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Exercise and awareness plan benefits employees

Simple exercises and awareness of muscle tension benefit office employees, and help ease their head, neck and shoulder pain.

Exercise and awareness plan benefits employees

Simple exercises and awareness of muscle tension benefit office employees, and help ease their head, neck and shoulder pain. Italian researchers studied 192 government office employees and used 192 peripheral registry office and central tax office employees as controls. All of them were given diaries to record episodes of pain every day. After two months, only the study group began the educational and physical programme. The programme comprised two main components. In one, employees were taught a series of exercises to perform every few hours during the workday. For example, they would stand against a wall with their heels, hips and nape of the neck touching the wall, then repeatedly roll their shoulders back to the touch the wall, then release them forward again. In another exercise, they stood at the wall and slowly turned their heads side-to-side. Employees were also given a basic relaxation exercise to do at home, once or twice a day, sitting in a comfortable chair in a quiet room for 10–15 minutes, with warm pads on the shoulders and cheeks. The other main component of the programme was education. Employees were taught to be aware of when they were contracting the muscles of the face, neck and shoulders, and written reminders were placed at their work areas to encourage them to let go of muscle tension. It was found that the combination of simple exercises and education helped reduce complaints of headache and neck and shoulder pain. Over eight months, in the study group headache frequency fell by 41 per cent, while neck and shoulder pain frequency dropped by 43 per cent compared to minimal change in the control group. The findings clearly indicate that simple, inexpensive measures at workplace can reduce headaches and neck and shoulder pain, which are both a clinical challenge and a major health problem. This can also possibly boost productivity of employees.
Cephalgia,
May 2008
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