Hack together your own ergonomic office chair
- by Francesca Clarke (RSS feed) on Sep 17th 2007 3:00PM
- Filed under household hacks
There is nothing sweeter than settling into an ergonomic office chair. You've tried the fancy ones in the store, but how many of us are really going to shell out $600 for a top of the line Aeron. Jon Aquino is certainly not. He's hacked together a wonderfully geeky and apparently comfortable chair for his home office. He used things you'd have around the house anyway, making the cost virtually nothing.
All you need is a regular chair, a telephone book, a cutting board, a towel, and a bungee cord (or belt). Check out Jon's post here for assembly instructions. It's really simple and the height along with the lower back support are adjustable. Just look at his posture in this picture. He's saving himself a lot of back pain and probably getting more work done as a result.
Some commenters wonder if sitting on a phone book would be comfortable. I imagine you could put something over top or use a firm cushion instead.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-26-2007 @ 7:03AM
Ergonomic office chairs said...
Eggs Bacon and Ergonomic Office Chairs .
When i was young it used to be Breakfast, the most important meal of the day, start with a hearty fry up and you will be set. Although 3 stable meals is still the norm we are now encouraged towards the 5 a day principle.
Fruit and vegetables help set you up for a healthier lifestyle. Best of all, there is so much variety to choose from, all year long. There's enough to keep even the fussiest eaters happy. To get the best health benefits, your 5 A DAY portions should include a combination of a variety of fruit and vegetables. That's 5 portions altogether, not 5 portions of fruit and 5 portions of veg. So the big fired breakfast i have enjoyed for so many years is not as good as it seems (still tastes great on the odd occasion)
We all seem to have the information needed to have a healthy life style on the food front, but there is a lot more to it than what you eat. With more than 80% of the population suffering from some sort of back pain and with recent reports showing that 44% of all reported strains and sprains, which required more than three days off work, were of the back of spine and most commonly it is related to discs in the back being compressed from maintaining a position in sitting (especially for a prolonged period). Combined with leaning forward increases the compression of the discs and the risk of back pain.
Bad seating has been shown to speed up disk degeneration. As more people became chair bound (75% of the working population) and less active, abdominal and trunk mussels slacken, further increasing the instability of the spine and the risk of back pain.
So why are most of us still sitting on a out of date unsupportive office chair causing lasting, sometime irreversible damage to our backs? The benefits by purchasing a good ergonomic office chair seem obvious, not just for the person sitting in it for hour on hour per day, looking after there back, but equally for an employer.
Like it or not we are all employed to earn someone money, be it your self employed from your home office, or one of thousands of employee's for a multi national company. If your office chairs not an ergonomic office chair your costing someone money, and increasing the chances of having a reduced mobility later in life (not always that much later).
I just don't understand it, with days lost as a result of incorrect seating from bad office chairs, which evidently causes bad posture.With the financial losses on employer's (or yourself), not to mention the possible damage caused to the user. Why do we not insist on a correct office chair? If your not happy were you sitting at the moment either get your self a correct ergonomic office chair or insist you boss get's one for you, it's a win-win situation.
And don't forget to enjoy your breakfast.
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