You may have heard the term “ergonomic” before, especially regarding office equipment. As an occupational therapist with over 20 years of experience in ergonomics, I help people set up and work at their desks in a way that can decrease their discomfort or prevent it. Several factors influence comfort at a workstation: posture, alignment, equipment, and habits.
Posture
One of the first things to consider about your workstation is your posture while using it. How much time do you spend there, and in what positions? Is your posture “good?”
Our posture is how we choose (consciously or unconsciously) to hold our bodies during tasks such as standing in line at the grocery store, driving, or working at a computer. We are often told from a young age to “stand up straight.” Teens are often told to fix their posture while using their phones. Employees are encouraged to improve their posture while using their computers. Chronic poor posture can lead to body misalignment. But what exactly is good posture?
Our bodies have evolved to work with gravity. “Good posture” looks like the picture on the right. Imagine a plumb line (a weighted string) hanging from the ceiling. If you stood next to it in good posture, the string would line up with your ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, and the opening of the ear. When we sit or stand in this ideal posture, it actually strengthens our bones. When we are in poor postures, our bodies must fight against gravity, causing tension and pain.
Does this mean you can never slouch again? Of course not. It is a misconception that we should be in excellent posture at all times. Instead, we should feel equally comfortable in perfect posture as in any other position. If you spend more than a few minutes at your workstation, you will likely shift your posture several times, which is ideal. Ultimately, you should have a neutral home base that you consistently come back to.
Alignment
Alignment is the relationship of one part of our body to another. Postural choices over time maintain ideal alignment or create misalignment. Misalignment is often a result of poor posture choices over months or years.
Our ligaments, tendons, and fascia function best when our joints align correctly. When we continually hold our bodies, consciously or unconsciously, out of alignment, our tissue lengths change, and our joints can’t work correctly. We begin to feel sensations of stiffness and hear our joints popping and clicking. Then, we begin to experience achiness or pain, which may be mild, nagging, or intense. When we are correctly aligned, we have an amazing amount of motion and strength available to do a wide variety of tasks.
We should never compromise our best alignment for repetitive or difficult tasks such as exercise or lifting. We should be in proper alignment most of the time. Proper alignment allows us to use the amazing amount of motion we have available to us on a regular basis.
We have many landmarks on our bodies we can use to identify if we are in or out of alignment. Knowing these landmarks is the first step to better alignment. Once we know where our bodies are tight, we can design a plan for moving into better alignment.
For a more in-depth look at your posture and alignment, check out my self-paced online course, Posture, Fascia, and Your Health: The Missing Ingredient to Your Healthy Lifestyle!
Ergonomics and Workstations
Ergonomics is primarily about reducing risk factors. Risk factors come in four categories: task-based, environmental, hazards, and personal.
- Task-Based: poor posture, time on task, and repetition.
- Environmental: equipment, lighting, noise, and temperature.
- Hazards: stress, distractions, or electrical exposure.
- Personal: general wellness, weight, and related activities.
These are a few risk factors that can affect the likelihood of injury at your workstation. One or two risk factors alone may not result in an injury, but as risk factors layer together, the risk of injury increases. An ergonomic evaluation can help you identify and reduce risk factors.
Home Ergonomic Evaluation
Today, many people use computers and laptops in their homes. In some homes, families share computer workstations for work, homework, and leisure activities. When parents and children use the same computer workstation, how can you design the space so it is safe for everyone? A home ergonomic evaluation can help your family create a workspace that is ideal for one or all members of the family.
Click here for a quick and easy guide to setting up your computer workstation.
Work-Based Ergonomic Evaluation
Many employees spend most of their day in their workstations on the computer and the phone. An ergonomic assessment can help to reduce risk factors and prevent immediate or future injury. Some employers may allow an on-site evaluation. You should check with your supervisor if this is an option. If on-site evaluations are not allowed, an evaluation can be completed using photos or video of you and your workstation.
Ergonomics Education
If your workplace hosts lunch and learn activities, ergonomics education is an excellent option for providing employees with the knowledge they can apply immediately.
Ergonomics Equipment vs. Ergonomics Habits
I have been working in office ergonomics for over 20 years. In the early years, the challenge was often about finding better equipment. More employees were asked to use computers but still had standard wooden or metal desks and chairs. This mix started the evolution of office-based cumulative trauma. Today, when I do ergonomics assessments, people often have ergonomic equipment, including an ergonomic chair, an ergonomic keyboard, an ergonomic mouse, a flat-screen monitor, etc. They have often tried a variety of ergonomic equipment but are still experiencing pain and discomfort. What’s the problem?
The problem is habits. Humans are creatures of habit. You can adorn your workstation with every high-tech ergonomic gadget with a five-star rating on Amazon, but if you are not using it correctly, you will still have problems. Another problem is that not all equipment labeled ergonomic is ergonomic. Let’s discuss this first.
Ergonomic Equipment
The most basic ergonomic principle is to use the largest muscle you can to do a task. This principle is most commonly associated with lifting but applies to all tasks, especially if you do them repetitively. Let us take, for example, a roller ball mouse. When you use a roller ball mouse, you use a single finger to move your cursor around your screen. When using a standard mouse, your palm should be resting on the mouse so that you are pushing it with the muscles that originate in your shoulder. If you are mousing a few times daily, the roller mouse is fine. If you are mousing all day, eight hours per day, you should use the larger muscles to do this repetitive task, or you are asking for trouble.
Now, let’s look at another piece of desk equipment described as ergonomic and can cause a variety of problems: wrist rest. Wrist rests are designed to provide a soft place to rest your wrists while you are not typing or mousing. When wrist rests are used to rest the wrists while typing or mousing, they cause several problems.
- Moving around on the keyboard should involve shoulder muscles. When the wrists are stuck on the wrist rest, you use smaller muscles of the wrist and hand to move around the keyboard. These smaller muscles fatigue quicker and are more susceptible to repetitive injury.
- Another problem is contact stress. The constant pressure on the wrist from resting on the wrist rest compresses the tissues, including the carpal tunnel. This pressure reduces blood flow and creates less space for the tendons to glide.
- Another problem that results from using a wrist rest while typing is it puts the wrist into extension. When the wrist is in extension, the carpal tunnel becomes smaller.
- Using a wrist rest pushes your keyboard and mouse further from you, creating various problems in the upper back, neck, and shoulders.
These four issues, when combined, put the user on a path to wrist and hand pain.
Ergonomic Habits
Now that we have addressed some examples of how ergonomic equipment is not necessarily ergonomic, let’s move on to habits.
Humans are creatures of habit. Our habits may be good for us or bad for us. Either way, habits are hard to change. The habits we develop at our workstations include our posture, how we move, and how we organize our space. Our bodies have powerful muscle memory. When we become involved in our work, it is easy to sink back into old habits.
Common habits include pushing the keyboard away from the edge of the desk and leaning forward while typing. Another is sitting on the edge of the chair. Another is sticking to the wristrest while typing. There are many. It takes anywhere from two weeks to thirty days to eliminate one habit and replace it with a new habit, so changing your workstation habits takes awareness and persistence. Providing people with the underlying knowledge and rationale of why the change in habit is important helps create a commitment to change.