Anyone who thinks that an office job and sitting at a desk for hours at a time is easier on the body than a more physical job has probably never had to work under such conditions. Ask most people who have to spend long periods of time at a desk and they will be more than likely to tell you that neck, shoulder and lower back pain and tightness are all too often the bane of their lives.

There are a number of reasons why a desk job can be so physically damaging but the biggest is that the human body really is not designed to be so sedentary. In an ideal situation those who work at a desk would be able to get up every 15 minutes or so and walk around, which would relieve some of the stiffness but for most people if they made a habit of doing that every day they would quickly find they no longer had a job to go to at all.

A better laid out workstation is helpful as well, one that is more ergonomically correct. Ideally your computer monitor should be right at eye level and about an arms length away from you. Chairs should have arms that support your elbows easily and should fit your body in a way that hips and knees should be at a 90 degree angle with your whole foot resting easily on the floor. Again though persuading your boss to buy you a whole new set of office furniture just to help relieve your aches and pains can be a hard sell. And even with all the right stuff the inactivity still takes a big toll on anyone’s body.

Regular massage can go a long way to help relieve the misery of the aches and pains that so many desk workers suffer from. But it can offer other benefits as well. Massage helps relieve stress and anxiety, can help combat the chronic headaches that many office workers suffer from and has actually been proven in a number of studies to help improve mental clarity and a person’s ability to concentrate and to do so for a longer period of time. All very good reasons to stop seeing massage as a luxury that you reserve for your days off but instead as something that is essential to your career success!