Physical Fitness at the Workplace - Work Environment Adjustment

Physical Fitness at the Workplace - Work Environment Adjustment Bessie Neshan: Adjust your chair to meet you desk, make sure you're not overreaching to do your work, either to type or to write. Make sure that your arms are parallel to the floor. In other words, they're not in an upward or in a downward position. The elbow should be bent at a 90 degree angle. Regarding your back, maintain good posture, make sure your shoulders are relaxed, your feet are flat on the back, and your back is straight, because working in an overreaching position like this, puts a lot of pressure in your lumbar over time. And regarding your back, if you do have a bad back, you are going to be sitting for a long period, perhaps provide some lumbar support behind the lower back, and adjust your chair accordingly. In fact ladies, if you are going to cross your legs, don’t do it for any extensive period. Do it for a little bit, make sure you uncross and relax your legs and you feet back on the floor, then you'll cut off the circulation. Moving on to our computer monitor, an idea to keep the eye strain reduce, you want to make sure the computer monitor is at eye level. You want to make sure it's elevated too high or too lo, where you're going to put undue strain in the neck muscles, and this is a common situation, perhaps we’re looking at the monitor this way and typing this way, this is also not an ideal situation. Be sure it's at eye level, about 20 inches is a good idea, again, the objective is reduce the eye strain. Another idea, if your monitor does not have an anti-glare screen built in, perhaps get one because again, that would help those eyes. You want t eliminate excessive bright lights, whether they're coming from the inside or from the outside. And i know it might seem a little strange but it's important to exercise the eyes throughout the day. Simply blinking the eyes quite a few times, after you take a break, it will rewet the eyes to rid irritation and dryness. And another strange thing I know but go ahead and give it a shot is help your eyesight as well, take your eyes away from the computer if it has been there for a little bit of a time and look away into the distance. You wanted to focus your eyes in another object, that again will help reduce the eye strain. Pick a key board that’s soft to touch, if you have a to apply a lot of undue force t the keyboard, you're going to fatigue the muscles and the tendons in the wrist and the hands, which then leads to tears and inflammation. And of course, it will lead to repetitive train injury. If you have little legs on the keyboard, it's a good idea to place them down. And also keep your mouse lose, because you don’t want to be overreaching, again, undue reaching is not necessary and it's going to put strain in your muscles. Now, use a smooth pad, padded wrist rest if it's necessary. Now in this case, my wrist and my forearms are in line. If you have the situation where they were elevated or they were depressed then you want to make sure ha you purchase some sort of wrist res, unless it came with your keyboard to make sure that it's level, see that line, it should be level. And the wrist should not press hard against any surface. Again why? Because that’s going to inhibit the blood flow to those hands, increasing the potential of injury. The hands should ideally float above the keyboard, then you'll notice it should be level with the forearm. If you're doing a lot of phone work, perhaps that’s your job function, be sure perhaps maybe you can use a headset or auto dialers, because this is what the problem can be incurred if you're always on the phone, this neck strain is going to build up over time. So again, keep that in mind, if you're constantly on the phone, populate today or the headsets and you could avoid that strain by keeping that head and neck elevated. Now, regarding repetitive movements, perhaps you're in a data entry position and you're typing constantly for hours on end, you need to vary the pace, you need to rotate your jobs, because again you're going to fatigue and strain the muscles and the tendons, and the wrist, and the hands. And because of the fact that you're not giving an adequate time to recover, it can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome or some various other illnesses and injuries. Lastly, take regular rest breaks, anytime you spent a lot of time, either repetitively typing, or keying in using the mouse, sitting or standing or being in an awkward position. The solution is to get up and move. And lastly, we need to stretch, that’s way we’re going to take a little time now to demonstrate some various stretches first for each body part.