Working at Home and the Office Work Posture
Advice for a workspace at home. From room selection to suitable chair choice. Study of posture in front of a monitor to have our back straight at the office.
Work-from-Home Posture: Try the Tyrano Method for a Healthier Back!
Hello,
I tell you, I think of the tyrannosaurus every working day, when I sit in front of the monitor. Not that I emit furious roars, no, on the contrary! I love my job. Tyrano is my mantra! The goal is to position myself near the keyboard, with my back straight. Like this dinosaur with little arms.
When establishing the new location and choosing the W+M workspace in early 2024, there was no question of changing rooms and chairs in perpetuity. I did my research. I’m telling you about my adventure to finally have a suitable office space at home!
This article introduces the Tyrano posture — a fun and effective method to improve your desk habits.
Prevent back and neck pain from long hours at your computer
Set up your home workspace for better posture and productivity
Learn simple actions you can take today
MusicScore: This article was composed while listening to a compilation of Aerosmith hits. I suggest you listen to Walk This Way for your reading!
Listen to the MusicScores complete list on YouTube! Enjoy the Music at Work!
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Sharing of Experience and Research
Before you begin reading, I would like to clarify that I’m not a health or posture professional. I had back problems due to poor posture in front of a screen. I met with specialists to resolve the situation. This required research to create a suitable workspace for the monitor. I hope my experience can help you, or at least distract you.
An office in the new living space
Inadequate lighting, monitor too high, anchoring in the chair, there can be many problems during a day in front of a screen. A situation like this, over a 40-hour week, after several years of work, can lead to physical difficulties and health problems.
Rejoicing! The aim of the article isn’t to list the long-term consequences of poor posture. We can all imagine them. Let’s get to the heart of the matter. What should you do when you arrive in your new house or apartment to organize the office space properly? Which corner should we choose in the environment according to our lifestyle?
Of course, we agree, we don’t need to move to provide a suitable office.
The location of the office and the fenestration of the room
When I began my research, I realized that I wasn’t giving adequate space to a workspace where I spend a lot of time in my life. Who wants to spend the day in a closet without windows, without ventilation and facing a white wall?
Isn’t natural light the best lighting there is? A desk near a window, which allows for ventilation, also relaxes the mind during stressful tasks or situations.
Location is also important. Often, self-employed people try to make a break between work and personal life. Having an office in the living space isn’t always pleasant, especially in the long term in terms of stress and post-work rest. A screen, for example, can often allow us to have a work space in a better corner of the house while taking a break in the room; if it isn’t possible to have a suitable room dedicated to the job.
A Welcoming Place for the Worker
Earning an independent living often requires adapting yourself and sometimes convincing yourself to go to work. I find it important that the place of activity makes us want to work. Sometimes, and according to certain households, the self-employed worker makes concessions and huddles in the cellar, in the windowless room, the unfinished basement, having to, of course, remains positive and auspicious all day long for his or her life customer base.
Yes, eventually, I can understand the dodges of not visiting the unwelcoming workplace in the house and wasting time. You have to find your way to be good at work while being respectable and respected by other members of the household and your living space. When you find yourself toiling in the evening sitting on the floor with the laptop leaning on the running dryer to relax in the back, you have to question yourself and perhaps a discussion of a better working environment with the family would be expected. A self-employed worker has the right, I believe, to request suitable space for their household in the living environment, especially if it’s a main source of money coming into the house.
The W+M @ Work Look
The images of the W+M office, from the column Les nouvelles du bureau, the webmaster chronicles, were taken during the creation of the visuals to promote Le Mensuel in December 2023.
We see on the right of the picture the accounting corner, an area for this task which is occupied for a few hours per month. Of course, for the photo shoot, the space was decorated with superfluous objects. I believe, with this office and the ready-to-use tools, it’s easier to be up to date with the company’s accounting.
On the Left, you see the monitor and the removable work table, according to contractual needs.
