WFH Self-care & Ergonomics: improving your day-to-day experience
Let’s be practical here.
Self-reflect —consider the most direct things you can do that would significantly improve your happiness during your work day at home.
To draw a picture of how to prioritize your goals, let me make a comparison to doing chores around the house: I might choose to take care of a backlog of dirty dishes first which not only needs to be done eventually, but it removes a lot of clutter from the countertop and instantly makes the room feel calmer and improves my attitude in that environment all day long. Choosing an impactful chore fuels me with more energy to then move on to other tasks.
So maybe there’s a whole laundry list of things you think you should do to improve your work-from-home routine, but I challenge you to look for one fairly easy, straight-forward and high-impact goal to focus on. Consider some of the ones in this article and go with the best fit for you.
Take improvements one baby step at a time. It’s hard to build new healthy habits if you’re juggling too many new things at once.
This article goes over some common tips and other ideas from my personal experience that you might consider for your own work-from-home self-care and ergonomics. These ideas are also easily applicable to working in an office environment in addition to WFH.
20 - 20- 20 Rule —give your eyes a break
It’s simple —every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Realistically I don’t think it’s possible to do every 20 minute interval, but even doing it some of the time is going to be better than nothing. Searching around different studies on eye strain on Google Scholar leads me to believe that although the 20-20-20 rule is considered general wisdom, I was unable to find any studies showing that sticking to this specific regiment is an ideal recommendation. 20-20-20 is simply easy to remember. So I suggest using it as a general reminder to take regular breaks for your eyes.
It might be ideal to work near a window, so that you can occasionally look outside to give your eyes a rest from the computer during the day. I suggest positioning yourself with a window to the side of you; if the window is facing you, the light coming in directly on you may cause unnecessary additional strain on your eyes.
Set specific times for the start of your workday, your lunch hour, and the end of your workday.
Having specific start and stop times is more difficult when working from home. When I leave these things unregimented, I find myself forgetting to eat lunch, starting dinner later than I’d prefer or doing additional work in the evening because I didn’t feel productive enough during the day. Setting general start, stop and lunch time goals for your workday helps with work-life balance. Personally, it helps me enjoy my time better so that I’m not thinking about work 24/7.
Hydration
Are you drinking enough water?
If this is an area you think you could improve on, your goal is fairly straight-forward.
Getting up to get water throughout the day feels inconvenient and can be difficult to remember to do. Consider this, one study found that people who regularly intake 1 liter of water per day, when increased to 2.5 liters per day found significant decrease in fatigue, bewilderment/confusion, and thirst as well as a trend towards lower sleepiness levels [1]. They also found that people who would regularly drink 2.5 liters of water per day who then reduced their intake to 1 liter per day had a significant decrease in contentedness, calmness, positive emotions, and vigor/activity [1]. Let’s drink water to feel good!
Bonus: you can also use your water breaks as another reason to get up and move throughout your day and rest your eyes too.
Cold hands —improving focus & comfort with fingerless gloves:
Cold hands can be a warning sign of repetitive strain injury (RSI) [2]. RSI is generally defined as damage to your muscles, tendons and/or nerves as a result of repetitive motions and constant use. More specific issues that may come to mind that might fit in this category would be carpal tunnel syndrome or some forms of arthritis.
Notably, "cold muscles and tendons are at much greater risk for overuse injuries.” [3]
Being sedentary for a prolonged period while working at the computer can contribute to the loss of heat in your hands [4].
My hands get cold easily, especially in air conditioning or drafty spaces. Wearing Refiber Designs fingerless gloves makes a big difference in helping me stay focused and comfortable. These gloves keep my hands feeling unrestricted since they are shorter and angled to keep fingers free. Since they are not compression style gloves, they are easy to slip on and off as needed; they are still fitted so they don’t feel bulky. On Refiber Designs’ website, they even provide half-sizes to improve fit for more people. I also like that the gloves provide some padding when I rest my palms at the keyboard.
Wearing these gloves from Refiber Designs are comfy and practical, it’s so easy to forget you’re wearing them! It’s one of the easiest things you can you to improve your workday.
Wrist position:
The key thing to think about is keeping the wrist in a neutral position.
It can be difficult to keep a neutral wrist position when using either a mouse or track pad, but it seems a bit easier with a mouse.
The track pad tends to encourage bad wrist behavior. Using the track pad easily causes flexing and twisting movements in my wrist which causes strain (it’s particularly noticeable for me when doing a lot of scrolling while reading or online shopping). I tend to rest my wrist while moving my fingers on the track pad, and every time notice some pain in my wrist afterwards. What I should do is lift my hand and move my wrist along with the rest of my hand as I move it, maintaining a neutral wrist position, which keeps my wrists feeling distinctly better.
It’s even easier to maintain a neutral wrist position with a vertical mouse. I’ve tried vertical mice and at first found that it it caused more strain on my hand, but I realized that it was because the mouse was too big for my hand size. I have small hands, so I looked for a smaller sized vertical mouse and it has worked out really well for me.
Move —listen to your body:
If you’re body is itching to move, you should probably listen to it. Shift positions, stretch a little, stand up, take a water break.
Reflect on the positions your body is in while you work and consider what aspects of those positions may be a cause of discomfort for you. Is there any tension or tightness? Is your body telling you to move or change positions? Listen to your body.
You can consult with an ergonomist about your desk setup and your body positions while you work. Ergotherapy, who has consulted with me about my gloves at Refiber Designs, provides virtual ergonomics consultations for individuals or companies if you want professional guidance.
Keep things simple and doable.
Remember that you don’t have to be overwhelmed to change your entire routine, just look for one or two things that you think would have the biggest impact on improving your WFH experience and just work on those.
Something else you could try:
The Pomodoro Technique —if time management is your problem, this is great to look into!
I won’t go into too many details, but the technique involves working in 25 minute intervals, focusing on a specific task you set and taking a short break (5-10 min) in-between the intervals. And then after 3 intervals take a longer break (20-30 minutes) and repeat. Organizing your to-dos and your time is meant to help regulate your focus and flow throughout your day. If this technique interests you, you can read the original book on the topic by Francesco Cirillo or access a free online copy of Pomodoro Technique Illustrated by Staffan Nöteberg from the Internet Archive’s lending library.
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094754
[2] Emil Pascarelli, M.D., Deborah Quilter, Repetitive Strain Injury: A Computer User's Guide, Wiley, 1994 (access the book for free here) pg 21.
[3] on the occupational disease they call "computer syndrome"; Homsy, Foudda R et al. “Prosthetic considerations of contemporary all-ceramic fixed partial dentures : a review of the literature.” (2008).(source)
[4] Reste, J., Zvagule, T., Kurjane, N., Martinsone, Z., Martinsone, I., Seile, A., & Vanadzins, I. (2015). Wrist Hypothermia Related to Continuous Work with a Computer Mouse: A Digital Infrared Imaging Pilot Study. International journal of environmental research and public health, 12(8), 9265–9281. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120809265
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