Ask any writer what hurts, and many will say it's all about back, neck and shoulder pain.
I worked in the corporate world for 13 years as a cubicle slave, and back pain and headaches were always a problem. After all, we're not meant to sit down all day, hunched over a desk, typing or writing. It's just not what we are meant to do as humans.
When I left my job to become a full-time author-entrepreneur, my hours in the chair expanded. I was writing more, but there was also email, social media, and all the associated admin work that goes along with being a writer.
About a year into writing full-time, the pain got so bad that I was waking at night, unable to sleep because my lower back was keeping me awake. I was popping painkillers every day just to keep functioning. When I (finally) went to the doctor, he said that the night pain was a red flag and immediately sent me for tests, especially as there are spinal tumors in my family history.
It was a worrying time, but I had the scans, and everything was fine. There wasn't anything wrong with me, so they sent me to the physiotherapy team, who gave me some exercises to do. They weren't very effective, but at least it began my journey to a pain-free back, and five years later, I am almost pain-free – if I keep up the maintenance.
Here are the things I've done to get rid of the pain and live a more functional life.
Ergonomic assessment at my home office
Those of you who have worked in the corporate world will know of the ergonomic assessment. Someone comes around to your desk and moves your chair up and down and takes pictures and gives suggestions. To be honest, I'd never taken it that seriously when I worked in my previous company, but this time I was very motivated, and you can hire someone who can come around to your house to set up your home office as a freelancer.
At the time, I was just using a basic office chair and a laptop on a desk with a couple of books underneath and a wireless keyboard. Of course, I work in cafés as well, but if you know the principles, you can apply them wherever you are. These are the changes I made out of that first assessment which might also help you.
Screen height
If you're using a laptop, get a stand for it so your eyes are level with the top of the screen. Check the position of your neck, as if you are looking down too much, your neck muscles are hyper-extended and there's pressure on your shoulders and arms. Use a separate keyboard so you can have your arms at the right level.
Sit / stand desk
I moved from a static desk to a desk that moves up and down. Two years later, the motor broke down so I now use a wooden 'topper' which I know will never break down! (Mine is from StandStand.com.) There are also portable options so it can be used in cafés if you don't mind looking a bit weird. I do all my podcasting standing up, whether it's my own show or other interviews, so I probably do 1-2 hours most weekdays standing up.
Swiss ball
This won't be for everyone, but I moved from a chair to a Swiss ball, which has several benefits. It's wobbly so you have to make micro movements to stay on the ball which keeps the back mobile. You can also lean back and stretch while thinking about things or taking micro-breaks. I've found that the most important stretches for me are reversing the hunch by leaning back over the ball and raising my arms over my head, so I do that several times a day.
Go ambi-mouse-trous
I'm not sure that's a real word, but being ambidextrous with a mouse can be useful if you are getting pain in your wrist, elbow or arm in general, as it could be the beginnings of repetitive strain injury (RSI) or even carpal tunnel. I got a left-hand mouse and learned to use it so I could shift between one hand and the other to lessen the pain in my right forearm.
I was also going to the gym and taking walking breaks, which all helped a little, but after two years, I was still getting pain.
We often put up with pain because we think it's normal, an acceptable part of the job. But it's not acceptable. We don't have to just live with the pain. There are things we can do to make our writing lives easier and more sustainable.
Physiotherapy
I went to see a new physio. After examining me, she said that the RSI in my arm was not so much my mouse or anything like that. It was tension in my back, so we started to work on functional movements. If you've been to a physio, you'll know it can be a painful process, but it loosened things up, and I had periods without pain. I learned stretches that would help me keep the pain in check, and I started walking more regularly and for longer. But the pain still hadn't gone away completely, and I didn't want to rely on regular physio, so I looked for other options.
Walking
I've always enjoyed walking and started to increase the length of my walks as I focused on my physical health. When we moved to Bath, I added in a longer walk every Sunday, as when I'm at home, I tend to work all the time – the dangers of a home office! So getting out the house helped in multiple ways. Now I do a regular 4-5 hour walk every week, as well as longer multi-day walking holidays and ultra-marathons, detailed further in Chapter 2.12. The physical exertion of walking longer distances refreshes me in so many ways and is now an important part of my life.
Walking is great, but it's not stretching and can actually add pain in the back, so I needed something more.
Yoga
I had tried yoga a number of times before, usually at the gym, but I'd always felt out of place. I'm not a slender Instagram-yoga-body woman, so I felt clumsy and had given it up every time I'd tried over a period of around eight years. It had never stuck, but so many people recommended yoga as a sustainable practice for back pain that I was ready to try again.
This time I went to a yoga school, an actual place dedicated to different forms of yoga, not a gym where it was one of many classes on offer. I started with gentle yoga, aka the remedial class, which was full of people like me, of all different ages, who could barely move. At that point, I couldn't sit cross-legged, even on a number of blocks and I found it difficult to bend over and touch my feet, one of the basic aspects of the sun salutation. There were a lot of functional problems with my body.
But as I started to go to these gentle yoga classes, the pain began to lessen significantly, and my RSI disappeared. As I progressed to the normal classes and increased the number of times I went, my pain almost completely disappeared.
Yoga has been a miracle for me and is now an integral part of my life, for the physical movement aspect and maintenance of my body, but also for the space to breathe. If you want to try it, then I recommend you go to a specific yoga school rather than a gym, because they will have sessions that will suit you as a beginner.
One of the marvels of yoga is the spinal twist, which, if you don't know any yoga, is not as painful as it sounds. There are various forms, and the simplest one can just be lying on your back with your knees going in one direction, and your upper body and head turned in the other direction. I crave this posture now and do it at home as well as in class. If I don't do yoga for more than a week, I feel the pain coming back, so it is part of my life now, a practice just as much as writing.
So that's my journey to an almost pain-free back.
It's been incremental and requires ongoing maintenance, but by focusing on solving the problem, I now have a huge improvement in functional movement and my mental health has improved with yoga and walking. I also rarely take painkillers these days.
Don't settle for the pain.
Your journey to becoming pain-free will be different to mine, but you can take steps to improve it. It may take years of experimentation, but it's worth it, and you might find a new hobby/lifestyle along the way!