Pain Relief from Neck and Shoulder Pain; My Top 5 Favorite Ways
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!
Copyright 2006 Wendy Young
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
Best Rated Sites for T-pain
Latest News
Lil Wayne, T-Pain set to land at the ACC - Toronto Sun
New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne, who became the first artist in three years to sell more than a million copies of his record in its first week with his sixth album, Tha Carter III, visits Air Canada Centre on Jan. 15. Also on the bill is T-Pain, Keyshia ...
T-Pain's musical circus - Colorado Daily
DULUTH, Ga. -- When T-Pain and his synthesized vocals made their debut with the songs "I'm Sprung" and "I'm N Luv (Wit A Stripper)" three years ago, most people dismissed the hits as novelties and expected the self-proclaimed "rappa ternt sanga" to ...
T-Pain calls in favours on new CD - Jam! Showbiz
A painting of Queen Elizabeth II in sparkling jewels hangs inside the plush, swanky Royal Suite of Toronto’s Royal York Hotel. Faheem Rasheed Najm — better-known as hip-hop producer/artist T-Pain — can certainly hold his own in terms of being ...
Ludacris Pops Champagne With T-Pain, LL Cool J, More At Record-Release ... - Newsroom.mtv.com
With all the love the New York crowd at the Highline Ballroom was giving last night, leave it to Ludacris to start off his show with “Everybody Hates Chris.” He has a big sense of humor, if you haven’t noticed. The Atlanta MC had the release ...
Pain and gain - Edmonton Sun
A painting of Queen Elizabeth II in sparkling jewels hangs inside the swanky Royal Suite of the fabled Royal York Hotel. Faheem Rasheed Najm -- better-known as hip-hop producer/artist T-Pain -- can certainly hold his own in terms of being adorned in ...