How Ergonomic Furniture Can Make You Work Better

Ergonomic furniture is enjoying massive popularity for the last ten years. The increasing availability of the Internet across the globe somehow made this possible, as more and more industries get wired to facilitate communication. This means longer hours sitting down and getting online. Problems that resulted from this included pain in the back, arms and wrists for long hours of sitting down, typing and clicking a mouse. Ergonomic furniture became the answer to minimising neck and eye strain and other pain in the body one gets from sitting and staring at the computer monitor for long hours. How exactly does ergonomic furniture do this?

Consider that a common source of work-related neck pain is often a computer monitor that is placed at an incorrect height. An ergonomic computer desk will have an elevated platform for a desktop monitor so it is elevated to eye level. If you're using a laptop, there are also relatively cheap shelf-like products that can lift the laptop to a proper height. Then you won't have to bend your neck to look downward. Doing this for hours and can terribly strain your neck.

Joint and muscle pain in the wrist and forearm often comes from holding them in locked positions over a mouse or keyboard. For this, ergonomic gel pads can be placed just in front of the keyboard and mouse for the wrist to rest on while you're typing away or clicking the mouse. The pads allow your wrist to relax, reducing the tension that can come up through the forearm to the elbow when you have to type or click for long hours.

An ergonomic office chair includes tilt-control in its design. The tilt-control feature allows the user to adjust how much the chair tilts, while he/she is sitting on it. In an ordinary chair, we shift our body weight and the chair tilts in one direction or the other. With a heavier person, the chair will tilt too much under his/her weight. Tilt-control in an ergonomic chair makes it possible for the user to adjust the range so the chair will not shift beyond a certain point. Hence, an ergonomic chair is one that is comfortable and flexible while remaining safe to use.

Ergonomic furniture also comes in the form of an office chair that can be adjusted to various back/seat angles and heights to avoid physical pain such as back and neck pain. You have to be conscious not to stay in one position for too long, hence the need to adjust the chair's angle and height to whatever task you're currently doing. Stretching or rising up will loosen your muscles and avoid pain.