Researchers find out that excessive sitting can cause a lot of health problems, mainly heart disease and diabetes type 2. It’s no wonder. Our bodies are not made for excessive seating, nor is it made for excessive standing. Balance is the key to achieve a healthy body even while we work a nine-to-five desk job.

Leg Cramps

When your legs are dangling off your chair, it is most likely that you’ll suffer from leg cramps. This also puts pressure on your back, which contributes to that back pain you’re most likely suffering on a daily basis. Buy footstools online so that you can prop up your legs and prevent the cramps. Worried that your bosses might think that you’re getting too relaxed at work? Explain your condition to them. If they are truly concerned about their employees’ well-being, they’ll even be supportive and maybe buy everyone a footstool.

Back Pain

The length of your back should be supported by a chair so that you can easily sit upright. Use a lumbar pillow to support your lower back if there’s a gap between it and the back of your chair. This will also prevent you from crouching down and having poor posture. Routinely, you can alleviate muscle tension by rocking your pelvis back and forth, tilting your hips up, and rounding your back. This form of exercise will help loosen up some of those back muscles that get knotted because of too much sitting.

Wrist and Arm Strain

Your arms and wrists suffer a lot when you have a desk job. Either you’re typing non-stop all day or you are clicking on the mouse and track pad. Both of these activities contribute to carpal tunnel syndrome. To loosen up the tension from your wrists and arms, you can do some circular arm movements while you’re sitting on your office chair. As for your wrists, bring your hands together and stretch your arms (pulling a little on your wrists) above your head or in front of your chest.

Eye Strain

This is probably the most common effect of working before a computer all day. As a general rule, the screen should be 20 to 40 inches away from your eyes. You should also put a filter on your screen and make sure that your glasses (if you’re wearing a pair) have UV protection. Visit your ophthalmologist regularly to check whether you have the right prescription glasses for your desk job. Eye strain can lead to serious problems when you put too much pressure on your eyes.

Neck and Shoulder Pain

While it’s tempting to take ibuprofen to relieve the pain from your neck and shoulders, a more effective method to deal with it is to do some neck exercises. Simply tilting your neck left and right can relieve a lot of tension from it. You can also make some shoulder rolls to get the muscles unknotted.

Aside from doing a lot of stretches while you’re sitting on your office chair, you could also make it a point to do some exercises at home or in the gym. These exercises are designed to prepare your body for eight hours of a sedentary lifestyle. Also, it would do you good to mingle with co-workers in the lounge during break time to stretch your legs and relieve eye strain.