When diagnosing the chairs or back support items that would be best for an individual, it is best to understand how severe a person's back pain is. To simplify matters, we classify back pain into three levels: mild, medium, and severe back pain. Mild can be described as slight pain - not any which would prevent you from sitting in your chair but where you would feel slight discomfort from time to time. Mild lumbar issues or upper shoulder discomfort are the most common mild back pain symptoms.
Medium back pain is pain that requires you to get up from time to time, and re-adjust your posture. It prevents you from sitting more than 2 hours at a time on a non-ergonomic chair. Severe back pain is usually diagnosed by a chiropractor or a physician, and requires special ergonomic seating arrangements. It can be best described as constant mild pain consistently throughout the day, with flare ups in pain throughout the day. This article will emphasize mild back pain, considering almost everyone in their lifetime will suffer from mild back pain at one point or another.
Relieving mild back pain can be as simple as training the muscles around the aggravated area to support the surrounding weaker back area, or getting a good chair. The former requires alternate sitting chairs, such as the Evolution Chair by Posture Perfect, the Kore Stool, or the Saddle Stool by Office Star. As you may have noticed, all three of these items have no backrest. While this may seem counterproductive to the issue at hand, by removing the backrest, you are forcing yourself into adopting the proper posture - thus forcing your muscles learning how to sit in this position.
Remembering to sit in the proper position is key - in your initial use of these alternative sitting chairs, you may lapse in posture, but as your use of the products increases, it will become second nature. This will not only help your back but also help your overall posture while you are walking, standing and in any other position you should find yourself. There are a few key items to remember about alternative sitting chairs. The first is that your body will not be used to sitting is these chairs for an extended period of time - they are different. You will most likely be sore in various areas of your back as well, again, because they are not used to the posture. To reduce these issues, it is recommended you follow a gradual acclimation schedule, i.e. use the chair for half an hour the first day, and each day add 15 minutes until you can comfortable use the chair as your main seating utensil.
If you are not inclined to use alternative seating, then there are various things you should be looking for in a chair to relieve mild back pain. You can generally get away with any chair, but looking for a few key variables will help. A good initial feature to look for is a passive lumbar support. This means the chair should have lumbar support built in to the frame, meaning it should have an S-shaped backrest, which conforms to the S shape of your spine. By having a chair that has such contour, your back should fit well into the chair. By fitting well into the chair, you will be getting support at all the crucial points of your back, including the lumbar and the upper back - the two common mild back pain areas.
A third, more conventional way of relieving mild back pain, specifically in the lumbar region, is with the use of an add-on product, such as the Jobri Large Half-Roll Lumbar Support. A product such as this will provide additional lumbar support to the desired region. Mild back pain relief is relatively easy to deal with and is easy to overcome. As with any person with back pain, it is always recommend taking breaks from your desk to walk around and give your muscles a chance to relax.
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