Edit ArticleHow to Sit at a Computer Sitting at a computer for long periods of time can take a toll on your body. By not sitting with the correct posture, it is easy to end up with back pain, neck pain, knee pains, and a tingling of the hands and fingers. Here are some tips on maintaining good ergonomics and staying comfortable at your desk during the day. Note: A 2006 study indicated that rather than an up-right position a more relaxed one at 135 degrees is suggested to relieve lower back pain. Sit close to your keyboard. Adjust the keyboard height. Adjust the tilt of your keyboard based on your sitting position. Position your monitor properly. Adjust the monitor and any source or reference documents so that your neck is in a neutral, relaxed position. Center the monitor directly in front of you, above your keyboard. Position the top of the monitor approximately 2-3” above your seated eye level. If you wear bifocals, lower the monitor to a comfortable reading level.
Sit at least an arm's length away from the screen and adjust the distance for your vision. Reduce any glare by carefully positioning the screen, which you should be looking almost straight at, but partially looking down. Adjust any curtains or blinds as needed. Adjust the vertical screen angle and screen controls to minimize glare from overhead lights. Position the source documents directly in front of you, and use an in-line copy stand. An articulating keyboard tray can provide optimal positioning of input devices. However, it should accommodate the mouse, enable leg clearance, and have an adjustable height and tilt mechanism. The tray should not push you too far away from other work materials, such as your telephone If you do not have a fully adjustable keyboard tray, you may need to adjust your workstation height and the height of your chair, or use a seat cushion to get in a comfortable position. Remember to use a footrest if your feet dangle. Take small breaks during your workday to release some of that muscle tension.
Studies have shown that constant sitting is very damaging to your health. Try walking around for a couple minutes, standing and doing stretches—anything to break up a full day of sitting on your bottom is good for you! Take short 1-2 minute stretch breaks every 20-30 minutes. After each hour of work, take a break or change tasks for at least 5-10 minutes. Always try to get away from your computer during lunch breaks. Avoid eye fatigue by resting and refocusing your eyes periodically. Look away from the monitor and focus on something in the distance. Rest your eyes by covering them with your palms for 10-15 seconds. Use correct posture when working. Keep moving as much as possible. Exercise your hand by pushing on top of your fingers, and using backward resistance movements. It's very important to stand and walk around while sitting for 30 minutes, because prolonged sitting can cause pelvic nerve pain. Also, years of prolonged sitting can lead to other health problems.
That 1-2 minute break after 30 minutes isn't that bad when it helps to prevent other pain and possible serious issues. Other techniques to reduce glare include use of optical glass glare filters, light filters, or secondary task lights Make sure that your chair is at the right position to help prevent back problems in the future. Avoid using excessively wide wrist rests, or wrist rests that are higher than the space bar of your keyboard. Get a timer application to remind you when to take a break. Take the break when the timer goes off or immediately after the current task. If the task takes long than 10 mins to finish, take the 1-2 minute break. A way to stop eyestrain is the 20, 20, 20 rule. Every 20 minutes look at something 20 feet (6.1 m) away for 20 seconds. If your wrist hurts frequently while typing try the Dvorak keyboard setup. You may get stiff muscles if you are sitting in front of a computer too long. Use good work habits once you have correctly set up your computer workstation.
No matter how perfect the environment, prolonged, static postures will inhibit blood circulation and take a toll on your body.This one exercise can greatly improve your mobility and flexibility—and cure the many ills that come from sitting hunched in front of a screen all day. It takes just 30 seconds and you don't need any equipment. Max Shank teaches us how to do this move, called the Thoracic Bridge. It basically opens up your body and can help with pain and tightness in your shoulders, back, and hips. It looks a little weird to do, but when you get the hang of it, you should automatically feel the difference in your body's alignment and posture. (Also, you don't have to be as crazy acrobatic as Max in switching sides.)There are lots of easy stretches you can do to correct your hunching and get all the benefits of better posture, but if you're only going to do one thing, the Thoracic Bridge move is arguably the best one since it corrects so many issues in half a minute. Thoracic Bridge Instructional Video: Improve your flexibility in 30 seconds |
YouTube via James Clear Can a Smartphone Really Replace Your Camera? The Best Pens for Your EDC The Sexy, Mind-Bending Supercars of the '70s The 25 Best Places to Travel in 2017 By now, we’re all vaguely aware that sitting all day will kill us. It’s like smoking or drinking or any other unpopular cause before it — we understand, but we don’t really want to acknowledge it. Doesn’t matter what the science says (things like people who sit all day are 54 percent more likely to die of a heart attack than people who don’t), we’re still not listening. How could we, anyway? Most of us work jobs that require us to stay perched for eight hours a day, often more. Well, we’re not here to tell you to quit. We’re not even here to compel feelings of guilt or to condone alternative lifestyles. We’re here to offer the most practical solution we can think of: a good desk chair. If you’re going to be sitting all day — and unless you want to creep your coworkers out by being the weird guy with a standing desk peeking over his cubicle wall — you might as well have a good place to sit.
