Office ergonomics: Your how-to guideA comfortable work space can help you feel your best. Give your sitting work area a makeover with this visual guide to office ergonomics.By Mayo Clinic Staff If you sit behind a desk for hours at a time, you're not doomed to a career of neck and back pain or sore wrists and fingers. Proper office ergonomics — including correct chair height, adequate equipment spacing and good desk posture — can help you and your joints stay comfortable at work. Ready to give your work space a makeover? Get started making your sitting workstation comfortable with this visual guide to sitting workstation ergonomics. Choose a chair that supports your spinal curves. Adjust the height of your chair so that your feet rest flat on the floor or on a footrest and your thighs are parallel to the floor. Adjust armrests so your arms gently rest on them with your shoulders relaxed. Keep key objects — such as your telephone, stapler or printed materials — close to your body to minimize reaching.
Stand up to reach anything that can't be comfortably reached while sitting. Place your mouse within easy reach and on the same surface as your keyboard. While typing or using your mouse, keep your wrists straight, your upper arms close to your body, and your hands at or slightly below the level of your elbows. Use keyboard shortcuts to reduce extended mouse use. If possible, adjust the sensitivity of the mouse so you can use a light touch to operate it. Alternate the hand you use to operate the mouse by moving the mouse to the other side of your keyboard. If you frequently talk on the phone and type or write at the same time, place your phone on speaker or use a headset rather than cradling the phone between your head and neck. If your chair is too high for you to rest your feet flat on the floor — or the height of your desk requires you to raise the height of your chair — use a footrest. If a footrest is not available, try using a small stool or a stack of sturdy books instead.
Under the desk, make sure there's clearance for your knees, thighs and feet. If the desk is too low and can't be adjusted, place sturdy boards or blocks under the desk legs. If the desk is too high and can't be adjusted, raise your chair. Use a footrest to support your feet as needed. If your desk has a hard edge, pad the edge or use a wrist rest. Don't store items under your desk. Place the monitor directly in front of you, about an arm's length away. The top of the screen should be at or slightly below eye level. The monitor should be directly behind your keyboard. If you wear bifocals, lower the monitor an additional 1 to 2 inches for more comfortable viewing. Place your monitor so that the brightest light source is to the side. Workstations components — Monitors. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Accessed March 17, 2016. Workstations components — Pointer/mouse. Workstations components — Telephones. Workstations components — Desks. Workstations components — Chairs.
ANSI/HFES 100-2007: Human Factors Engineering of Computer Workstations. Santa Monica, Calif.: Human Factors and Ergonomics Society; Home > Home > Sit down and relax in our favorite office chairs Anyone who works a typical 9-to-5 job knows that sitting is the bane of their existence. Our backs and overall body structure aren’t made to withstand hours sitting at a desk, but work often demands just that. Opting for the proper office chair, one designed to cradle you as you work and provide you with the ample comfort, is a practical and well-advised solution. More: Don’t just sit there, check out the best standing desks you can buy The best chairs go beyond what you’d expect. Many offer resounding ergonomic benefits, breathable mesh backing, and excellent lumbar support, while simultaneously granting you a swath of customization options spanning everything from colors to contours. None of them are going to be a cure-all for your workday woes — at least, not in the way a standing desk might be — but customized suspension and the appropriate aesthetics go far in the long haul.
The Best: Herman Miller Embody So, what is it about the Embody we hold so revered? It’s a fair question, sure, especially considering the Embody’s lofty price tag and accompanying shipping costs. Well, for starters, the chair offers a dynamic matrix of “pixels” that allow the seat and back to automatically conform to your body’s every movement, while the chair’s central spine and flexible ribs work to maintain proper posture regardless if you lean forward or recline. Said movement capabilities help promote better blood and oxygen flow, and if that wasn’t enough, the advanced tilt mechanism helps combat unwanted hip, neck, and lumbar strain. The chair even sizes to fit your body perfectly, comes in a swath of colors, and features a skin-like covering for increased airflow. Buy one now from: DXRacer Formula Series DOH/FH08/NW ItalModern Bungie High Back Office Chair Office Star Air GridAlthough it’s “just a desk job,” working in an office can wreak absolute havoc on our bodies.
If you’re somebody who spends all day at a desk and computer (which I’m guessing applies to a majority of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion), you know exactly what I’m talking about. Whether it’s lower back pain, wrist pain, a really tight neck, or a lack of mobility, when we spend all day at a desk to pay the bills, our bodies often get stuck picking up the tab. What can we do to counteract this office life we have to live? Although I’ve done some crazy things like exercise around the world, most of my time is spent sitting at a desk for 10+ hours a day, connecting with readers, writing articles, and watching stupid cat videos on YouTube. I feel like I’ve cracked the code for staying limber despite sitting all day, and I want to share it with my fellow desk-dwellers! If you work a desk job, you probably spend more time at your desk than you do at anything else in your life. And yet, that time is often spent sitting in a chair that’s too low, with a desk that’s too high, and our necks bent down looking at a screen at an angle that makes us feel like Quasimodo.