As for headphones, thanks to my brother, I discovered and I now work with gaming headphones! It’s a marvel! Yes, you have to accept the fact that you’re seen by others on the screen with Star Wars-style braids twisted on each side of your head, but the sound is impeccable in conversation and in meetings; besides the ease of recording audio tracks. Finally, note that since then, when my clients see me, they tell me that I look much more beautiful! I have no problem with these comments! In any case, someone who is afraid of ridicule never does anything.
Jeff
Bright - Work Surface Lighting
Let’s look at the tips in choosing lighting for the work surface. Whether purchasing a desk lamp or a removable one, everything should ideally illuminate the surface in front of a light that isn’t directly in our eyes. The height of the desk lamp is usually at eye level. It must be placed so as not to cast a shadow on the work surface, the keyboard or the screen in front of us, which would force us to move around, or to crane our necks slightly to see better. Yes, it’s the lamp that needs to be moved, not our posture.
It’s this article by Joe L’ampoule from Luminaires & Cie. How to choose the right desk lamp? on the advice of the desk lamp purchase that caught my attention the most. It lists the types of light and advises on the choice of a lamp model. Additionally, I quote this closing paragraph: As we age, there is less and less light that reaches the eye. Research has shown that a 60-year-old needs twice as much light as a 30-year-old to see details well.
Furniture and Chair
In terms of desktop and screen organization, this year is the return to a single monitor with a tower. I no longer work with a laptop and only use it on the go. I also no longer work with several screens, but only one well positioned; avoiding back problems of the past.
The screen is placed straight in front of me, at arm’s length. When I sit and stretch my right arm, only the tip of my index finger touches the screen. In terms of screen height, my eyes reach the first quarter of the top of the screen and the top of my head is at the same height as the top of the screen. So, we look straight ahead as if we were admiring a flock of birds in the distance through the window.
Studying the height of the desk and the location of the keyboard, buying a suitable new chair, besides knowing all the bird clans in the neighbouring field, since I work in front of the window!
In my building in the basement, we place old furniture to throw away or donate. I think the piece of furniture that people get rid of the most is the famous office chair. If I rely on my building, each new household in Quebec must buy at least two or three before finding the right one. We buy the cute chair, which is replaced by a more expensive model with some minimal and rudimentary adjustment options, to finally be replaced by a real office chair, the adequate one, with real adaptation options, which is definitely an investment. Yes, an office chair is an investment that has to be learned over time and it seems like we all do it! We’re amazing, aren’t we? I now understand colleagues who get adjustable desks with a treadmill, haha, lucky ones!
The Work Surface
Finally, having gone digital, I don’t have paperwork in file cabinets or lying around and piling up on the desk. We all know how expensive ink is, don’t we! It’s a saving as far as W+M is concerned to be digital.
This is how I realized that I don’t need a large work surface when I’m at the computer. I ultimately need a workshop table rather than a large desk. Purchasing a portable secretariat then becomes very interesting, besides being adjustable for height, because working upright and well positioned in front of a workstation feels good from time to time.
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Dyno says, pay attention to your posture in front of the screen
I can be static in front of the screen. It’s a fault, I know. I can schedule times without moving while listening to music through my headphones. So there are plants in my office. This forces me to get up from my chair at certain times to move around and take care of it.
There’s also a boombox cassette radio for evening shifts that you have to turn sideways every twenty minutes to move. I finally have small coloured LED lamps for different lighting, including one and one in the evening, so I can be aware that the day is passing even if I have to work in front of the screen and only see the monitor all day.
This is how I found small healthy habits to move, relax the muscles of the upper body, shoulders and neck, and finally to unwind from work.
Arm and Shoulder Positioning on the Keyboard
Since the last year, I have had a new mantra when I sit in front of the computer: be a Tyrano Jeff! Sitting upright in the chair, keyboard in front of me, shoulders to the side and forearms coming out in front of the keyboard like a tyrannosaurus typing. Arms and elbows shouldn’t exceed shoulder width.
