Workstation Health and Fitness for RSI
4. Rest Breaks
All ergonomic experts agree that taking frequent rest breaks is essential to avoid the risk of computer related injuries.
You should take frequent "eye breaks" - staring at a computer monitor for long periods causes you to blink less often - resulting in dryer eyes. Every 10 to 15 minutes you should look away from your monitor and blink your eyes rapidly for a few seconds. This will refresh the tear film and clear any dust from the surface of the eyes. Additionally you should focus on something at a distance - preferably 20 feet or more away - look out of the window if you can - this will relax the muscles inside the eye.
You should take frequent short pauses or "micro pauses" - for 10 seconds or so up to a minute - every 10 minutes or thereabouts. You should take regular short breaks - for 5 minutes or more - every hour or so - maybe go for a coffee or a short walk around the office, and you should take a long break every two or three hours - for at least 15 minutes, or preferably 30 minutes to an hour. Exactly how long and how frequent your breaks are depends on your own personal preferences and working environment.
5. Stretching Exercises
Regular stretching is an essential part of RSI prevention and recovery, remember that your body is not designed to be sat at a desk for 8 hours a day clicking a mouse. Respect your body and give it the movement and range of motion it normally expects.
6. Posture
Good posture is essential to avoid repetitive strain injury and other computer related injuries. Well designed workstation ergonomics can help in maintaining a good posture.
- Make sure that you can reach the keyboard with your wrists as flat as possible (not twisted up or down) and straight (not twisted left or right). An ergonomic keyboard can help to keep your wrists straight.
- Make sure that your elbow angle is 90 degrees or more to avoid nerve compression at the elbow.
- Make sure that your upper arm and elbow are as close to the body and as relaxed as possible for mouse use - avoid overreaching. Also make sure that your wrist is as straight as possible when the mouse is being used.
- Make sure that you sit back in the chair and that you have good back support - especially lumber support.
- Make sure that your feet are flat on the floor. Use a foot rest if necessary.
- Make sure that your head and neck are as straight as possible .
- Make sure that you are relaxed. Forcing yourself to sit up straight can sometimes introduce unhealthy tensions in the back muscles.
7. Alternative Input Devices
There are a number of alternative input devices you can use, instead of the mouse and keyboard, which you might find helpful. Examples are the trackball, a graphics table and pen, a touchpad, and even voice control.
RSI is a very serious health risk, especially with the young people who are coming to any industry sector that has continuous use of a PC. You need to take all the actions and preventions necessary to help minimize that risk.
About The Author Gerard Bulger is a part of the company http://www.threadbuilder.co.uk/ which creates Stress Buster the automated background program that monitors peoples computer usage and indicates when breaks should be taken to help alleviate RSI. |
.