Easy Ways To Improve Computer Posture

Here is a dead easy way to automatically improve your posture (and circulation) while sitting at the computer.

EASY & EFFECTIVE | The consensus among pundits is that those of us who sit for a living all day—and then go home after work and sit some more—are killing ourselves prematurely. One way to combat this all this sitting, they say, is to engage our muscles and improve our circulation by doing our work standing up.

Standing desks are a possible solution for sure, but all standing and no sitting is not always practical, or even appropriate in some work environments. A height-adjustable work surface that allows you to alternate between sitting and standing could be a good way to go, but let’s face it, height-adjustable desks are expensive, and who knows whether they would be used as they were intended once the novelty wears off.

While there is no single cure for all the internal jamming done by logging endless hours in the saddle, there are two easy things you can do to automatically improve your posture—and by consequence increase your circulation overall—while sitting in front of a computer.

The Eyes Have It

The first one is to raise your monitor up off the top of your desk so that you are viewing the screen at eye level. (For me this amounts to six inches. Right now, I have my unit sitting on top of a sturdy Sophie Conran Portmeirion box, but I intend to replace this makeshift apparatus with a commercial product—CLICK HERE to see a range of offerings.) The second thing you need to do is raise your feet off the ground a few inches.

The combination of these two pursuits will ensure you sit more erectly. And this, in turn, will take weird pressure off your spine and shoulders, plus open your core area to allow for improved circulation.

There are other things you can do to increase the odds of living long despite doing computer work, and I like the way this Atlantic magazine cartoon addresses them. —Ruth Rainey