ARE YOU A DESK JOCKEY?
Strange phrase I know and one I never thought I would ever call myself. However circumstances changed and I found myself stuck behind a desk staring at a large or in some cases two screened computer. For most of my life I have been highly active, dancing five to six times a week and never really sitting in one place at a time. This was all to change as I a took a role in a reception in London. For the first few weeks I managed to cope with being stationary, I was lucky as my role did give me the opportunity to move around the site. However after a few months I began to see a change in my body (which I have to admit began to challenge my dancers body).
Sitting in a seat which didn't support my back and looking at a screen that was too low for my eyes resulted in one thing PAIN IN MY BODY. I am a great moaner so excuse the ramble, but gosh hips began to hurt from sitting for ages, I developed pain in my back in-between my shoulder blades, neck strain and worst of all a constant pain in my lower back. The mobile body I once had slowly began to stiffen up, creak and crack.
This got me wondering, there I was moaning about my body but what about the people who have been doing this for years, sat in one position for hours on end and never counteracting this by moving their body. If my body had changed in the space of a year what would someone elses body be like if the person had been static for years? It was a scary thought and one which was confirmed to me, when a sports massage therapist explained one of her clients had been working behind a desk for 16 years. Working 12 to 13 hour days without hardly moving, not leaving the desk for lunch breaks etc. As a result his body had stiffened up so much that he was unable to rotate his torso to the right. This completely shocked me, even more so as the work force has become more demanding we have forgotten that our body is a machine. It needs to be fuelled correctly rather than a quick fast meal at lunch or ever worse on the go. That the body needs to MOVE, walking to the toilet does not count! That we need regular breaks to move get away from the screens and be active.
Having experienced this first hand and noticing how quickly my body began to change really shocked me, that people are not aware of what they are doing to their bodies. I wish sometimes I could just go into these big firms in London and equip them with the knowledge of what they are putting their employees through (ok rant over). But seriously something needs to be done, I don't know how many reports I have found myself reading about being a nation with back problems, sat at a desk all day or worse hunched over our mobile phones, Ipads and laptops. For me the importance of my yoga practice to look after and strengthen my body has been a saviour. If I could pass this on to office workers it would be look after YOUR BODY. We only get one and it has to last us a life time!
Take time out to have a massage to ease out tension in your back or aim for a regular yoga practise. These are all ways to help ease the pain that can occur for sitting for long periods of time. RANT OVER ahah, but I would love to know what you think if you work in an office for hours on end. How has this effected you?