That can result in all sorts of nasty stuff, like eyestrain, shoulder pain, back pain, arm pain, wrist pain, and neck pain. Desk jobs might not seem physically taxing, but they can certainly cause us some physical problems. If you’re going to level up your office life, it’s time to do a desk audit. So let’s start with setting your desk chair at the proper height so you can type without scrunching your shoulders up. I swear, 90% of desk/chair combos, in offices or in coffee shops have this ratio wrong. You want to sit in a chair at a height where you can sit with your shoulders relaxed and pulled back, you’re sitting up tall, and your forearms are parallel to the ground or or lower, meaning you don’t need to reach up to your keyboard, nor shrug your shoulders. I can tell when I work at a desk that’s the wrong height, and you probably can too: my shoulders shrug up, I get tense, and my neck bothers me for the next few days. So, set your desk at the right height for you!
1. PICK A GREAT CHAIR: You probably spend more than a third of your existence at a desk chair, so do what you can to make sure you’re setting in a chair that is not destroying your spine! Last year, in an effort to fix my back issues, I bought a great desk chair (the Herman Miller chair). Honestly, it’s been fantastic, and my back feels great sitting in it for extended periods of time. But, I know it’s incredibly pricey. You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on a great chair (unless you can afford it) – you simply need a chair that has an adjustable height so you can set it so your feet are comfortably on the floor, a solid cushion to sit on, and good lower back support. If your company supplied you with a crappy office chair, ask for the money to buy a good one (“it’ll improve my productivity!”), and head to an office supply store and try out a bunch of chairs. If they won’t pay for it, consider making the upgrade yourself. A quick search on Amazon revealed this chair that has the best reviews ever – not bad for $150!
2. SET YOUR MONITOR AND DESKTOP PROPERLY: If you work with a laptop, you are spending most of your day hunched over a tiny keyboard and trackpad. Even if you work with a desktop computer, it’s certainly possible the monitor is not high enough for you to be able to not have to tilt your head down to look at it. You want the height of your monitor to be such that you can look straight ahead and not have to adjust your neck angle to view the screen. After spending a few years hunched over a laptop, I fixed my posture by adjusting where my eyes have to look by drastically raising the height of my monitors. Just raising my viewing angle was enough to get me to stop slouching, I no longer shrug my shoulders for hours, and my spine/back/shoulders/neck no longer hate me! You don’t need anything fancy. I even just added some books to get the right height: You don’t need to spend a lot of money to change your setup, and I’ve found that the inexpensive solutions above were well worth the money invested.
Feel free to prop your monitor up with whatever you have around. For laptop users, a separate keyboard and mouse can alleviate a lot of the “cramped” feelings and prevent you from ending up hunched over a laptop. IF YOU WANT TO REALLY NERD OUT: check out this cool site from Ergotron (note: not a member of the Autobots). Simply put in your height and it can help you determine the height of your chair, keyboard, and monitor. Now, if you have Quad Desk, or a Dwight Schrute exercise ball, you will probably have a different set of problems on your hands. This should get you started with setting your desk up to win. But what about the rest of the day when you’re not sitting? Along with having a properly constructed office or cubicle, there are a few other things you can do to combat officitis: THE MOST IMPORTANT THING – don’t stay in the same position for hours upon hours! Studies suggest the best plan for prolonged spinal health is to consistently alter your work environment – move around, stand when possible, sit…just don’t sit in the same position for 8 straight hours!
Set a timer every twenty minutes, and get up and do something! Take a lap around the office, do some shoulder rolls, neck rolls, or twists. I use a program called “focus booster” that pings me every 20 minutes to get up and do something (take a lap around NF HQ – my apartment – or do a quick stretch). If you have your own office, or you work in a cubicle and don’t mind getting some funny looks, feel free to try some of the following: The Couch Stretch: because I’m on my ass all day, my hip flexors tend to get tight. So I make sure to do a two minute-couch stretch every single day to help open up my hips: The Thoracic Bridge Stretch (Hat tip to my buddy James Clear for finding this): Consider dropping down into a basic body weight Grok Squat: To answer your final question: you do not NEED a standing desk, even though the internet has a LOT to say about sitting all day. I often stand when doing basic tasks like checking email or chatting with Team NF, but I really struggle with writing creatively while standing, so I’m almost ALWAYS seated for article writing.