Not all desk chairs are created equal. Some — the best — have particularly heightened ergonomic benefits. These include the usual lumbar supports and breathable mesh seats, but as the prices get bigger so do the benefits: think customized size and suspension, extra supports, aesthetics for any office. These 13 great desk chairs might not be the cure for sitting down all day, but they’re a pretty good start. The Office Star is nothing if not a good value. Sure, its base price of $400 is still a little more than you’ll pay for something from IKEA, but what price can you really put on your health? (Also, the chair — and therefore, your health — are currently on sale.) This chair is fully adjustable — up-and-down, side-to-side, a few other ways you didn’t know existed — and even better, it comes with mesh siding for increased breathability (and decreased back sweat). The Alera Elusion could be misconstrued as another simple office chair — that is until you sit in it.
The mesh back panel offers supreme comfort and allows for great breathability. The seat cushion features a waterfall edge designed to eliminate pressure on the legs. The Elusion is also infinitely adjustable and even offers forward tilt. This is not a good looking chair. But it’s $200, which is dirt cheap for a chair that won’t slowly kill you. The lumbar support offers ergonomic comfort and the mesh back makes it an airy, breathable option. Plus, because IKEAs are nearly everywhere, you can take it for a test drive before you commit — a very big selling point considering how much you’re about to use it. The Sayl Chair is Herman Miller’s attempt at an affordable desk chair — which means it’s a huge cut above most other desk chairs in its price range. It was designed by Yves Behar and comes in a few striking colors; it’s made right here in America; it’s cradle to cradle certified (so that the whole thing is more or less recyclable). But because it sits decidedly lower on the spectrum compared to other Herman Miller models, it lacks a lot of the adjustments and customizable features you might expect from the brand.
The strength of Soma’s signature chair is the back. The tall, weirdly shaped spine is manufactured to reduce upper back, neck and shoulder tension while still supporting the lower back; that is, this chair is all about improving your posture. On the downside, it’s not nearly as attractive as some of the other options on this list. Knoll is the undisputed leader in office furniture, in part because they invest so much in design and research. The ReGeneration is un update on the classic Generation chair, which was originally designed by Formway Design, a New Zealand-based firm that took inspiration from the bridges of architect Santiago Calatrava. The result is a chair that curves and flexes to support its load, offering more or less support depending on how you’re sitting: the chair is said to adjust to 270 degrees of posture. Plus, the whole thing clocks in at less than 30 pounds and is environmentally friendly, using corn- and soy-based materials wherever possible. All that comes at a cost, of course — especially if you want add-ons like a lumbar support or aluminum base.
Niels Diffrient was one of America’s best industrial designers, a pioneer in ergonomic design whose Freedom and Liberty chairs are almost iconic. The World Chair is not his masterpiece, but it is a lighter, more approachable evolution on his previous designs. It’s Humanscale’s first-ever mesh chair, and they made it count: the whole thing weighs just 25 pounds and is made from 97 percent recycled material. Plus, it’s completely self-adjusting, which means you can sit back and recline without making any mechanical adjustments. The Chair Against Which All Chairs Are Measured The Aeron is the chair against which all other chairs are measured. First released in 1994, its status is still more or less unchallenged, even by the valiant contenders on this list. In fact, the Aeron is so iconic it has a permanent place in the Museum of Modern Art. The chair has no straight lines because, well, neither does the human body. And it’s mesh — one of the first chairs to employ the breathable ergonomic material.
It’s made out of recyclable materials and is itself 94 percent recyclable. And then there’s the best part: because the Aeron has been around for 20 years and is no longer the top-end model, it’s relatively affordable at $929. The Steelcase Leap is one of the most popular desk chairs in the world. Designed in 1999, the Leap is the culmination of four years of intensive research on how the back is impacted by long sitting sessions. The result of all that research is the LiveBack system, a method by which the seat and back of the chair adjust independently, allowing for complete support. Add that it’s 98 percent recyclable and blanket-wrapped for domestic delivery (instead of boxed, to reduce shipping costs) and you have an explanation for its popularity. Did we expect that the only chair ever to be endorsed by the American Physical Therapy Association would be exciting? No, we expected it to put function over form at every turn. That’s almost entirely true in this case.
It wants to look good — Haworth even commissioned upscale German design shop Ito Design to help — but the result is rather bland. Instead, focus on the science behind the chair, especially the asymmetrical adjustment system designed in conjunction with the Human Performance Institute at the University of Michigan that lets sitters target problem areas and conform the chair to their natural body shapes. The Acuity hits a sweet spot missed by a lot of chairs on this list: it’s both ergonomically sound and aesthetically excellent. This adherence to the tenets of good design resulted in a few cool features, like controls on the side that eliminate the need for cumbersome and hard-to-reach levers. And the leather jacket, which can be placed over the mesh body, dresses it up for the office (even if that makes it a bit warmer to sit on). There’s not a lot of recline, but then again, everyone always told us to sit up straight anyway. If Gordon Gecko was a real person, this would be his office chair.