Before You Replace Your Office Chair, Check Your Lower Back Support
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Some office chairs seem perfectly comfortable until you have been sitting in them for a while. Then you start shifting around.
You lean back, but your lower back never quite reaches the chair. Sit forward and the backrest is doing nothing at all. A rolled towel can fill the gap, although it has a habit of ending up somewhere near the seat by lunchtime.
If the rest of the chair suits you, replacing it seems excessive. A lumbar support pillow can fill the space the backrest leaves behind.
See Where the Backrest Actually Meets You
Sit the way you normally work rather than deliberately straightening up for the test. You may find that the chair meets your upper back but curves away lower down.
That is the gap a lumbar pillow changes.
This one is 16.9 inches high and 15.5 inches wide. At its thickest point, it measures 4.2 inches. Two adjustable straps keep it attached to the chair instead of letting it gradually wander downward.
There is no reason the pillow has to look perfectly centered. Move it until it meets the part of your lower back that was missing the chair in the first place.
Four Inches Behind You Changes the Seat Too
A thick cushion does not just fill space behind your back. It also moves you farther forward.
That is easy to overlook when the chair has plenty of seat depth. On a shallow chair, those extra inches can become much more obvious. Your back may finally have somewhere to rest while the front of the seat suddenly feels too short.
You can get a rough idea before adding anything. Sit a little forward from the backrest and see whether there is still enough chair underneath you.
If the real problem appears after hours in the same position, changing the backrest may not be the whole answer. Back pain from sitting too long is a different problem from simply having a gap behind your lower back.
But if you otherwise get along with your chair, that gap is worth noticing before you replace the whole thing.