Ergonomics
During July 2015, I spent 203h 55m [1] at a computer. Distributed evenly, that’s about six and a half hours a day for every day in July. [2]
Earlier this year, I developed significant neck and upper back pain. At the end of the day, my back was so tight that I couldn’t lift my arms parallel with my ears. It was painful.
I didn’t pay attention to the discomfort until I’d hurt myself.
Working until my body falls apart doesn’t make sense (both irrational and suboptimal), if I have a choice, so I began work on some fixes.
Part 1: Head & Neck
I started off with my back and neck.
I was working exclusively off a laptop on my desk at the time, which meant looking down at a laptop screen for some ~50h a week.
Looking down at a 15°-30° angle means doubling or quadrupling the weight on my cervical spine, increasing the load from a 10–12lb noggin to something in the ballpark of 27–40lb.
On top of that, I would lean forwards in my chair (or slouch, when standing), rolling my shoulders towards my ears.
The first step was fixing the “looking down at an angle” part of the problem. Since I was looking down at a computer screen, the obvious solution is elevating the monitor so it’s eye-level when sitting or standing. I’ve been working off a laptop screen for most of my adult life, so instead of springing for an external monitor, I opted for the “put your laptop on a box on your desk” method. Genius.
Addressing the “rolling shoulders forward” part of the problem is a bit more elusive. Fixing posture requires some strength training and can happen over time, but solving the “freeze in place for long periods” part of the problem could be solved by more frequent breaks (#3).
Part 2: Arms & Wrists
Elevating a laptop means losing access to the keyboard and pointing device. Time to invest in some peripherals.
Mice or trackballs were never my thing and I rely on trackpad gestures for switching spaces in OS X, so I picked up a Magic Trackpad. There’s nothing particularly magical about it, but it is nice and big and reliable.
The other half of the equation, the keyboard, will have an article on its own, but the common problem with Apple peripherals — keyboards and trackpads included — is that they sit flush with the desktop when they’re in use. This in turn makes it really easy to “break” your wrists by resting them on the desk rather than elevating them. Doing that for long periods can cause some wrist problems, as I’d discovered many years ago.
I picked up a mechanical keyboard, and it has helped enforce good typing posture by being an 1” off the desk.
I got a book of about the same height to plop the trackpad on, and the setup ended up being far more comfortable.
Part 3: Breaks
When I took my first programming course, the university lab had some ‘take a break’ reminder program installed on all of the workstations. It would pop up a message every thirty minutes telling you to get up and move around so you wouldn’t develop RSI or eye problems. At the time, it was the most annoying thing in the universe.
About three months ago, I got interested in time tracking to figure out how I was actually spending my time (basically, so I could argue for fewer meetings), and started using a Pomodoro timer. The timer itself is an accoutrement of the larger Pomodoro Technique is a way of breaking your time into 25m work unit with a 5m break, which will help you (eventually) become better at estimating how long certain tasks take. Coincidentally, it also makes you take breaks every 25m, and these baked-in breaks are congruent with a lot of the recommended intervals to prevent RSI and eye strain caused by a constant focal distance when you’re at a workstation.
Bonus Step: Standing
I started using a standing desk part time a few years ago. Now, if I work for a long period while sitting, my legs start cramping up and I have an irrepressible urge to get up and move around.
Research on sedentary work patterns suggests that sitting for long periods of time is bad, and it’s bad no matter how much you exercise.
“Those who were sitting more were substantially more likely to die,” Blair says.
Specifically, he found that men who reported more than 23 hours a week of sedentary activity had a 64 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease than those who reported less than 11 hours a week of sedentary activity. And many of these men routinely exercised. Blair says scientists are just beginning to learn about the risks of a mostly sedentary day.
Having the space so that I could stand up at work has done wonders. I’m less sleepy and able to focus, and overall just feel better when I’m able to get away from a desk.
Paying attention
After taking the steps above — elevating my screen, using an external keyboard, and taking breaks — the shoulder pain and tightness I’d been experiencing for months went away.
My sense is that the tech industry isn’t always the best about talking about the body half of the mind/body “dichotomy”. The work itself is highly cerebral, intangible, and ephemeral — even though, as a programmer or designer, you’re actually working with your hands all day.
Heroic overwork is one of the dominant threads for startup founders and their employees — and maybe a uniquely American export — and powering through 70h-80h weeks is treated as an endurance sport.
The general problem is that you can’t do any work worth a damn if you end up benching yourself from lack of sleep, back pain, or carpal tunnel. I’ve been there before.
It’s not worth ignoring your posture, setup, and sleep until it’s too late; it’s antithetical to getting work done.
Notes:
[1]: Aggregated RescueTime data from work and personal computers.
[2]: When I originally ran these numbers for a sample week back in April, it turned out that I spent more time in front of a computer than I did asleep — 53h 27m vs 50h 22m. Comparing RescueTime data against UP24 sleep data for the week of 26 April 2015–2 May 2015.
Originally published at sjhcockrell.com on August 20, 2015.
