Under the desk, make sure there’s enough room for your legs and feet. Don’t store items under your desk, as that can shrink the amount of available space and make it hard to sit correctly. If the desk is too low and the desk height can’t be changed, put sturdy boards or blocks under the desk legs to raise it. If the desk is too high and can’t be changed, raise your chair. If you don’t have a footrest, try using a small stool or a stack of sturdy books.
It’s good to take at least one long break after working for extended periods—and you probably already do so with lunch! Use this time to improve your health by going for a walk, stretching, or rehydrating either before or after eating. As your eyes tire, you might also start hunching, squinting, and pulling your screen closer than what’s recommended. And, because of this demand, remote-work technology and 24/7 connectivity have vastly improved.
Everything You Need to Set Up an Ergonomic Home Office
If the feet do not comfortably rest on the floor, use a footrest. Footrests can be purchased or can be made by using stable boxes, reams of paper, step stools, etc. The aim should be to have a right angle at the knees and hips with feet comfortably supported.
There are flute designs to address the difficulty of holding the instrument out to the side. A new angle between the mouthpiece and keys allows the flutist’s neck and shoulder to remain in more neutral positions. Extensions can sometimes be added to various woodwind keys to allow shorter fingers to reach more easily. In a perfect world, experts say you’d re-create your usual office setup at home.
Even before this recent adjustment, workers have seen a dramatic rise in opportunities to work from home. Ergonomics is the idea of fitting a task to the capabilities of the human body. This trend is highlighting the importance of ergonomics, particularly in the home workspace. However, 11 million people in the UK are suffering from back pain due to their homeworking setup, according to Bupa. At the height of the Coronavirus pandemic, many thousands of employees across the country were offered work-from-home arrangements, and the UK Government advice was to work remotely wherever possible. Keep objects you use often — such as the phone, stapler or printed materials — close to your body to minimize reaching.
When you work from home, it’s important to make similar adjustments. Once you get your home office set up, don’t feel like you have to stay there all day. Your muscles can get tired and sore from supporting you when you sit, which may lead to other problems over time. Try to take a 1- to 2-minute break every 20 to 30 minutes that you’re at your desk.
Either way there are simple changes that they can make in the office that are not expensive. Being aware of what an ‘optimal’ ergonomic set-up looks like can go a long way in preventing long-term discomfort. According to a recent study, two out of five Americans felt new or increased pain in their shoulders, back, or wrists since they began working from home.
Take Frequent Breaks
Either can be useful if you have shoulder or wrist strain because it will keep your hand in a neutral position. It’s good to keep in mind that staff who are uncomfortable will not be as productive. Instead of focussing on the work they’ll be distracted with trying to get comfortable in their chair or needing to stand more. And for this reason, I’ve seen a lot of people who ‘make-shift’ their own standing desk at home because their chairs are not as comfortable as they could be. More standing isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but too much standing can lead to back pain and discomfort. To maintain a neutral posture the neck should be straight, shoulders straight, elbows at right angles, wrists straight, and the lower back supported against a chair back or pillow.
Again, the goal is to get your knees to a 90-degree position while keeping your feet flat and positioning your keyboard within easy reach. If your thighs lightly touch the underside of the desk and it’s comfortable for you, you should be good to go, adds Khastoo. At its most basic, ergonomics means « fitting a job to a person, » according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Align the top of the monitor screen with the user’s seated eye height (when the user has no glasses, wears computer glasses, or wears single prescription lenses). If progressive, bi-focal, or tri-focal lenses are worn, position the monitor so that the neck is neutral (straight) while looking through the glasses to view the monitor.
- Ergonomics concepts can be traced back to WWII when it was first used to assist pilots—minimizing fatigue, reducing error and keeping pilots flying longer.
- Take special steps to prevent aches and pains when you work with two computer screens.
- Felt-tips, gel pens or roller ball pens all have tips that glide easily over paper.
- « There’s a myth out there that you should sit at 90 degrees, » Hedge said, meaning with the trunk of the body perpendicular to the floor.
- We’re sharing some simple guidelines that will improve your comfort at your home desk setup to reduce your risk of injury and help to alleviate those new tender spots.
- The top of the monitor should be at or below the eye level and the elbows are in line with the home row keys of the keyboard.
Do Ergonomic Keyboards Really Help?
Work to arrange drum sets so that each instrument is within easy reach, with most used items being the closest at about a forearm’s length away. At the very least, you’re bound to have to go to the bathroom (hey, nature calls!) or fill up your water glass work from home ergonomics (hydration is key). So make the most of these movement breaks by shaking out your muscles to get the blood flowing or even doing a lap around the living room to score some extra steps, encourages Geisel. « Take a break from work and work on opening up your body — particularly your chest and hips — and they will thank you, » she adds.
Get close to your work surface to minimize reaching and make sure nothing is in the way of your writing – extra items should be stored elsewhere if there is little writing surface. Try not to lean on the wrist or forearm, especially on the sharp edge of a desk. For a long-term setup, though, consider mounting your laptop on a laptop riser and using an external keyboard and mouse. If you have a monitor, use books to raise it to a comfortable eye level, one that keeps your head and neck in that neutral, stacked position.
- This can benefit those with smaller hands and shorter reaches.
- « We’re not designed to be sitting for a long time, » says Khastoo.
- Because of the inherent design of the notebook computer, when the screen is at the optimal height and distance for viewing, the keyboard is usually not at the optimal height and distance for typing, and vice-versa.
- Designate a workstation devoted just to work.Laptops are amazing inventions but they don’t have the best features for ergonomic comfort.
- This is critical if your flat work surface is not adjustable.Your chair should also have good back support and have arms for support.
- Avoid cradling a handset or mobile phone between your shoulder and head.
- The changes you make now will prevent stress and injury later.
I’ll give you a list of criteria of what to look for in an ‘ergonomics’ chair below. The key thing in all of this is TRYING out as many as possible. Even better is if they can ‘borrow’ a chair and have your client member try it out in their actual home office before they purchase. This way they KNOW for certain that they got the right chair for them and they’ve made a good investment in their long-term health. It’s important to say if either they are self-employed or work for a ‘start-up’ that a brand-spanking new ‘ergonomic’ chair may be outside of their budget. For this reason, I’ve put together simple ergonomic tips that are inexpensive that your client can put in place today.
Adjust the height of your computer monitor so that the top of the monitor is right at eye level. Ideally, your eyes would need to look down approximately 10 to 20 degrees in order to focus on a graphic in the middle of the screen. How you sit when you’re working is important, but making sure you’re not stuck in that position for too long is also crucial. « We’re not designed to be sitting for a long time, » says Khastoo. « You need to get up to get your blood flowing, and make sure that your muscles have a chance to move, » he notes. Sitting for a long time can also compress your lumbar spine, so getting up at regular intervals can offer some much-needed relief, explains Khastoo.
When looking at the screen, your eye line should be level with the address bar on your web browser. If you’re working on a laptop, always use an external keyboard and mouse to avoid arm, wrist or shoulder pain. Using ergonomic products designed with a human-centered approach can improve posture, increase comfort, lower muscle strain. When considering an ergonomics program, injury prevention provides the most value to any additional cost. Consider that ongoing ergonomic injuries are also very costly, with a carpal tunnel claim costing $30-60k on average and a cumulative trauma injury costing $36-$88k on average.