Ergonomic Chairs
for Poor Posture

Poor posture at a workstation or office desk can affect the human body in more ways than just aches and pains. It can affect other organs and body systems of which poor posture’s effect are not often considered.

Over time, sitting with a slouching posture at a workstation can affect the throat. When a person slouches in their chair, their head and neck juts forward, creating “forward head posture”. Given enough time and enough postural distortion, the actual throat can distort. This may, in turn affect speech, swallowing chewing, breathing and coughing.

Forward head posture may also reduce circulation to the brain by compressing the vertebral arteries following up the neck. Good blood flow is essential for efficient concentration at a workstation.

When sitting on the sacrum (tailbone), instead of a properly seated position of on the ischial tuberosities (butt bone), the pelvis quickly resorts to a posterior pelvic tilt. This results in heavy slouching in the office chair, creating a thoracic kyphosis (hunchback). Unfortunately, such an extreme posture is common, and it negatively impacts the lungs in such a way as to decrease breathing capacity, impair the ability to cough effectively, and promote a habit of “shallow breathing”, possibly affecting the heart.

The slumping posture explained above also causes increased pressure inside the thorax. As the intestines are pushed upwards when sitting in a slouched position, they press on the diaphragm, again influencing breathing function in a negative manner. As the intestinal tract is continually compressed during chronic poor seating posture, poor digestion with constipation may develop.

The ability to sit-up straight with minimal effort on your part allows the bones of your body (rather than your muscles) to support your body weight. Ultimately, this can reduce the amount of muscular pain in the back of the neck and between the shoulder blades (i.e. “computer neck”).

In addition to the benefits of reducing pain of a muscular nature, the use of an ergonomic chair which maintains neutral skeletal alignment can decrease pain, decrease fatigue, and increase function of the inner organs.

Most people suffering from ergonomic muscle pain are probably using cheap office chairs which pay little attention to lumbar support or adjustability for proper height. Most employers who buy an office chair for their employee workstations think about price as a primary consideration.

It is true. The quality ergonomic chairs can be expensive; however, they are manufactured to extremely high standards of quality and meant to last a lifetime. Most importantly, these computer chairs are designed with the best ergonomic features to provide long hours at a workstation without muscular pain.

Surprisingly, what I found was that the most expensive office chair was not necessarily the best ergonomic chair available. I found Office Depot's Ashton Fabric Task Chair to have the best lumbar support of all the computer and task chairs I tried. While the chair does have a faux suede cover on the cushion surfaces, it keeps me sitting in a neutral postural alignment while sitting at my computer at home. The height is adjustable which is an essential feature when choosing an ergonomic computer chair.

I already see the benefits of using this chair over my old high-back executive desk chair I had for so long. My posture has become better, my computer fatigue has lessened and my “computer” neck and shoulder tightness has diminished substantially.

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