Tips on How to Make the Office Chairs More Comfortable

Whether you work from home or in the office, you know that sitting in the chairs isn't really comfortable as it seems to be, especially if the chairs are of poor quality. We all have to sit in the chairs, and the chairs may just feel right or not comfortable. The proper office chairs, I am guessing, is the chair that can be adjusted to the most comfortable sitting posture and offer the best back support. Is your chair comfortable enough? Here are some tips to make our sitting more comfortable.

One of the easiest ways to make the sitting comfortable is to invest in an ultra comfortable office chair. Ergonomic chairs are such chairs worth investment, especially for modern office where office staff has to work for at least eight hours one day. Make sure the ergonomic chairs we choose have the best lumbar back support or try it to see whether the chair curve just follows naturally the curve of our lower back. Never try to save extra dollars by dragging over a chair from somewhere else in our house for a cheap office chair. For less health risk, we need a comfy chair.

Have a check of the levers or the knobs on the chairs. The lever of ergonomic chair allows us to unlock the chair and gain some movement when we sit on it. This can just reduce any discomfort or stiffness when we are seated in it. For those who suffer from back pain, a chair with “open” angles, such as back rest movement can offer us much better experience. Some of the chairs can move the seat pad and back rest together, others may move the chair parts separately.

For comfortable sitting, we also need to pay attention to our sitting posture. We need to sit right. Sit straight with our feet on the floor. This is the basic step. Right sitting posture can reduce many uncomfortable sitting positions. Remember to check and see whether you sit right and then check the chair.

If we sit right in office chairs with right levers yet we still sit uncomfortably, try to add some extra back support or footrest. Ensure enough support for more padding so that our back can be well supported. Add a footrest under the desk and keep the feet in the proper position.

If you've tried everything above and still fail to get a comfortable sitting, maybe it's time for a new chair. Expect to spend a few hundred dollars for a good chair.

Are You Sitting Comfortably? Guidelines for Comfortable Seat

Is your office chair comfortable enough? Here is a formula for comfortable seating: create a right angle, open it up a tad, and tip it backward, so that our bottom can be placed in a position lower than that of knees. Our weight is thrown back into the angle and our thighs lock our back firmly into the backrest.

Is there such chair that can keep us comfortable for hours, even though we all know prolonged sitting in the chair is bad? Is there any such chair that can ensure the maximum comfort to each individual? Anyway, this is a question for the chair designer. For catering to each user, there is a need to adjust the dimensions and angles slightly based on each individual body shape or size. For such a chair that guarantees the comfort to the individual, there is a lot of factors in aspects of the dimensions and angles of the chair. Here are some essential guidelines for chair design, especially the must-have measures in the design of seat, back, armrest and angles, which especially apply to an average-size 5' 10" adult sitting in an upright position.

As for the seat, in order to allow those seated in the chair to rest the feet just flat on the floor with a knee angle between 90°and 100°, there is a need to locate the seat 16–18" above the floor. The chair designer also needs to take into consideration the thickness of any possibly used cushion on the chair. Just subtract half the cushion's thickness.

The seat has to be designed to be 15–18" deep so as to allow the clearance between the seat's front edge and the legs of the chair user.

Besides, the width of the chair needs to be around 16–20". Of course, we can adjust it based on our own need and the specific chair’s style by 2–3" from front to back. If the front of the seat can be wider, there will be more room for leg yet if the back of the seat is narrower, there will be little room for elbow.

If the chair we sit on has no cushion, we can slope it 5–8° from front to back. In this way, we can slide forward for extra comfort. If the chair is for office use, then just ignore this because a flat chair can help us lean forward.

As for the back of the chair, if we want the chair to offer us lower-back support yet not to interfere with our shoulders, the back height of the chair should be 12–16" above the seat or 20" which is very common for the chair we use. If the chair we use is office chair, just try to slant its back up to 5°and 15° for a casual chair. Anyway, when we increases the back angle, we need to keep the  seat-to-back angle between 90° and 100°so as to avoid forward sliding. Besides, we still need to lower the seat height to keep the front edge of the seat from contacting the back of the legs.

Finally, we need to position the armrest 7–9" above the seat so it can support our forearms and still will not interfere with our shoulders.