CHAPTER 11
Aligning Your Office for Better Movement
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
—Annie Dillard
The average American spends 8.7 hours at work on the average workday, according the aptly named American Time Use Survey. Those precious hours in your office add up to about fourteen years and four months of your life at work!1 If how we spend our days is truly how we spend our life, it would make sense to dial in our office experience so it’s something we can look back at and say, “Heck yeah, I spent fourteen years in my office—it was the best room in the house!”
We largely still accept an antiquated story of how the office is supposed to look. An artificially lit room with a thermostat preventing your body from doing any pesky temperature regulation along with a large desk with sharp corners and lots of space for us to sign important documents, a prestigious leather chair, a few paperweights, and perhaps a trophy buck on the wall to remind you that you’re the man (or woman) of the space. This traditional office model is fighting to hang on, but I think it’s about time to put it to rest for good.
I should note, there’s another model that’s becoming increasingly popular, as well: the open floor plan. The stereotype here is a giant, wall-less room filled with long rows of dozens of employees working at their computer stations, most of whom have headphones on to cut themselves off from each other. More likely than not, though, the basic setup is still chair, screen, keyboard—just out in the open. This is a step in the right direction, but could still use a lot of improvement if the goal is healthy bodies and productive minds for employees.
We really should look on the bright side, though: The old model of extended chair sitting has served back surgeons very well. We spend approximately $90 billion annually on the diagnosis and management of low-back pain.2 Before we start making any rash decisions around enriching modern work environments with movement opportunities to heal the spines of employed people, let’s be respectful and take a moment of silence for the spine docs out there who might miss a yacht payment. All right, moment taken—let’s heal some backs!
STANDING DESK, FLOOR DESK, OR BOTH?
Sorry to break the news to you, but there is no one magic bullet position or posture that will save the world or your body. Standing desks have become misunderstood as a panacea for improving health in the workplace. The reality is that standing is just another range of motion; if done excessively, it brings a similar set of problems to the ones we were attempting to avoid with chair sitting. It should be known that the standing, or tadasana (mountain), pose in yoga is an incredibly technical position, and the value you derive from your standing desk is directly influenced by the quality of your standing mechanics.
The keys to a pain-free, flexible, and healthy body are continual postural shifts in a variety of balanced ranges of motion. If you can, I highly recommend embracing the floor culture concept discussed previously in your daily work life if it’s possible in your occupation (tag #floorculture to share your setup with the Align Community!). For those that are bound to a traditional desk to pay the bills, what follows are a few key points to optimize your movement.
Raise Your Screen Height
If your screen is low, there’s a good chance you’re practicing a postural state of depression (Mopey archetype) while at work. An aligned, upright position is linked to uplifting one’s mood and confidence, while the inverse is true with a slumped-over position. Get yourself into your most upright sitting or standing (if you have a standing desk) position and align the screen to the height of your head or even slightly above to encourage even more growth (most people literally will grow taller as they begin aligning their posture). This will be a friendly reminder to continually return your body to an upright, stacked position and start to retrain your eyes to look up instead of being glued to the ground.
Keep Your Pelvis above the Knees
If you are sitting on a chair, refer back to the principles discussed in Chapter 6—it’s your blueprint for sitting on a chair from now on. The starting point to sit functionally on a chair is to make sure your pelvis is raised above your knees, as this puts your pelvis and low back in a more balanced position by allowing you to rest on the front edge of your sit bones (ischial tuberosities).
What does it mean for your low back and pelvis to be in a more balanced position? you may ask. As we learned previously, your lowest vertebrae are actually a bit more wedge-shaped, naturally tilting your pelvis forward just a bit in a sitting position. You want to embrace that curve in the sitting position, and the seat height is a crucial part of making that happen. This will save your lumbar discs from being squished continuously throughout the workday, setting you up for a long and healthy relationship with your spine.
Eye Breaks—Get a Window
A frequently cited study published in 1984 in the Journal of Science by environmental psychologist Roger Ulrich showed the powerful healing effects of placing post-surgery patients by a bedside window exposed to leafy trees, compared to a brick wall. Patients with a view healed and were ready to be released from the hospital a full day faster on average, used less pain medication, and experienced fewer post-surgical complications.3
If you are calm, content, and living in a more parasympathetic state during your workday, you will be more productive, happier, and healthier. If relocating your office to a room with a window is not possible, make regular trips outside to recharge (or, perhaps think about changing careers). At a bare minimum, every twenty minutes or so, take an “eye break” to look to points at various distances from you to exercise your eye muscles’ full range of motion. For more on this, check out Chapter 15.
