How to Relieve Back Pain at Work

The fact that prolonged sitting has negative effects on your health is not new. In fact, we’ve written previously about the “Sitting Disease“, stretches you can do at your desk to prevent it, and the benefits of switching to a Standing Desk. What you may not know is that back pain is among the leading reasons for missing work (next to the common cold and headaches). In fact, 149 million days of work are missed each year due to back pain.

If you have a desk job, don’t let yourself and your colleagues suffer from back pain. There is a natural, non-invasive way to help relieve back pain at work or to possibly prevent it from existing in the first place: inversion therapy.

How can an inversion table benefit my office?

Whether you suffer from constant back pain or just start to ache at the end of a long workday, it’s not too late to turn things around! Staying mobile, sitting with good posture, and doing simple stretches throughout the day are all great ways to keep that pain at bay, but there is no better stretch for your back than the one you get when you invert. Inversion helps to relieve back pain by creating an ideal stretch that improves spinal health and targets the pain at the source. This helps your body:

Reverse the compressive forces of gravity from sitting at a desk all-day

With gravity pulling you down, fluid is squeezed out of the discs in your spine throughout the day. As a result, they lose height, increasing the chances of pinched nerves. Inversion helps to reverse this process by decompressing the spine and allowing fluid and nutrients in to rehydrate the discs.

Release tension, stress, and toxins in your body

Studies show that EMG activity (muscle tension) can decline over 35% within 10 seconds of inversion, even at shallow angles.

Improve posture

Many users report that they stand taller and have more flexibility after just a short inversion session. Inverting throughout the day can help prevent your spine from curving and shoulders slumping forward from sitting in front of a computer all day.

Increase blood flow to the brain

Inversion stimulates a physiological response to compensate being upside down by dilating blood vessels and capillaries in your head. In seconds, billions of oxygen- and nutrient-starved neurons are invigorated with an inflow of oxygen-rich blood and nutrients. With regular use, you may experience better focus and concentration and a newfound sense of energy.

Spending 2-5 minutes on the inversion table at the beginning and end of the workday can be a great way to stay flexible, energetic, and, most importantly, productive throughout the week.

Fight Gravity to Keep Your Back Healthy Over Time

In the video below, Dr. Jerome Fryer explains how using an inversion table (inverted decompression) for a few minutes during the day can help resist compression over time and keep the spinal discs healthy and flexible.