Sitting all day can cause negative effects on your health. It diminishes your productivity at work, in addition to health concerns such as obesity, heart disease, dementia, diabetes and back pains. Start practicing a healthy working habit with the best ergonomic desk using the tips below.
1. Select the Right Desk for You
After knowing the health advantages of standing, you are now looking for a standing desk to buy for your work space.
You should know that the combination of sitting, standing and having the correct posture for each state is preferable than standing all day long. Prolonged standing can cause pain to your neck, back and legs.
An ergonomic standing desk can either be adjustable or fixed height. Fixed-height standing desks are created for standing. These desks are not adjustable to lower height if you want to sit.
You might consider having a stool for sitting. And because they don’t have plenty of moving parts, they are cheaper than the adjustable desks.
Adjustable standing desks allow you to modify the perfect height of the workstation fitted to you. But before purchasing one, you should consider its stability.
You won’t like working on an unstable surface. Take note of its weight capacity particularly if your ergonomic standing desk has to carry a lot of heavy things.
2. Make a Smooth Transition to Standing
Similar to too much sitting, prolonged standing has several unpleasant health effects. Experiencing low back pains and discomfort, along with fatigue, varicose veins, painful feet and legs are some of its many adverse effects to the body.
In order to avoid these health risks, start incorporating standing and sitting while you are working. Stand having gaps of fifteen to thirty minutes twice around the day. If you feel light with that, add more minutes standing and more intervals.
Do that until standing and sitting are nearly equal amounts. Aim to balance your sitting time and standing time. Start slow and set your timer.
While alternatively sitting and standing, it is important to do some body stretches in between. Stretching from time to time helps improve your posture.
Being physically idle for a while causes your muscles to be tight, resulting in poor posture. Aside from enhanced posture, stretching can also lessen your back aches and discomforts.
3. Observe the Ideal Height for Your Standing Desk
Achieving the perfect posture when using an ergonomic standing desk requires you to consider how high your desk should be for you to be comfortable.
The right height of your desk, as well as your computer screen’s position is necessary to achieve your desired level of comfort. This also helps lessen the risk of injury in your work space.
You should settle your standing desk for about your elbow’s height. Your elbows should be aligned 90 degrees from the ground.
Your shoulders should hang normally as your arms are positioned comfortably at your sides. Ensure you will be typing in an L-shaped when both standing and seated.
4. Set Up Your Ergonomic Station
After setting up your standing desk’s height, the next thing you should fix is your monitor’s position. The top of your screen should be aligned—or a few inches below—your eye level.
You should be looking slightly downward while gazing at your screen’s centre. Place your monitor for about 20 to 28 inches away from your eyes.
Your screen should have a tilt range for about 10 to 20 degrees. Keep the distance between your monitor and your eyes by tilting it back 10 to 20 degrees.
Always keep in mind that positioning the computer screen should follow the standing desk ergonomics that won’t take away your goal of having a proper posture while standing.
The computer’s keyboard and mouse should be placed next to each other at the same height. The home keys should be reached easily when our elbows are positioned at 90 degrees.
Both of your wrists should be straight when you are typing. Follow these to achieve the ideal standing desk ergonomics.
5. Get an Anti-Fatigue Mat to Stand On
Standing for quite some time causes discomfort especially to your feet and legs. It is better to place an anti-fatigue mat or standing desk mat to soothe these aches.
These mats provide steady support to your body while lessening the strains in your feet and legs. Standing mats are designed to let you stand comfortably.
Aside from your legs and feet, using the anti-fatigue mat can save your knees from suffering from standing too long.
Bearing your body weight for a long time can damage your muscles, ligaments and tendons in your knees. Spare your joints from too much stress with these amazing mats.
Consider the standing desk mat as an important part of your standing desk ergonomics. It can definitely make a huge improvement to your health, especially to your productivity.
Working comfortably helps you enhance your focus. And having a well-focused mind increases your efficiency at work.
6. Organise the Things Around You
For you to have an effective working station, you must not neglect the things that surround you. You may have the best standing desk ergonomics but if your workspace is messy, you won’t be efficient.
Get up and start organising your things. A well-arranged standing desk creates a better atmosphere for productivity.
Start by having a simple storage solution. Clutter around your table causes a lot of distraction while working. Keep the essential tools that are often used near you.
Things such as notepads, calculator, and cell phones should be placed where you can easily reach them. Unnecessary things should be kept inside your drawers.
Messy wires of your electronic devices are very distressing to the eyes. Having plenty of power cables requires you to have a cable management system.
You can’t have a chaotic cable set up if you’re adjusting your standing desk from time to time. Wires might be pulled out from your devices while fixing your table. And it’s a big no.
Take care of your body while achieving your work goals with the standing desk. End those body pains you’re always dealing with from the improper posture you had for sitting all day long.
She enjoys assessing and reviewing home office furniture such as standing desks, ergonomic chairs and lighting accessories. As such, she created Healthy Land to share her thoughts and insights. Danielle only recommends items she deems beneficial to the users as she understands how important ergonomics is, especially to remote workers.
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