Switch Hands Regularly
Would you like to boost creativity at work while preventing wrist pain? An interesting study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General by Dr. Michael Slepian and fellow researchers found those who drew fluid lines on a computer screen with their finger, versus rigid, straight lines, experienced an increase in divergent thinking skills.4 After several repetitions of drawing these sketches, the fluid movement group experienced measurably greater creativity and cognitive flexibility. This creative ability was determined by how these fluid-drawing subjects solved problems, recommended solutions, and made abstract associations in a more creative way than their more rigid controls.
Now, while you’re at it, try compounding the fluidity of your movement by more regularly using your less dominant hand! Wrist problems have become far too common in our modern world, and repetitive stress is a major culprit. These issues can be alleviated and/or prevented entirely by expanding the range of motion on both sides of your body. Regularly add a few minutes of clicking on your computer mouse or scrolling on your phone with your non-dominant hand. By noticing how much you do with your dominant hand and making a conscious effort to make the movement fluid, which represents effective motor control, your brain and body will thank you!
Tight wrists? Try this band exercise to decompress your wrists and shoulders after working too long on a computer.
Hand Decompression
Set the Align Band up at shoulder height and place one hand at the end of the band. Open your hand wide so the band catches the edge of your palm and walk away from the door to put a stretch into the band and your shoulder and wrist. Stand tall and reach your arm out while the band provides traction on your wrist and shoulder to unwind the stress of repetitive typing or screen scrolling. Hold this stretch for about sixty seconds on each arm (or whatever feels best for you), and remember to breathe calmly, emphasizing the exhale.
THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF INCONVENIENCE
Let’s be honest, working out to stay in shape is fairly inconvenient. So are cold showers, going to a store to buy flowers for a loved one, planting a garden, traveling to arrive at the most gorgeous place you’ve ever seen, etc. It’s embracing these inconveniences of life that grants us permission to arrive at a more desirable destination fit only for those willing to put in the work to get there. We often outsource the inconvenience of simple daily movements—such as having groceries delivered so you don’t have to walk around the grocery store, using a button to open the trunk of your car instead of pulling it open with your hands, or raising your furniture to a height such that you never actually need to bend your hips below ninety degrees in any given day. The movement Western culture has done such a good job at trimming out of daily life is exactly what we’ve evolved over millennia to do, and is paramount to the workings of your physiology. We now need to supplement with obscure workouts, mainly because our daily life has been stripped of its nourishing movement variables.5
There is power in doing things the “long, hard, stupid way,” as celebrated restaurateur and proprietor of the famed Momofuku restaurant chain David Chang has suggested. Take your time to support the health of your mind and body while you’re there. You get out exactly what you put in, no more, no less—if you can find joy in the journey, life becomes a breeze.
What a person deems convenient or inconvenient is more about mind-set than the action itself. You can alter your mind to take pleasure in movement by gradually incorporating a few healthy “inconveniences” into your workday, and you’ll find they actually end up saving you time because you’ll have more energy and concentration when you go back to work. Creating more reasons to get up and take a walk during your workday, no matter how brief, instead of “efficiently” remaining seated and having the world come to you is a key to longevity, healthy body composition, and brain health. In a past Align Podcast interview, Dr. Kelly Starrett gave a simple example of how to add more health-inducing “inconvenience” to your home or office by using one common trash can in the house, causing you to naturally add extra steps to your day. Another option would be to leave your cell phone away from your working area so that each time you need to use it requires getting up for a brief walk. Such small daily steps multiplied over a year come out to some serious mileage, translating to calories burned, fat metabolized, and muscle gained. As Kelly often says, “Be consistent, then we can talk about being heroic.”
Joan Vernikos, former director of NASA’s Life Sciences Division, suggests that our bodies function optimally on continuous low-intensity movements (such as regularly getting up and down from the ground or adding more walking time to your day) instead of the breakneck transition of a predominantly sedentary day followed by a blow-out CrossFit or Soul Cycle class to make up for lost time. Simple household tasks or movement around your office, if done regularly and with care and efficient mechanics, aggregate to sustained structural change and increased energy levels with time. The key is to optimize your movement throughout the whole day.
