Ergonomics

[da]

I just got an ergonomic assessment of my office. It was useful, for helping me track what's causing my shoulder to hurt recently. I knew it was mouse-related, since it hurts precisely when I use the mouse. It turns out I'm holding up my arm too much. Way too much. I should be resting it on the arm-rests. All right then.

I need to investigate:

• a footrest. The assessor said when I'm not using my keyboard or mouse, I might want to be tipping my chair slightly back (something about blood-flow in the back being increased). She recommended putting my feet up. I like putting my feet up.
  
• I still need a windows program that will simply go 'ding' every 20 minutes- to remind me to take a break. Options: many.
  
• a split keyboard without a keypad? She doesn't know of any. I'm going to let this one go, it's only to make my mouse closer at hand and I don't really need it.
  
• I need to ask the kinesiology gym people about two exercises which may be OK for my shoulder, since I've been skipping the arm-lifting exercises at the gym. "prone fly" and "shoulder retraction".
  

20 minutes very well spent.

Comments

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about Xwrits (don't think there's a Windows binary. sorry) is that it grabs control of the keyboard and mouse so you can't do anything and may as well take the break you need.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

That may be a nice thing to some, but it's a deal-killer for me. I want a gentle reminder. I'd rather postpone the occasional break than lose my train of thought every scheduled breaktime. My train of thought is delicate enough as it is. :)

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that if it's mouse related, none of these options involve replacing your mouse.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

The mouse I use is this, which has helped with my sore-hands problems of the last few years (mouse-clicking == bad for my middle/pointer fingers). The ergo assessor says it's common for people with vertical mice to then have exactly the problem I'm having, with their shoulders, because instead of using their wrists to move the mouse, they're using their shoulders, which need to move properly too.

[darkmagess.livejournal.com]

I know it's not a traditional split keyboard, but you might consider getting a Typematrix. It feels like a laptop keyboard and has no numpad, so you could move the mouse closer. I found it fairly easy to adapt to.

www.typematrix.com

Yay healthy computing!

[mynatt.livejournal.com]

Huh. I put my feet up all the time while working (when I need to read something long). Who knew it was actually good for me?

I still swear by the trackball. By split keyboard do you mean two completely separate pieces, or one piece with a gap in the middle? If the latter, I have one made by MS with no trackpad.

Regular exercise does seem the key to making many computer injuries go away, so that's good they've recommended a few for you. I figure semiregular swimming will cover it all, so I do that :)

As for software, have you seen workrave? I guarantee it has all the features you need and more!

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

I think my wrists might complain about those, because I need the split keyboard. If I were going to go something like that (very compact) route, I'd probably try one of these half-keyboards.

(I was going to use one of those with my mac laptop, but it turns out the mac's keyboard is spaced out enough, and I don't spend 8h a day typing on it, so it's OK).

Re: Yay healthy computing!

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

The keyboard I currently use is a Microsoft Natural.. The assessor found me this keyboard with a trackpad, though from her comments, I'd be grumpy about the small size of the trackpad. I think I'm happy enough with the keyboard I've got.

I'll check out workrave, thanks. I rememeber looking at them some time ago, and they seem to have the right idea with the improvements they've made since then. (The question is whether it has the feature of getting out of my way in the ways I want, too. :)

Re: Yay healthy computing!

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Workrave seems to fit the bill completely, thanks. (It does bring up a window at break time, but it doesn't steal focus unless I tell it to do so).

Also, it serves a useful Big Brother function, with all of its various statistics. I'm not sure, but that might be slightly self-motivating as well.

Plus, the sheep is cute.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

No, the nice thing about xwrits is that the guy who wrote it used to live down the hall from me.

(He's at UCLA nowadays, and is famous for the paper with the title Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List.)

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Oh! We were just talking about him. :)

[dawn-guy.livejournal.com]

The headspace I was in during my CTS period meant I needed something to force me to stop.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

*nods*

My friend and ex-neighbor D. solved that one by connecting a fire-bell to a timer with a pull-cord reset, mounted across the room from his desk.

Every hour, he had to cross the room and pull the cord before the timer ran out, otherwise it would make a hell of a racket.

This was a gradual progression from purely software, to an alarm-clock across the room, to the loud alarm.

I don't remember how long he had to use this. For the sake of his then-workmates, I hope it wasn't long.