Pain Relief from Neck and Shoulder Pain My Top 5 Favorite Ways
Copyright 2006 Wendy Young
When you are experiencing neck and shoulder pain at your
computer, there are simple actions you can take to help you feel
better.
It is very important to understand how your body reacts with the
design of your computer work area. Of equal concern is choosing
products to help you rather than create additional pain. It can
be just as simple as adjusting or rearranging your equipment and
furniture.
Monitor Height Placement
If you bend your neck back to see the monitor, it is too high.
If you bend your neck down, your monitor is too low.
Let your head rest naturally and it will tilt slightly forward.
You have left the office too many times with sore muscles!
When looking straight ahead, your line of sight is the imaginary
horizontal line from your eyes to the screen. Your eyes
naturally gaze down 15 - 20 degrees below your line of sight.
Adjust the height to easily view the information on the screen
where your eyes naturally gaze.
Center Keyboard with Monitor
If your keyboard is placed directly in front of your body and
your monitor is situated to the right or left you will be forced
to twist your neck to view the screen. Ouch! This twist will
tense the muscles in your neck.
The longer you work with your muscles tensed the higher risk of
developing neck and shoulder pain.
Adjust Your Chair Armrest Height
How often do you feel as if your neck is almost touching your
shoulder? Too often, right!
Let's not make it easy to tense your shoulders. If your armrests
are too high, you will be raising (and tensing!) your shoulders
up and creating pain.
Due to the tendency to lean to the side with armrests too low
you may also create pain in the elbows and ulnar nerve. The
ulnar nerve is the one you feel all the way down into your
pinkie finger when hitting your elbow. Watch this one!
Adjust your armrests so that your shoulders are completely
relaxed and elbows rest comfortably on armrests.
Eliminate Your Chair Armrests Altogether
Do your armrests prevent you from getting close to your keyboard
because they hit the edge of your desk? This is a source of
mental stress many of us have experienced.
You will also create tense neck and shoulder muscles due to the
straight arm reach to the keyboard and mouse.
So in this case, remove the armrests.
Move Mouse Closer To Your Body
Moving and clicking your mouse frequently when it is too far
away can create shoulder pain - use a shorter footprint,
ergonomic keyboard without the right hand numeric keypad or a
mouse that is placed at the center of the body.
You may also try a keyboard with the numeric keypad on the left,
your keyboard and monitor will be balanced more easily.
As always, REST, REST and MORE REST every 10 minutes for 10
seconds and every hour for five (5) minutes.
Stand up and stretch often as this will relax your mind and
body, improve circulation and create more productivity.
Go Live in Comfort!
About the author:
Wendy Young, a Certified Ergonomic Expert and founder of
http://www.ergopro.com has helped thousands of people reduce
pain from their computer work since 1991. She offers a free
newsletter on increasing comfort and reducing pain in the
workplace at http://www.ergonomics-safety.com .
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