THE PLAYFUL WORKPLACE
“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”
—Eckhart Tolle
A lot of tech companies looking to attract talented millennials are no longer focusing on only dangling high starting salaries and competitive benefits. They’re also putting in pool, air hockey, and Ping-Pong tables, laying dodgeball courts, and even building in slides that employees can use to access lower levels instead of taking the stairs. On the surface, these perks might seem like recruiting gimmicks, yet what the leaders of these companies may or may not realize is that in addition to creating a cool culture, they’re also enhancing employee performance.
“At work, play has been found to speed up learning, enhance productivity and increase job satisfaction,” Lynn Barnett, a professor of recreation, sports, and tourism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told the Washington Post.6
ALIGN YOURSELF
If you’re a manager or executive, consider how you can foster playfulness in the workplace. You don’t need to try and compete with the Googles and Facebooks of your industry—simply grabbing a dartboard or bringing in movement classes during lunchtime would make a massive difference. Not at the decision-making level? Then go to your boss and suggest ways to bring more movement and play to the office, and explain the research behind it. She will likely appreciate the idea to spark more life to the company. If she rebuts your case, you can give her a copy of this book to explain why it matters (shameless promotion, I realize).
ADDING EXTRA GRAVITY TO YOUR OFFICE—REBOUNDER
I’ll be honest, when I first heard of people using these in their offices, I found it to be cute at best. It wasn’t until I tried a good one at Aubrey Marcus’s office at Onnit HQ in Austin that I completely changed my tune. A trampoline of any sort is one incredible way to increase G-forces on the body in a joint-friendly and fun manner. Running will certainly do so, but the sad reality is few modern deskbound bodies are adequately structured to run without exacerbating pre-existing joint issues. Don’t get me wrong, running is a spectacular movement practice, but most adults just need to be retrained on how to run effectively, so their knees don’t catch fire and hips tighten up even more than all that sitting has already encouraged.
Astronauts returning home from space are found to have essentially experienced the effects of rapid aging during their gravity sabbatical. The lack of gravity sets the stage for rapid reduction in bone density, for example. On Earth, people tend to lose about 1 percent of their bone density per year after the age of twenty. Remove the continuous pressure of gravity and that number goes to about 1.6 percent per month and has been reported to be as much as 1 percent loss in a week! Joan Vernikos found the closest way to replicate the rapid aging effects of anti-gravity is to study subjects continuously lying down, because the gravitational pull is distributed across subjects’ bodies instead of pulling downward from head to toe. This is the magic of rebounding—you are stacking the body upright and piling healing G-forces through your structure repeatedly, all while smiling and taking yourself less seriously. (It’s very hard to play serious tough guy on a four-foot-wide trampoline, trust me on this.)
Regular rebounding will also circulate the clear, colorless fluid called lymph that’s responsible for flushing toxins from your body, in turn supporting your immune system and overall physiological well-being.7 Using a mini trampoline regularly has been shown to increase balance, strength, and proprioception, which is our ability to sense the orientation, position, and movement of the body and its parts. It took some time to win me over, but I’ve come around, and a rebounder in your office is Align approved. If you don’t have access to a rebounder, any form of jumping around will do the trick but will not be nearly as fun as a mini trampoline in your office. Happy bouncing!
Alignment Assignment
If you do any work from a laptop, bring it to the ground by placing your computer on a low table, chair, couch, or on the floor. Grab some cushions to raise your butt up while you sit for comfort and to put your spine into a more aligned position. Be sure to alternate sitting positions every ten or so minutes to keep your body moving while you work. If working from the ground is not an option, get yourself a chair large enough so you can cross your legs and throw a cushion under your butt to raise your hips as though you’re sitting on the floor.
If you are using a standing desk, try this technique to work on your Aligned Standing position: Start by spreading your toes open wide and imagine your big toe, pinky toe, and both sides of your heels are being subtly pulled in all four directions. Then imagine you have a magnetic pull tugging your big toe to the inside of your heel and pinky toe to the outside of your heel, activating both medial (inside) and lateral (outside) arches of the foot.
Alternate between lifting all your toes from the ground as high as you can and grasping them against the ground, while maintaining solid contact with all four “corners” of the feet. If this feels easy, play with doing so while standing on one foot at a time, by subtly plugging your standing leg into the ground, elongating from the hip, and causing the opposite side leg to lift slightly (imagine you’re growing your femur out from the hip socket). It’s a great, discreet way to work on your own self-care in public without being “that guy” doing downward facing dogs in the middle of a wedding.
