Those of us who have desk jobs can all commiserate about the same things. We sit for hours on end each day staring at a computer screen, pounding away at our keyboard, and pointing and clicking with a mouse. It’s not that these individual motions require so much energy, but somehow they can get tiresome and even painful when repeated for long periods of time every day and every week for month after month.
We hear a lot about the importance of ergonomic workstations, with their carefully-adjusted desk heights and oh-so-comfy seating. But what about ergonomic keyboard and mice? Don’t our fingers and wrists deserve a break, too?
Why Do Ergonomics Matter?
While ergonomic computer equipment might sound like a luxury, it’s actually an essential part of a healthy work routine. Here are some of the reasons why ergonomics matter when it comes to finding the perfect keyboard and maximizing your mouse movements.
You might not associate typing on a keyboard with wrist injuries, but that’s exactly what can happen if you have one that’s not ergonomically-designed. If you’ve ever spent a long day typing like mad to finish a lengthy report or article that’s due, you may have noticed burning, tingling, or a sensation of numbness in one or both wrists. That’s a symptom of stress on the nerves in your hands and wrists. Put enough stress on them and you can develop carpal tunnel syndrome.
Why does this happen? Our hands and wrists naturally align in a straight position. Place them on a standard flat keyboard and you’ll notice that you have to tilt your hands outward slightly in order to place your fingers on the keys properly. When you keep your wrists in this unnatural position for hours on end, every single day, it’s a recipe for wrist pain and trouble. This is why it makes sense to spend the time and money to research and invest in an ergonomic keyboard.
The same goes for using a standard mouse. The position we find our wrists in when we use a traditionally-designed mouse is awkward and unnatural. It puts a strain on our wrist that might not be apparent with moderate mouse use, but spend too much time scrolling and clicking and you’ll start to notice discomfort and strange sensations in your wrist and even your fingers. An ergonomic mouse can help keep your hand in a more comfortable and natural position in order to eliminate these problems.
There’s a wealth of information available on ergonomic keyboards and mice. This ergonomic guide can help get you started, as it tells you all you need to know about which equipment works best for what kind of user. It also contains excellent ideas for other items to include at your workstation to ensure maximum comfort and productivity.
How to Set Up Your Ergonomic Workstation
So you’ve got your wonderful new ergonomic mouse and keyboard. Hopefully, you already have the proper desk and ergonomic office chair. How do you set everything up to maximize your comfort and reduce the risk of ending the day with tight shoulders, strained eyes, and an aching wrist? Here are tips to help you make the most of your equipment.
Arranging Your Mouse and Keyboard
After you unbox your ergonomic keyboard and mouse, you’ll want to go about setting them up and getting them ready to use. As far as placement goes, remember to keep them close together. Nothing will put a strain on your shoulders like working in one spot on a keyboard and needing to reach way over to operate your mouse. Keep them both within easy reach. If your desk has a keyboard tray, use it. The keyboard tray should be at the perfect height to keep your elbows at a healthy 90-degree angle as you work.
How your keyboard will be placed depends on the type of keyboard you have. Some keyboards only have numbers across the top, while others have a numeric keypad off to the right of the keyboard. If you have one of the latter, your tendency will be to attempt to center the entire keyboard in front of you on the desk.
Stop! This means that you’ll be stretching over to the left to type on the main keyboard. Instead of centering the keyboard as a whole, focus on centering the alphanumeric part of the keypad in front of you. Specifically, keep your eye on the “B” key and place it in the center. Is the “B” key directly in front of you now? Excellent. Now you’re getting ergonomic!
Where to Place the Monitor
Wrist strain isn’t the only worry when you’re spending long hours at your desk – what about eye strain? To help prevent that, keep your monitor about an arm’s length away from where you’ll be sitting. Adjust the screen until the area about two inches below the top of the screen is at eye level (this will be at about the address bar when you have your internet browser window maximized).
Make Sitting More Bearable By Not Sitting
Although you won’t find them in most office settings, stand-up desks are on the increase at workstations around the world. Because the human body isn’t designed to sit all day, this kind of setup helps greatly reduce or eliminate back pain.
Even if you don’t have a stand-up desk, you can help your body out by getting up and moving around throughout the day. Even when you’re working under a deadline and need to keep heads-down and focused, set a timer and make yourself get up and walk around for a few minutes every hour. As counterintuitive as this sounds, it will actually help you focus better when you sit back down…and will help prevent back and neck pain, as well as wrist injuries, because you’re giving your body time to rest, relax, and realign instead of forcing it into the same position all day.
Creating an ergonomic work space might mean buying new office equipment and unlearning old habits, but you’ll find that it’s well worth it in reduced pain and increased productivity.
