Working at a computer can bring debilitating pain. And here’s really dire news: Blackberries could make it even worse

IF YOU SPEND YOUR DAYS in a desk chair staring at a computer screen, read this story. If you also spend time hunched over your iPhone or Blackberry, thumb-wrestling with keys the size of lentils, rip this story from the magazine and save it. If you have an ache the size of a HK$5 coin in one of your shoulder blades, run to your nearest physiotherapist and read this in the waiting room.

Our computers and mobile devices are wreaking havoc on our bodies, and the difference between living comfortably or with constant pain or numbness in the neck, lower back, wrists, hands, arms, legs and even the scalp is vigilance.

More than two thirds of office workers in the UK suffer from repetitive strain injury, according to research conducted earlier this year by Microsoft (and boy, they ought to know). Quantitatively, that adds up to more than £300 million in lost working hours a year. The good news is that there are simple measures to prevent irritating or debilitating pain: sit at the computer properly; do exercises; visit the therapist.

The bad news is that it will be nigh impossible to reap any benefit from these measures unless you actually follow them consistently.

What’s happening to our bodies?

We’ve all heard the back-protecting rule, “Lift from your legs, not your back.” In fact, research dating back to the 1970s has proven that lifting heavy things isn’t the only way of hurting your spine. You take an equal risk by merely sitting. When we’re up and moving around, say, walking from the water cooler to our swivel chair, a series of antigravity muscles kick in to help us stay upright, maintain posture and, in a way, help levitate us like Superman or Mary Poppins. When we’re sitting in a chair, however, our antigravity muscles relax and our trunks become dead weight on our spines.

“The trunk accounts for half our body weight so if you weigh 45kg – and most of us weigh more than that – you’re essentially looking at an overstuffed suitcase sitting on the discs of your lower back,” says physiotherapist Janice Morton, a senior partner at Byrne, Hickman & Partners.

Imagine the spine as a big snake, with each vertebra separated by a disc, which is like a gelatinous washer or cushion. The vertebrae rock on the discs. With time, however, the vertebrae get worn down and start pressing on the discs unevenly. The term “slipped disc” is a misnomer because the discs can’t actually slip; they’re firmly attached to the bone above and below. What does shift is the gelatinous material inside the disc. Too much pressure on the disc (say, from sitting in a slumped position) squeezes the disc out of its cavity and toward nerves running like electrical cables down each side of the spine. The bulging disc hits the nerves – causing pain or numbness. The disc almost always squeezes out one side, not both, which is why symptoms occur on either the left or right side of the body.

What the therapist tries to do is loosen the vertebrae so the bulging disc retreats into its proper position and stops hitting the nerves.

One way to prevent repetitive strains is to stretch. Stay active, stay limber. You don’t have to run a half-marathon, you just need to stimulate blood flow into your joints and muscles. Yoga can help. “If you don’t move and you’re frozen in a position for a long time, your muscles tense up because the blood isn’t able to flow to certain parts of the body like it’s supposed to,” says Almen Wong, co-founder of Pure Yoga, and an instructor for six years.

Morton, who has been practicing physiotherapy for 41 years (including for the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens), advocates yoga. However, she has seen a few patients who need physical therapy because of poor yoga practice, including some who have overstretched themselves in Bikram classes, which is yoga practiced in a room heated above 37°C. More heat means greater flexibility – and greater risk of injury.

She is also seeing more patients with problems traced to their Blackberries. Some patients have gotten cervicogenic migraines, which originate in the neck. Muscles across the top of the head then tighten and the head gets gripped in a vice-like tension. Traditionally, they’re caused by the head being frozen in an awkward position over an extended period — which is as good a description of answering your bosses emails as any other.

Morton is also seeing younger and younger patients. “A lot of children now spend their time either sitting at the computer or playing video games,” she says. “So they spend an awful lot of time sitting, often in poor postures.”

To save your and your kids some pain and, in the worst case, surgery, power has dug into our experts’ manuals and dished up some simple poses to help save you from steep medical bills.

Also, a word to the wise: you may have a several-thousand-dollar Herman Miller Aeron chair, but if it’s not adjusted properly there’s no point in sitting in it. Proper ergonomics can save you pain, all in a day’s work.