Finding Your Throne: How The Right Chair Can Eliminate Back and Tailbone Pain

By Your Health Magazine

There’s a good chance you’re still sitting down. If you’re me, you’re likely sitting down and fidgeting, too, trying to find a way to sit without a dull ache complaining about your lower back, or your tailbone is reminding you that it is most definitely still a tailbone and it is still there. Pain and discomfort are never a good thing.

Let’s not even talk about that 3 PM slump, that is something every single one of us loathes. For years, this sensation was something that was a definite part of life and I believed was unavoidable, in a way it was a toll that you had to pay for a life spent office bound. Unfortunately, I was excessively optimistic. The answer to your troubles is not in a magic remote that can cure your pain, it is the chair that you are seated on.

This insight comes not from a place of simply wanting to market another ergonomic office chair for back pain, but from a genuine understanding of why that specific design works. It’s about grasping why the pain occurs in the first place and how the underlying principles of good support—principles that are rather straightforward—generate real, lasting relief.

The Back Pain Battle: It Is Support, Not Softness, That Counts

One of my biggest misconceptions was that a soft, plush chair was a chair of comfort. I wanted to cocoon myself, sinking in. What I had failed to understand was that I was crafting a hammock for my spine, allowing it to fold into a slumped, painful, and contorted “C” position.

The spinal cord has a soft s-shape curve. Its also the responsibility of a good chair to Support the spinal curve.

• Lumbar support is a must: This is the protrusion of the chair’s backrest at its lower part. The purpose of such is to support the lower spinal region and eliminate the void, which needs to be filled. Without support, the back muscles are under tremendous strain and effort to support such a weight, with support they can relax. You should not feel a punch to the kidney area in the lower part, what is expected is that a soft hand is placed to support the lower back.

• Angle of the chair and the Height: Your knees should not be lower than the chair, resting flat in a 90-degree position. This stabilizes your entire position/posture. Your sitted position should allow your hips to be slightly higher than the knees, thus causing the pelvis to in a slight forward position. This position is good as it sustains the curve of the spine. The position feels natural.

It’s not about being stiff, It’s about being supported. It is healthier for a person to spend a workday in a chair that has a responsive backrest and micromovements, as compared to a static, “perfect” pose.

Recommended Office Chairs

Boulies OP180

We often sit in more than one position at work, so we need a chair that accommodates our various postures. The ergonomic Boulies OP180 chair does just that. Seat and backrest tilting forward and backward.

The OP180 features a curved backrest with lumbar support, increase you comfort and relieve tailbone and back pain.

Boulies OP300

The OP300 office chair’s backrest mimics the natural human spine, conforming to your back for greater comfort.

Similar to the OP180, the OP300’s backrest and seat tilt forward and backward to accommodate various sitting postures. However, the OP300 differs from the OP180 in that it features a headrest, providing support not only for your back and tailbone, but also for your neck and shoulders.

Boulies EP460

We don’t just work, we also rest. The EP460 is an office chair that combines both work and rest. This EP460 office chair features adjustable lumbar support for optimal comfort.

The EP460 office chair features an adjustable headrest, ensuring head support while you’re resting or working. Additionally, the chair’s maximum recline angle of 135° allows you to recline and rest after work, alleviating back and coccyx pain.

The Tailbone Tango: Taking the Pressure Off

First and foremost, we need to address the real troublemaker: tailbone pain. Or as the sophisticated folks call it ‘Coccydynia’. There is a reason this is a special kind of pain. It is deep and somatized, making it torturous to sit. Office chairs tend to be the worst, as they possess flat and hard seats that concentrate the entire weight of the body on that oh so sensitive bone.

Coccydynia is not an issue of support. It is an issue of pressure relief.

• The ‘Cushion Conundrum’. In the absence of a new chair, a seat cushion is the next best option. Stay as far as possible from donut cushions, as they usually accentuate the pressure on the periphery. You need a seat cushion with high-density sponge material, and Boulies chair will satisfy you.

I guess it was only a matter of time before I gave in and got a U-shaped cushion on one of my awful flare days. Sitting on it for the first time was… There are no words. I didn’t want to weep, and yet, strangely, I was reminded of the biology involved. I finally broke down and got one of those best office chairs for tailbone pain, the kind with a lumbar support design. I sat down, and for the first time in years, my tailbone wasn’t bearing my weight. The relief was immediate. It gave my poor tailbone the space it desperately needed, a relief that was long overdue.

Hearing Your Body Speak is the Most Important Feature.

No blog post, video, or sat spec list is going to be able to tell you how to feel best in your body. The best chair, is the one you forget you are sitting on.

So it is here, I give my final piece of advice of the day to you, the real human part. You are to Move. The most expensive and ergonomic chair on the planet won’t do you a bit of good if you are a statue frozen in place for the rest of the day. Get a timer that goes off every 30 minutes. Every time it goes off, you are to stand, do a stretch, take a stroll to grab a glass of water, and incorporate a really bad exaggerated twist. Your body above anything else, is in more need of movement than a fantastic chair.

Getting the right comfort is a journey, and not a one stop deal. It is about the little things, like adjusting your chair, adding a cushion, and adding reminders to stand, that are going to eliminate pain and give you the new goal of comfort. Your back, and your tailbone, are important enough to be treated that way.