CureZone   Log On   Join
Re: to much computer use!
 
brt_sound_design Views: 895
Published: 20 y
 
This is a reply to # 350,913

Re: to much computer use!


hi. I am in a similar place every day and had a situation a few years back in which my wrists and hands were getting carpelled out to a point of severe pain, shakiness, medication and such things.

I woudl bet there are some people in here who are much more well versed in the bio-mechanic related tendon swelling research and preventative steps within the work place, but here are a few things discovered through research and the advice of physical therapists which helped me a great deal:

1) chair and TABLE height from ground-- my table was actually too low which was causing poor posture conditions not to mention my chair. It was recommended to me that one should have the foot--knee--toso angle as close to 90 degrees as possible, and the knee to torso part of this angle to be parallel to the floor. and of course a straight back and NO SLOUCHING! having these variabes messed up can put undo pressure on the arms wrists, hands and also cause them to have to do the bulk of the work themself instead of making it a collaborative effort between several muscle groups as to have as little stress/overlaod as possible on any one group.

2)keyboard/mouse+mouse pad-- have you tried the newer models of keyboards which are split and at an angle thereby placing less stress on the hands? A little weird at first but definitely helped in my case. Also, the angle between the hand/keyboard is important. I purchased one of the narrow somewhat circular gel pads which spans the length of the keyboard (placed on table right below keyboard/space bar and wrists can rest on it instead of being flat on the desk and landlocking the hands to do all the work themself, etc) A few people at work also ADORE the big mouse ball things which kind of look like an old school video game, what was it, 'track and field'? they are a little weird too but may be worth checking out. (BY THE WAY, MOST OF THIS CAN BE PURCHASED AT PLACES LIKE OFFICE DEPOT, ETC). And thre are also mouse pads with similar get structures at the bottom which allows you to rest your wrist on them comfortably while freeing the wrist up enough to more efficently contribute to the cause.

office supplies, but the most important element of reducing these pains for me was leanring and embracing the reality that wokring on a computer as just about any other biomechanical movement, is a *whole body* endeavor. it is not just the fingers, hands wrists and arms, it requires nealry every major muscle in the body to work togeter the end goal.

After embracing this premise, I simply created the best possible work environment i could to help the casue and became super anal with my posture.. (can be rough)

Stretching is important and you can surely find some valuable stratches online, but once you start using all of your muscles, there is so much less stress being applied to the hands and what not that stretching isn't as important as you might think. (the back is probaly actually more important to stretch, or at least has been for me) that being said though, it's imporant to recognize what is actually happening when you have pain: you are working your hands so hard that the tendons are swelling and often don;t have any more 'space' in which to swell. So stretching beforehand and creating more 'space' can certainly help, as well as ice packs afterwards to reduce the swelling. But this stuff is just a bandaid fix for a larger problem usually. Unless you address the issues of posture, bio-mechanics, desktop health, and such things and optimize these variables, your tendons will continue swelling and eventually start creatng scar tissue which is the beginning of carpel tunnel syndrome.

An additional program that helped me out was exercise!!! Swimming laps will do magic for such a condition as it strengthens your back, shoulders, arms, legs, etc. You can even get to a point where you can truly feel the difference in your muscles/body between the slacker posture where your hands are doing all of the work, and the proper methods where all of the muscles are flexing in their own sublte way and taking some of the work away from their friends: the hands. ;)

hope this helps! Oh, also.. for me AN INVERSION TABLE has had an absolutely profound effect as far as back stretching is concerned. You should research and get the adivce of others of course, but my opinion is that they are AMAZING!

peace light,
brian
 

 
Printer-friendly version of this page Email this message to a friend
Alert Moderators
Report Spam or bad message  Alert Moderators on This GOOD Message

This Forum message belongs to a larger discussion thread. See the complete thread below. You can reply to this message!


 

Donate to CureZone


CureZone Newsletter is distributed in partnership with https://www.netatlantic.com


Contact Us - Advertise - Stats

Copyright 1999 - 2024  www.curezone.org

0.066 sec, (2)