Hi, this is Dr. Amanda with Tiger Family Chiropractic and Wellness center. I wanted to start today as I always do, sharing with you that-with this information I am not intending to change or imply a diagnosis or treatment of any particular kind. Just sharing information that we hope will improve your life and make it better.
What we are going to talk about today is what I call a “work envelope.” Work envelopes are going to be your immediate work station space. There are ergonomic things we should consider and ergonomics is the topic that has grown in popularity and greatly over the years. This is specific to how far your tools are away from you in your work station. This is a standing station behind me so we are going to utilize that for some thoughts or references, but overall this is something that could apply to a standing or a seated workstation. We have is what’s called the first work envelope and what I recommend is you relax your shoulders to your side and tuck your elbows into your side and move your hands gently back and forth. In this area, you have your first work envelope and this is where you should be able to reach 90% of what you’re going to use in your daily work routine and what we want for this is your keyboard and mouse to be nice and close to you in that work envelope because if you’re constantly reaching for your mouse (it’s over here) but your keyboard is (over there) you’re going to distort the upper part of your body over and over again in your normal work routine and that intern could lead into some issues relating to pain and discomfort.
Your second work envelope is just an extension of your first work envelope and it’s the things that if you extended your arms all the way out and move them back and forth this would be the ancillary things you use in your day. Maybe you use it occasionally, but it’s not part of your normal consistent routine of tools that you have on hand. Things that are in your second work envelope, maybe your stapler, my hole punch, anything else that relates to organization- they’re going to be (out here) and my immediate things, my mouse and keyboard are going to be nice and close.
You can analyze your workstation at home and move some things around. If you have a laptop-this is super, super common now and people are doing work from home, they are sitting on a laptop, there is no way to make that perfect in terms of ergonomic because you’re either going to have your arms (up here) typing and looking straight ahead or have your head down (like this) with your keyboard sitting in your lap. I strongly encourage anyone who has a laptop for consistent use of work to get an external keyboard, they can Bluetooth or plug in with a cable but really you want to have your monitor in a position where you could look straight ahead and see it. So your head isn’t’ tilted down, up, right, or left you want it straight out in front of you. You can stack up a couple books if you need to or put it on your coffee table and have that external keyboard on your lap instead of curling your whole body over and compromising your posture consistently. These are just a couple tips and tools that will help you have a healthier work environment.