Preventing Computer Related Neck and Shoulder Problems

Preventing Computer Related Neck and Shoulder Problems

Anyone who uses a computer for long periods is at risk of developing neck, shoulder and back problems. Humans simply aren’t designed to sit immobile for long periods of time staring at a screen.

We have all been told about the importance of correct ergonomic positions, getting the right chair, sitting with your back straight. We've all seen those nice diagrams of the lady sitting bolt upright, arms level with the keyboard with everything in the right ergonomic relationship.

But, as far as I'm concerned, that's a bunch of hooey.

Most people just don't work like that. Maybe for 10 ten minutes but after that they slouch. And when you slouch the problems start.

Those problems certainly started for me. It got to the point where I couldn't work for more than an 30 minutes at a time. I tried everything to solve the problem. For months I looked for solutions. Finally, I found two things that really worked.

Solution 1

The first was to throw out my expensive, ergonomically designed chair and to replace it with a cheap fitness ball. You know, those big plastic exercise balls you see in gyms.

For the first two days I used the ball my stomach muscles were sore. That's because my body core muscles had to work constantly to keep me sitting balanced on the ball without falling off. That's good news. Strengthening your core muscles really helps your back. From a geeks' viewpoint it's even better; it means you are getting a workout without even knowing it!

I don't know enough about physiology to tell you exactly why using a ball as a chair works. What I do know is that it's hard to slouch while sitting on a ball. I also know that using a ball for a seat worked wonders for me and every other person I know with computer related back, shoulder and neck problems.

Here's a link to a site that claims to explain what is happening, though this may be just hooey as well. However, the site also offers advice on selecting the correct size ball and that is definitely useful. They aslo show you some excellent exercises you can do on the ball while seated.
http://www.mercola.com/2005/jul/2/sit_exercise.htm

Here’s a photo of my desk and ball chair and my general computer setup:

You can see from the photo that my ball chair seems quite high relative to my desk. That’s because I have it inflated to a lower pressure than you would normally use in an exercise ball; it’s softer that way and easier on my butt. As a result of the lower pressure, the ball sags a little when I sit on it, hence the need for a bit more height.

You’ll also notice that I have my laptop right at the edge of my desk. That stops me slouching by leaning on my elbows.

A subscriber to my newsletter recently wrote in to tell me about a chair that utilizes the same principal. It's called a BalanceBall chair. I haven't tried it but it looks pretty impressive. It certainly solves the problem of your gym ball rolling around all over the place when you are not sitting on it!

The chair is self assembled and sells for around $79. More details here: http://www.gaiam.com/retail/product.asp?product%5Fid=95-1004

Note that I don't make any commission on this :>)

Solution 2

The second thing I did to solve my neck problems was to eliminate the need to turn my head sideways.

Like a lot of computer dudes, I use two computers at one time. These were placed side by side so a lot of turning was involved moving from machine to machine.

The same applies if you work with a single computer but have your paper documents alongside your keyboard. Lots of head turning.

What I did was change my computers so the monitors were aligned vertically. I did this by sitting one monitor on a box so that it is directly above my laptop screen. You can see how I did it in the photo.

My second monitor is a CRT not an LCD. I prefer the CRT for its more accurate color rendition. If your second monitor is an LCD you’ll probably find it even easier to align vertically above your main screen.

I operate both PCs from my laptop keyboard and mouse. Rather than use a KVM switch I use a free open source program called Synergy to switch between PCs using my local network.

Synergy is quite neat, really. When I move my mouse up the laptop screen it disappears when it reaches the top of the screen and then immediately re-appears on the bottom of screen on the top monitor and vice versa when I move the mouse down.

When the mouse is active in the top screen my laptop keyboard is connected to the top PC. When I slide the mouse down to my laptop screen the laptop keyboard is automatically reconnected to the laptop. It's automatic and seamless.

Even better, I can cut and paste from one PC to the other just by moving the mouse between screens.

What this means is that now I hardly ever need to turn my head sideways. I work pretty well exclusively in a vertical plane.

If you have only one PC but work off paper documents, you can achieve the same thing by placing your paper documents on a typing stand above your PC monitor. Again you will be working in a vertical plane.

I can't say whether this will help your particular neck problems as no two folks are the same. All I can say is that it worked wonders for me and is definitely worth trying.

And if you use two PCs do try Synergy rather than a KVM. This I can assure you WILL work wonders.

http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

Freeware, All Windows versions, Unix, Linux, Mac OS X.