. Since that, I don't have backpain not neck pain
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with neck and back pain?
#5I find that general light exercise helps. Also changing to a split keyboard has really helped my posture (moving the two halves of the keyboard apart stops me hunching over the keyboard).
Also look at what you're doing with you legs. If you're crossing them then you'll be affecting the position of you hips, which in turn affects your back.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with neck and back pain?
#6Reducing shouldn’t be the goal. I don’t think there’s any reason office workers in the richer parts of the world should have neck or back pain.
Get a decent chair and desk setup, and regularly get out of that chair (in my completely unfounded opinion, a bad chair that you frequently get out of is better than a good one hat you sit in for hours at an end)
And get some exercise outside working hours (if you don’t really have ‘outside working hours’, that’s the first thing to fix)
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with neck and back pain?
#7Highly recommend this reading as quite often particularly back pain is a mind body issue with some form of stress such as financial or relationship. https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Back-Pain-Mind-Body-Connectio...
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with neck and back pain?
#8Exercise is key and the more varied the better.
If this is lower back pain then I recommend getting a foam roller and rolling the back of the thighs.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with neck and back pain?
#9Decent experienced massage therapist has made a dramatic difference for me.
Also gravity boots from time to time and basic stretching.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with neck and back pain?
#10I have empirically observed that talking with friends about problems, meditation, and other things that help me carry less stress in my body significantly reduces or eliminates my back and neck pain. My hypothesis is that my back and neck muscles have nervous tissue in them and the level of muscle tension is influenced by the state of my brain.
The body keeps the score.