Caring For Your Working Body

Like many of you, last year I found myself sitting at a desk many more hours than I was used to. I normally worked in a classroom where I would stand, make all kinds of gestures, and move around the room quite a bit. Switching to online teaching and other online administrative work has been a big lifestyle change. Can you relate?

After a few weeks of increased sitting and computer use I started to get headaches and wrist pain. More than ever, I had to think about how I was using my body while I was working in order to feel good at the end of the day.

Here are some ways I’ve been caring for my working body:

Set-Up

Notice how you sit in your chair to do your computer work. Do you look down to see your computer? Do you have to raise your shoulders to reach your keyboard? What shapes do you make with your hand and wrist to click?

Some tips for set up:

you don’t want to look like this :)

• Shoulders: Have an external keyboard on a rolling tray so that your shoulders can rest.

• Neck and Eyes: If you have a laptop, set it on top of something so that you’re looking at eye-level. There are special computer stands, or a stack of books is fine!

Wrists: Use an old-fashioned mouse, laptop mouse pads require a lot of repetitive fine movements of the wrists and fingers which are strenuous for little muscles.

Back: Sit with both feet on the floor with your hips making a 90 degree angle, or have your knees higher than your hips. If your feet don’t touch, you can use a stool, firm pillow or other improvised box-like-thing to give your feet something to rest on. That’s what I do because I’m short :) Some people also like to sit on a stool so that you’re back is engaged and not in a slouched, compressed position. Try to sit on your sitz bones. I tend to alternate between a chair and stool throughout the day, I am also a big fan of variety, change your position often.

Eyes and Light:

How are you using your eyes while you work? I’ve learned from Feldenkrais that the organization of our eyes has an effect on the muscle tone and functioning of the rest of the body. Stress and strain with the eyes has an impact. My headaches have gone away and I think it’s a lot due to supporting my eyes while working

Some tips for your eyes:

• Try to use natural light as much as possible, sit by a window! If you’re working after dark (which hopefully you don’t have to do too much!) light up your space well

• Enlarge text on your screen

• Adjust your computer lighting, I use a free program called f.lux, which is free, which automatically makes changes the lighting of my computer after to dark to reduce eye-strain

• Vary your eye movements: Periodically look at things that are far away from you to give your eyes the opportunity to focus in a different way, and to rest the close focus strain. Close and rest your eyes as well.

• Get your eyes checked and make sure you don’t need prescription glasses

Play + Outside Breaks

Taking breaks is so essential!! It’s easy sometimes to take breaks that are not restorative. I like to ask myself, what is the quality of the energy I need? Do I need to rest down or energy up? I am also a huge fan of setting a timer so that you can really drop-in to your break. How about 5 minutes (at least) per hour that you sit? Some ideas to support your breaks:

• Play a song and get up and dance or shake

• Go outside!

• Move your body in asymmetrical creative ways

• Sit and look out the window, set a timer and do nothing else

• Lie on the floor and feel your breath

• Sigh, make sounds with your voice, allow your voice to explore different vowels and pitches

• Make a doodle, play with colors

• Organize or clean something in your room or home

• Do a food project

• Talk to a friend *but first pause and check-in to see if this is a restorative act, or an avoidant act. Sometimes I notice I reach out to someone through a text or call simply to avoid slowing down or feeling something that’s going on underneath. I have to be careful that I don’t reach out compulsively, as it’s not always the thing that makes me feel refreshed.

What are your break habits? What options are there? Do you need verbal or non-verbal time? Creative and expansive or organized and settled? Do you need to share your process or be quiet?

Focus and Time Management

One of the most practical ways to care for my working body is to spend less time working. So, what makes me sit at my desk longer than I need to? Checking my phone and email. I constantly get distracted, and then have to re-orient to the original task which takes more energy and makes my work take longer.

• Phone Discipline: Some phones have a feature called ‘screen time’ which will actually tell you how much time you have used your phone and how many times you have picked it up during the day. I find this information both fascinating and horrifying. Here are some ways that I continue to work at fighting the addiction of my phone:

  • I don’t use my phone from 10pm to 10am. 

  • I got a watch! Now I can go for walks, eat my meals, set an alarm, and set a timer without looking at my phone. Being able to leave the presence of my phone has been a revelation! I try to walk every day, even for 20 minutes without my phone, it gives me an opportunity to be with my thoughts without constantly acting on them. I am imagining my mom reading this, or anyone else from an older generation who didn’t grow up with cellphones and how this must seem so obvious. I know, I know, and the addiction is real! I actually have to set these kinds of intentions to help break the habit of picking up my phone so many times an hour. 

  • I put my phone out of sight, put it in my drawer, leave it in a different room.

  • I recognize that when I reach for my phone, for no other reason than to check to see if anything new has arrived, I am distracting myself from a feeling of the present moment. Sometimes I can catch myself as I am doing it and say to myself, “I’m avoiding a feeling” or “I’m avoiding doing what I have to do right now,” and this little moment of awareness helps me put it down and get back to my intention

  • I turn off sounds and notifications on my phone so that nothing flashes up at me when I am focused.

• Healthy Boundaries: Making clear healthy boundaries actually gives me MORE energy to focus when I am working.

  • Set time parameters around your work, focus during that time and then take a break. Make sure there are times during the day and weekends, when you’re not working or thinking about work. This is quite a dance when working at home. Going to a physical place and then leaving at the end of the work day is much clearer. How can you create a separation  between home headspace and work headspace?

  "For proper functioning, all nervous structure needs full activity followed by full rest." -Moshe Feldenkrais

  These are all suggestions based on my own experience of working from home. Most importantly I invite you to tune into what would feel like caring for YOUR working body? Stop, pause, feel, inquire, like we do in an Awareness Through Movement Lessons ®. Are you breathing? Could you reduce your effort? Are you over-working? Where can you soften and let go? 

If you’d like to explore these questions, address habitual patterns and carve out spacious time in your week to Care for Your Working Body, check out the Feldenkrais Series:
The Antidote to Working at Home. Series BONUS includes take-a-break scores with instructions to help you connect to yourself and creativity every week. 

Resources: Check out this Fresh Air Episode with Terry Gross: Busting Myths About Exercise to learn more about sitting, and working at home from Paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman.