Is Your Desk Causing Your Pain? 3 Signs to Look For

Is it actually true that your desk is causing back pain? Your workstation is such an incredibly important part of your workday. This can have a huge influence on your physical health. Unfortunately, this is an area so many people miss. They think their pain or discomfort is coming only from other factors. 

If you really sit down and think about it (no pun intended), the average person who works full time in a typical office job or from their home office will spend over 2,000 a year just sitting. This is about 35% of your waking hours. When we ignore what you do in this much time, some really big factors in your pain can go unnoticed. 

When was the last time you really thought about your desk setup? For most people the answer is never. That might be why their neck pain (or back, or shoulder, or hand pain… you name it) keeps coming back despite trying everything else.

Maybe it’s finally time to take a deeper look at your workstation before trying yet another treatment that doesn’t get to the root of the problem. So let’s really get down to it. We’ll look at 3 signs your desk setup might be the problem below.

1. Your pain keeps coming back no matter what you do

This can be such an incredibly challenging part of pain. It seems like you have tried so many different things that should help your pain: pain medication, physical therapy, chiropractic, exercise, you name it, but it keeps coming back.

This could be a glaring sign that your desk is causing back pain (or pain anywhere else) and might actually be at the root of the problem. So many people do a lot of other things outside of work to help the body feel better, but they likely ignore what they spend most of their day doing (sitting at a desk). There is a really high chance that something about your chair or desk position is a large contributing factor. 

So often your chair OR the way you are using your chair is not actually supporting your body or back. As a result your muscles are spending all day trying to support you. With time, this can get really irritating for your back and can cause pain. 

Why This Happens

Your back could also just be really sensitive to certain positions. Then your chair setup is putting you in those positions with minimal support. It will typically require some adjustments to your chair and desk to get you the support you need.

For example, if your chair is too high you might find yourself “perching” on the edge of your chair. This means moving toward the edge of your chair and placing your feet on the casters of your chair. If you sit like this all day long, your back and neck will have no support and with time this can become really irritating. I went more in depth on this in my post on 5  of the Most Common Workstation Setup Issues.

2. Your pain is worse at the end of the workday than the beginning

It can be very easy to come to work, sit at your desk all morning, go to lunch…and sit, then finish the rest of your day…sitting. That’s a lot of just one position all day long. 

The really cool part about our bodies is that they were designed to move. They have evolved over thousands of years to do this. Only in the past 50-100 years have we really changed the way we work so that we spend most of the day just sitting. 

This is a double-edged sword of course, since nowadays so many of us struggle to get really any movement in during the day. This alone can be a huge contributing factor to any pain or discomfort you might be having. We know that when we stop moving, our nervous system becomes more sensitive. Our joints don’t get the “nutrition” they need which can easily lead to a lot of pain. 

So, is sitting itself “bad”? No, not necessarily. The aspect that most people get in trouble with is prolonged sitting. It’s the static position of sitting at your desk all day with minimal to no positional changes that can get really irritating for your body as a whole.

What this looks like in practice

If your chair doesn’t have armrests that fit you, you will end up spending all day working hard to support your wrists, arms, and neck on your own. This “hard work” for your muscles with no support or positional changes can really irritate your body and contribute to pain. 

3. Burning in your arms or back that gets worse the more you sit 

Are you noticing some burning in your arms or even back while you’re working? Often this can be from blood flow changes to your muscles and nerves while you are working. Muscles and nerves require an adequate blood supply, especially while they are being used. 

Why This Happens

Even though it may seem minuscule, typing, using a mouse, and even simply keeping yourself upright does require very frequent muscle contractions. With these repeated contractions, the muscles use fuel and create waste products which need to be removed from the tissues. This is why your position and desk support matter more than most people realize.

If there is a lack of support from your setup at your desk, this can require even more work for your muscles and nerves. This can make it difficult to remove the waste products which can result in burning pain.

For instance, maybe your desk is a bit too high for your chair. You are having to reach up and rest your wrists on the edge of your desk.

This can result in decreased blood flow to your forearms and hands, and more work for your forearm muscles. Over time you will start to feel the burning and left unchecked, you could end up with something like carpal tunnel syndrome or tennis elbow.

Working on a supportive workstation setup and regular breaks during the day can dramatically improve blood flow and reduce pain while you’re working.

So now you know the signs of your desk causing your back pain (or really anywhere else in your body). But what in the world do you do to fix it? The best place to start is by adjusting your workstation, and build from there. Nobody is going to have the exact same setup, but making some changes to your positioning at work can have a really big impact. Take a look at my Flexible Workstation Guide, it’s completely free and will take less than 10 minutes.