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A Guide to Working from Home – Ergonomics Part 3

By April 22, 2020Blogs

The 3rd and final installment of ‘A Guide to working from home’ is all about ergonomics and how to stay physically healthy and in shape. There a few things to consider like seating, posture, taking breaks, eye exercises, etc so let’s get started!

 

1. Correct posture for ergonomics

Sitting on the sofa with your laptop is not the best for your posture, neck or back and can lead to muscle aches, strains and pain. It can also lead to fatigue as your body is constantly straining. An improper workstation can also lead to long term injury. The following diagram shows you correct posture and seating.

 

ergonimics

2. Seating

Correct seating plays a major role in how productive you are and how comfortable you are. Use a good chair if possible and if you don’t have a good chair use pillows to support your back. Raise your chair so that your arms are high enough to be resting on the desk at a 90 degree angle. If you can’t raise your chair, add pillows to make you sit higher. Support your feet with books if they don’t reach the floor comfortably. Sit back into your chair so that your back is supported and take breaks from sitting regularly.

 

ergonomics

 

3. Screen

Your screen should be high enough that you are looking directly at it. You don’t want your head looking up or down as this will cause strain on your neck and cause headaches and fatigue. You can put a phone book or a ream of paper under your monitor to raise it up if you are finding its not high enough. Or raise your chair to get the correct positioning.

 

 

4. Taking regular breaks & stretching

Taking a break from sitting in front of your computer at regular intervals is imperative. Muscles don’t like to sit still for too long so take a 10 minute break every hour. Get up, stretch, walk around and get the blood moving again. This will prevent sore muscles and fatigue at the end of the day. When we sit for extended hours we contract our hip flexor muscles and the psoas muscle. Tightening of these muscles will often result is sore hipos, sore back and knee issues. Click here to read an article which shows you how to stretch these muscles.

 

 

5. Eye exercises

The eyes have muscles that can tire easily when looking at a screen for too long. One eye exercise that can help relieve eye strain is looking up then down, then to the left, then to the right without moving your head. Closing your eyes for a few minutes at a time can help relax the eye and blinking frequently is another way of refreshing the eye ball and keeping it hydrated and moist.

Looking at a screen for extended periods of time means that the eye muscles are staying in the same position too for long periods of time. It’s like holding your arm locked in to a particular position for hours … it’ll get sore. A good way to prevent this from happening is to look at something further away from your screen distance for 5-6 seconds and then something closer than your screen distance for another 5 – 6 seconds. Repeat this for 30 seconds. It’s the equivalent of moving your eye muscles to prevent soreness.

 

 

We hope that you have enjoyed ‘A guide to working from home’ – ergonomics. To read Part 1 of our 3 part series click here and to read Part 2 click here.  How are you finding working from home? Hopefully these three guides this will make things a whole lot easier for you physically and mentally and remember that if you need any help with keeping your weight off or wanting to start a weight loss journey or just to have a chat to our Award Winning Naturopath Tony Daniel or one of our other therapists about issues that you may be having through these troubling times feel free to call us on 3823 3103 or visit our website here

 

Our services include: Naturopathy, Weight Loss, Food Intolerance Testing, Psychology, Kinesiology and Counselling.

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