The Best Ways to Correct Your Posture While Still Being a WFH Hermit

Hey, you. Listen up: Unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, and sit up straight. Doesn’t that feel better, friend?

You’ve probably seen a few Tweets to that effect, and though they’re ostensibly a nice and easy way to get some RTs, they do serve as great reminders to give our bodies a break from the tense, slouched position many of us WFH slugs have adopted over the last year and a half. Well, besides a mouthguard and a massage, we can’t do much about your jaw and shoulders, but we can give you a hand with the ol’ posture. There are a ton of products out there—ranging from full-body braces to barely noticeable, stick-on sensors—that purport to help you stand and sit up straight throughout the day. Which, on all accounts, is a good thing, especially if you’d rather not suffer the fate of the futuristic office drone.

When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me to stand up straight all the time—I was a brooding teenager, after all, and slouching was one of my personality traits. She also made me walk around with a broomstick that I would hold horizontally behind my back with my elbow pits, which she claimed her mother used to do to her when she was growing up. While her story is likely exaggerated [Incoming call: Mother], there are some material benefits to not hunching around all the time. “Good posture supports good health,” Jane T. Hein explains for the Mayo Clinic. “Proper body alignment can help prevent excess strain on your joints, muscles and spine—alleviating pain and reducing the likelihood of injury. As a bonus, correct posture can boost your productivity and mood, as well as help you use your muscles more efficiently.” So, yeah. That sounds okay.

But not all of us have someone to follow us around and scold us for our poor posture. That’s where we come in. Here’s a short list of the best gadgets for correcting your posture.

One step closer to being a Bionicle

Because that’s the goal, right? This low-profile posture tracker attaches to your upper back with adhesive strips, and keeps track of your upper body position and other postural nuances. Then, if you’re slouching (or hunched over a bowl, shoving as many noodles into your mouth as humanly possible), it emits a gentle vibration, reminding you and your body to sit or stand with correct, upright posture. Simply download the Upright GO app, sync your device, and start tracking your progress across daily training sessions.

You don’t care about looking like a dork

Which is a good thing, but doesn’t really matter in this case, since this Comfy Brace Posture Corrector fits tight against your body and will hardly be noticeable under clothes. Plus, if you’re working from home and just want to correct your posture around the house, who cares what it looks like? With this strapped on your body, you can help align your back and shoulders, and take pressure off of pain-causing areas.

More cushion for the… posture

If you work a desk job, chances are you spend a lot of time sitting in an office chair. Or, if you’ve been working from home since March 2020, you might not have an office chair at all. You could be a couch worker, a kitchen table worker, or the elusive and aspirational bed worker. Wherever your WFH sitch is, you’re probably not getting enough lumbar support, which is bad for back pain as well as posture. The answer? A butt pillow. This seat cushion—the technical term—is specially designed to cradle your bottom (yes, please), helping to reduce pain in your lower back, hips, and sciatic nerve.

Literally elevate your work station

Raise your laptop, desk, and morale with either a standing desk or a laptop riser. Both are great for helping you sit up straight, since you won't be able to hunch down over your keyboard if it’s up in the air, and standing is marginally better for you than sitting. Plus, if you get a standing desk, you can tell all of your friends how you got a standing desk, and how it changed your life, and how you can’t believe they’re still working with an “old-school sitting desk.” People love to hear that sort of thing—trust us.

Now that we’re all—hey! You’re slouching again!

The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story.