Back Pain from Sitting in Office Chair

Back pain from sitting in an office chair can be alleviated through methods such as adjusting sitting posture, taking regular breaks, applying heat therapy, strengthening the back muscles, using medications, and performing relief exercises.

1. Adjust sitting posture: Maintain the natural physiological curvature of the lumbar spine. Choose a chair with a backrest and support your waist with a soft pillow. Keep your feet flat on the ground and your knees at a 90-degree angle with your hip joints. Avoid sitting in a hunched or forward-leaning position for long periods. Use an ergonomic lumbar support when working at the office and make slight adjustments to your sitting posture every 30 minutes to reduce pressure on the lumbar spine.
2. Take regular breaks: Sitting continuously for more than 1 hour can easily lead to impaired blood circulation in the waist. It is recommended to get up and move around for 3 - 5 minutes every hour. You can perform gentle waist rotations, side bends, or engage in low-intensity activities such as standing against a wall or taking a short walk to promote blood circulation in the waist and relieve muscle tension.
3. Apply heat therapy: For chronic strain-related back pain, apply a warm towel at around 40°C to the waist for 15 - 20 minutes, 2 - 3 times a day. Heat therapy can dilate blood vessels and accelerate the removal of metabolic waste. Combining it with gentle massage yields better results. However, note that for acute sprains, cold compresses should be applied within the first 48 hours, and then heat therapy can be used later. The choice of physiotherapy equipment should be made according to a doctor's advice.
4. Strengthen the back muscles: It is recommended to perform core muscle group training such as the Superman, bridge, and plank exercises every day for 10 - 15 minutes each time. The Cat-Cow pose in swimming and yoga can also enhance the endurance of the back muscles and improve the stability of the lumbar spine. Exercise should be progressive to avoid aggravating injuries with strenuous activities. Patients with osteoporosis need to adjust the intensity.
5. Use medications: When the pain is significant, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as diclofenac sodium sustained-release tablets and celecoxib capsules can be used as prescribed by a doctor, or topical flurbiprofen gel patches can be applied. Patients with muscle spasms can take methocarbamol tablets in combination, and patients with osteoporosis need to use anti-osteoporosis drugs such as alendronate sodium tablets in combination. All medications should be used after excluding contraindications.
6. Perform relief exercises: Exercises such as pelvic tilts, lunges with hip opening, seated twists, abdominal stretches, child's pose with left and right stretches, and one-minute relief exercises can all help relieve waist pain. These exercises can stretch and relax different parts of the waist, reducing muscle tension.