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Ergonomics – The Answer to Avoiding Pain at the Office
You spend at least eight hours a day sitting at your desk. Why not make sure that while you are spending all that time there, that you are not injuring yourself by doing your everyday tasks? Make sure your work area is set up especially for you and the tasks that you have to do and that you are comfortable.
With the right ergonomics in the office, there can be happier, healthier workers. This will help increase productivity. Sitting in an office chair in front of a desk has become one of the most common work related injuries of today.
Back pain can be caused by normal everyday tasks when a person is sitting in one spot for way too long of a time. Sitting in an office chair and standing for too long are big reasons that these injuries may occur.
It is surprising the injuries that one can receive from working in front of a computer or a desk that does not have the right ergonomics. There are many other injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, neck strain, lower back pain and also leg pain.
Here are some basic ergonomic guidelines:
Create workspace in order to complete the task on hand
Use correct posture to meet your jobs tasks so that there is very little stress on your
muscles, ligaments, bones and joints.
When accomplishing a task, learn to use limited movement so not to stress your body
Always try to avoid bad posture. Sit up whenever you can. Do not slouch forward. Keep your back against the back of your chair. Do your mother proud and “sit up straight and don’t slouch.”
Try not staying in the same position for too long at a time. You should never be in the same position for more than 20 minutes at a time. This will slowly stretch out the elasticity from your tissues. This causes stress, which in time will cause you pain. Also, if you sit at work, try and change your positions often. Stand if once in a while if you vcan and walk around if you can. Always try to keep moving around.
Fatigue can make you forget about your posture and slouch and hunch your back. Fatigue makes all your movements awkward, so you want to make sure to get enough rest as not to hurt yourself when you are a little over-tired.
Make sure that your workstation can be altered to meet you requirements. Your chair should be adjustable and have lumbar support. You should be able to adjust it up and down for your height. In addition, you should be able to tilt both your seat and the back to also find correct positioning. It could really help if it also had armrests on it, too. Your computer monitor should be also adjustable. If not, you can always put it on a stack of books. Your eyes should be even with the center of your screen. There should be some sort of wrist rest for your keyboard. Not having one may cause carpel tunnel syndrome. There should also be a wrist rest for your computer mouse. You don’t want your wrists dropping way below your hands and fingers. You really need to pay attention to the correct ergonomics of your mouse as to not cause problems with rotator cuff later on. Your feet should be planted flat on the floor while your knees stay even with your hips. If this is not the case, adjustments to your chair may have to be made. Or, you could put a stool under your feet just so that they are even with your hips. Your desk should be at elbow height. Your elbows should be kept close to your body as possible while it should only bend in a 90-degree angle.
If you are feeling a lot of discomfort after sitting in your work area and you have tried getting up and walking around, try the other suggestions. If these fail, you may want to bring it to the attention of your company and have ergonomics specialists to come in and over look things to make sure that they are correct. You may also want to check with your doctor to make sure there is not any thing else that could be causing your back pain.
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