Today I feel like I've been in a fight (and lost). Filling my hot water bottle while making my coffee doesn't make me an OAP, right?! I can see your point with the backless chair, Stressed. I think one of these kneeling chairs would do the right thing for my posture but apparently the cheap ones only look like what you want and aren't properly designed. So that leaves me with various £200+ options (on top of my osteopath bills!) so it may have to wait. Keeping an eye on Ebay. Let us know if you buy anything good Florence. I'm feeling like any investment that will prevent current feelings of brokenness would be worth it!

I've tried one of those kneeling chairs in the past, but it gave me backache! But that may just have been me, I know some people swear by them. How about a big ball, like an exercise/birth ball? They're meant to be very good for your posture (hard to slouch without falling off!) and are relatively cheap (around £10?).

Good luck with finding something suitable - backache is not nice...

======= Date Modified 01 Dec 2009 10:47:55 =======
I've tried one of those kneeling chairs in the past, but it gave me backache! But that may just have been me, I know some people swear by them. How about a big ball, like an exercise/birth ball? They're meant to be very good for your posture (hard to slouch without falling off!) and are relatively cheap (around £10?).



Good luck with finding something suitable - backache is not nice...


Ooops, sorry about the double posting - I'm obviously too impatient. :$

Hi Florence,

It seems most of us are having the same problem. I too had very painful backache last year due to wooden chair I used. I then replaced it with IKEA office chair (around £100) and finding it very comfortable. Besides the chair, the one mistake we all do is that we are likely to sit longer in the same posture. I have started to use timer (http://www.online-stopwatch.com/) so that I can walk at least every half an hour or have a break of 5 mins. I think combination of chair & break would reduce our backache developed with PhD!!
Sweth

I have read that using a swiss ball for a chair is ok for an hour or so but actually damages the spine if any longer, because there is NO support and although it does strengthen your muscles, you also need to rest them too. I also think its ok for admin, but if you are trying to concentrate and stay balanced on the stupid thing then you probably won't get any work done!

I tried using my old birthing ball but had problems with it in that its not big enough (in height) to get the right angle for my arms at the desk and I spent half my time falling off of it ;-) I think if you could perfect the technique and could get one of a big enough circumference then they are supposed to be very good for your posture.

I've also heard that about the kneeling chairs, the cheap ones are rubbish - you need one that's fully adjustable, again the right height - what I did find when I tried out one that a friend was dumping (!!!????) was that it made my legs really ache and my feet go numb lol - this sitting thing is far more complicated than we make out when we prop up our babies and encourage them to get upright!

I'm sitting here with a cushion folded up at my back, a sloping triangular cushion on the seat and goodness knows what else to try and get my position right - its not easy - this close to Christmas though I feel guilty about spending money on myself - although with my back aching as it is I may end up having to. The other thing I'm finding, and I'm not sure if anyone else has this - is that I'm getting the most awful pains in my wrist. I think its from having it resting on the laptop all day (I hope that's all it is) as my desk (read old dining table) is too high I think but I don't know how to remedy that - its got big pedestal legs so I can't exactly chop it down. Added to that my laptop runs so hot that I now have a laptop cooler (amazing device that the laptop sits on and it blows cold air in underneath) so the laptop is even higher! Is being a student or an academic automatically going to mean a lifetime of aching joints and a bad back?

As far as I know, most good computer chairs are ergonomical. As long as it has good back support, and you make the effort to sit up straight (don't slouch), you should be ok. Good posture is the key to reducing back ache.

hmm today I am feeling it - I have a lumbar cushion behind me and sitting on another cushion to prop me up and I have a thermacare heat wrap on. I really really need a new chair! making me feel very grumpy in fact.

Stressed, perhaps if you chop a bit off the legs of your desk I could have the bits because I think my desk is too low. It's also definitely too small! I know long-term work at a laptop is supposed to add to the problem. Mine is getting old so I'm wondering if I should replace it with a desktop (this is all sounding very expensive...) as my fiancé has a laptop I can use when I need something portable. On the other hand, combining the small desk and a big computer isn't too appealing. My father has one of these special stands that raises the screen to the right height and then you attach a separate keyboard, basically turning the laptop into a monitor. However, by the time I've bought one of those and a new keyboard we're looking at a substantial chunk of a new desktop anyway. Does anyone have any wisdom on this problem?

Okay - here I my conclusions from far too many hours of research/procrastination.
* The key things for a chair to have are: a full back, lumbar support, adjustable height, arm rests.
* Most decently priced office chairs (around the £80-£100 mark) do offer many, if not all, of those forms of support.
* What you get with an ergonomic chair is far greater ability to adjust the chair to suit you, and better lumbar support. But an ergonomic chair is going to cost you around £200+. But you do spend a LOT of time using it...
* No chair can cure bad posture and bad sitting practices - I am learning how to sit again!
* There are other "seating solutions" (balls, kneeling chairs, stools, saddles, giant bouncy springs - yes really) but they are generally quite pricey (balls being the notable exception) and they seem to suit some people and not others. In particular, they seems to better for people who are at their desk intermitently, or need to move around, say from a drawing board to a desk, within their workspace. Some people do use them more consistently though.

I have been sitting on my new chair for around 15 minutes and I love it!
In the end I went for an ergonomic chair but I got one that was ex-demo on ebay. It cost £175. You can adjust the seat height, seat depth, back support height, degree of tilt, tilt tension, lumbar support tension, and the arms go up and down, forwards and backwards, and turn in and out. So far I feel very well supported and it's making me feel like sitting up straight. (Though I also like the lounging backwards, looking up pensively at the ceiling and still feeling supported option too!)
However, it's also highlighting other problems like my laptop being at the wrong height.
Still, a step in the right direction I hope!

I have just borrowed the Herman Miller Aeron size B chair again from my step father in law. It is amazing, I want one now, just finding a way!

Sneaks, I've just looked that up (getting very into the chair hunt) and that is a serious villain chair! Sadly definitely not enough in the piggy bank for that...

yep it is soo expensive! but I have just found the forward tilt which throws you towards the computer which is fab, especially as I have lost my glasses so am peering at the screen! My parents have offered to pay for one, as I think they blame themselves for my back condition, even though I was born with it but it wasn't genetic. Problem is, they are completely skint so don't want to be cheeky and take the money! looks like ebay for one with coffee stains all over!

Herman Miller chairs are awesome. I have sat in one and it was like sitting on a cloud.
However, they are out of my reach budget-wise. Although there is a seller on ebay who gets them from office clearances and cleans/refurbishes them. He sells them for £340 (which is the equivalent of about 60% off the price of a new one) and they come with a year's guarantee.
I did think about that option, but couldn't get the funds together.

Two things I should add to my earlier post:
(1) THANK YOU all for your responses and help! I can't believe I forgot to actually say that. It was great to share my anxiety!
(2) I still love my chair but I have made one further discovery. Even the best chair in the world won't make you the best phd student in the world. I'm comfy, but I still procrastinate! :p