How to avoid aches caused by office computers

Today, almost all office workers have to do their work with the help of computers. After working with computers all day long, many people feel in the evening that this or that part of the body aches or causes troubles.

Photo: How to avoid aches caused by office computers

How to avoid aches caused by office computers

Manual therapists give a number of effective recommendations how to properly organize work with computers and avoid health problems.

Computer work supposes a sitting mode of life which means that muscles are not exercised during the day. The neck and the back suffer most of all from this sitting mode of living. The situation may get even worse if office employees have their workplaces badly organized.

It is important that office workers should have ergonomic monitors. Such monitors can be adjusted to the body peculiarities of every particular man. An ergonomic monitor can be fixed vertically or horizontally, turned in any direction; at that its height and the screen bent are well-regulated.

If a monitor is slightly shifted to the left, this position will make the neck muscles get strained on the left side and stretched on the right side. This misbalance will make it problematic to turn the head to the right. So, an office monitor must be placed in accordance with the middle line. In other words, the monitor must be placed immediately behind a keyboard; the middle line of the keyboard must coincide with the middle lines of the monitor and a worker’s body.

It is essential that a monitor cannot be placed too high or too low. The starting line on the display must be at your eyes’ level. In case a worker has to frequently glance at a keyboard or some papers on the desk, the starting line on the display should be shifted lower.

To find out if your monitor is placed correctly just have a simple experiment. Keep in memory the spot on your monitor at which you glance too often and then close your eyes. Slowly nod the head up and down several times. Fix the head in a position you feel to be comfortable and open the eyes. If your monitor is placed correctly your eyes will be fixed on the spot you kept in memory before the experiment.

Papers you use at work must be fixed at the same distance, height and angle that a computer monitor. For this purpose it makes sense to use a paper holder that must be fixed close to the display on the same level with your eyes. In case an entire text on a paper must be typed on the computer display it will be more convenient to place the paper right in front of yourself or place it on a stand between a monitor and a keyboard.

Often, when while working you have to frequently glance first at the monitor, then at the keyboard and again back at the monitor and repeat it many times you may feel at the end of the day that your neck aches terribly. To avoid the problem, have an ergonomic keyboard. Lots of new models for input-output of information have been patented in the world recently. There are keyboards that can be placed vertically near a monitor and also pyramidal ones that have vertically arranged keys.

If these technological innovations are not available, any computer user may find a way out of the situation. A keyboard can be placed at an angle so that its fore end is lower than the rear one. At that, it must be placed lower than user’s elbows, and an angle that elbow joint forms must make up 90 degrees or slightly more.

Experts state that there are five important MUST NOT for computer users.

1. A monitor MUST NOT be placed too low; it must be the same level with the eyes.

2. Elbows MUST NOT be placed lower than the desk.

3. A keyboard MUST NOT be placed too far from the hands; it is important that elbows must be the same line with shoulders.

4. A chair MUST NOT be too low and MUST NOT press you under the knees.

5. A computer user MUST NOT bent knees and have feet under the chair. It is better to have full feet standing on the floor.

One of the most important conditions that may help avoid ailments and diseases connected with computer work is that workers should have breaks during a workday as often as it is possible. There are some simple tricks that will let you have short breaks during a workday. Place a telephone one a nearby desk some distance from your desk to stand up every time you need to pick up the phone. Move a printer away from the desk so that you will have to stand up to get printed materials. For this very purpose place folders with papers somewhere away from the computer. Also, leave your workplace when you have to reboot the computer. Make some simple exercises for your neck every 45 minutes. Stretch the neck forward, then turn the head to the right and then to the left; then bent the head to the right and to the left several times.

When a workplace is organized correctly and you have an opportunity to have some short breaks during the day to make exercises you will feel less tired at the end of the day.

Pravda.ru

Translated by Maria Kapitanova

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