The same goes for the position of the mouse, right next to the keyboard to be held with the same tyrannosaur arms. Don’t place the mouse in the middle of the office to stretch your arm to make it move, thus off-centring the shoulder axis and creating unnecessary stress on the shoulder and upper back muscles; avoiding posture problems and tendonitis eventually for workers in front of a monitor all day. So the elbows should hardly move and stay on the side of our body when typing, and not raised in the air. The best is to place them on armrests at the same level as the keyboard, leaving your back straight, without pressure. We type like a tyrannosaurus and little arms. Of course, we don’t bite anyone!
Anyway… The habits of old workers hehe!
I never work in slippers. Even if I’m in work mode at home, I have to be dressed and have shoes on my feet, as if I were in an office. Of course, I don’t wear the jacket and tie at home, I’m dressed comfortably and ready for any eventuality of meeting on the go in jeans and t-shirt. With Shoes ;)
The decorative objects in my office are things that make me feel good when I look at them. Memories of colleagues and professional events. I don’t keep memories of events and clients with whom I didn’t like working; I learned from these and filed them away. I also don’t keep personal images in the office space and remain neutral in the decoration.
Yes, I’m green and no longer keep administrative documents on paper. I no longer print anything and I live my professional life very well this way. No more running around buying ink endlessly. Everyone has access to Adobe Sign now and other electronic signature applications. Same thing for invoicing, accounting and expenses: everything is digitized and secure. The eventual goal is to have everything go through the website’s integrated electronic store, since W+M products and services are digital with an exchange of hardware and user rights.
The Editorial from the Monthly Ticket on the home office - July 2024.
Looking at Bird Flocks
I never cared about my posture at work, and especially in front of the computer and laptop. Being flexible and relatively fit, it isn’t programming for a few hours on the side of an old table that bothered me. Legs crossed, the chair swaying all day long, 2 large screens at 12 inches from my face and as you can read, I enjoyed working in the big way!
I wasn’t realizing the effects it has on my back, my shoulders and neck. I worked like this for several years.
My twisted back took over me a few months ago. I met Dr. Roxane Bertrand, Chiropractor, to finally feel good, upright!
Restoring posture while losing bad sitting habits is a big thing. It’s a long process and it includes a lot more than we could imagine. Besides reviewing seating positions at all times of the day and having to replace several pieces of furniture, whose cushions and seats are now incorrect; you have to look at the car seats!
As Dr. Bertrand told me in our first meetings, we must identify the problematic sources. Since I’m working in front of the screen all day, the main source of my problem was the position I adopted in front of the computer. The height and the orientation of the screen, and the distance between the screen and my eyes, were corrected immediately. With treatment, the stiffness in the neck and upper back disappeared and the mobility of the neck and shoulders gradually returned, and I finally resolve a tendinitis problem it also caused.
The desktop and the screen were changed too. I returned to a single monitor placed in front of me, at the distance of my arm. Meaning when I’m sitting and stretching my right arm, it’s only the tip of my index finger that touches the screen.
In terms of monitor height, my eyes are at the lever in the first top quarter of the screen and the top of my head is at the same height as the top of the screen. Thus, one looks straight ahead, as when you look through the window at bird flocks.
The height and position of my desk and the location of an adapted keyboard were done, and so the purchase of a work chair. I exercise and do stretching a few times a day since outside and now, besides fixing my back problem, I’m getting to know all the bird clans of the yard!
I don’t work with a laptop anymore. I only use it on the go if necessary. I invite you to visit Dr. Bertrand’s website and the article’s section on chiropractic, including the publication on desktop posture. You can use the translator of your browser to get the posts in English, as usual.
Thank you to Dre Roxane Bertrand, Chiropractor. Dre Bertrand Office is in Ste-Foy, Québec, Canada. (Easily accessible with parking - Corner of Chemin Sainte-Foy and Duplessis.) Seven-day emergency services. Welcome to the athletes and the whole family.
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