If you’re currently reading this while pretending to work, we don’t blame you. Work sucks, right? You do the same thing day in, and day out, you sit at the same desk for eight hours a day, and it makes you feel darn tired. You feel weak, you feel strained, and you just can’t seem to get comfortable on your desk chair. In fact, you might even shut your eyes at lunchtime to give yourself a little burst of energy for the afternoon ahead. However, if your boss is close to firing you for falling asleep in the office, you might want to check out these office ergonomics tips that will help prevent fatigue at work…
Keep your arms supported
If you’ve ever tried to work from home (i.e., your bed) and tried to do a whole day of work on your laptop, you’ll know that it’s one of the most painful experiences ever – and you’ll also feel the same if you don’t keep your arms supported on your desk. Without proper arm support, your neck and shoulders take the full brunt of your body, and it doesn’t really have the strength for that! Make sure you keep your arms on the desk and even invest in a wrist support if you’re a super-speedy typer.
Place your computer directly in front of you
The positioning of your computer can often be directly related to your work fatigue. If your computer is positioned too high or too low, you may have to crane your neck or slouch down to actually get on with your work. Over time, this will squash your vertebrae or stretch them so much they you will be in agony by the end of the day. Experts suggest that your computer screen should be directly in front of you, and level with your eyes, so you do not need to move your head in any way.
Give your eyes a break
If you constantly stare at a screen, your eyes are gonna start to fatigue. After all, it’s a tough job to focus on a load of pixels every single day for hours on end! Eye strain can put a huge strain on your brain and your strength, which is why it’s important to give your eyes a break every once in a while. The best rule to go by is the 20-20-20 rule. This means that for every 20 minutes of work you do while staring at a computer screen, you should take a 20-second break to look at something that is 20 feet away. This will reboot your eyes and stop you from getting tired so easily.
Adjust your chair
Considering we put all of our trust into a desk chair, we need to ensure that it’s right for what we want, and positioned to suit our body. It’s important that your whole body is supported in this chair, and that you adjust the back so that you’re not having to put more weight on separate parts of your body – as this will ultimately cause you a lot of pain. You also need to ensure that your feet are perfectly positioned on the floor. Experts suggest that you should be able to comfortably rest your feet on the ground, where your knees can rest at hip level.
If you’re finding yourself falling asleep in your office, we don’t really blame you, but we have a feeling you won’t want to lose your job – so it’s probably best that you take a note of these ergonomic tips that will help you out.
