Spending days at home, not having to commute to work, and staying in your PJs all day long sure sounds fun. Thanks to COVID-19, you can now make time for everything you didn’t have time for earlier. As much as that sounds great, it really isn’t. Having more time to yourself is one thing, but staying at home has led us all to adapt to a sedentary lifestyle.
We’re no more physically as active as we were before the pandemic hit. While you may think you’re able to rest better, did you know that staying at home and being physically inactive can actually lead to numerous health conditions?
The people working from home are most at risk of developing health conditions. Quarantining isn’t really doing them much good. Since working from home wasn’t seen as a norm 2 years ago, not many people had the right home office equipment. Most people continued working from their beds. Now, that sounds like they must be enjoying working in such comfort, but that’s the worst they did to their health. However, now that we’re almost 2 years into the COVID-19 pandemic, people have started to observe the consequences of their ‘comfortable work environments.’
It’s still not too late to understand the importance of ergonomics. It’s okay to want your home office to be comfortable, but you should also make sure that your comfort isn’t doing you more harm than good.
If you’re in quarantine and are looking for ways to make your time at home comfortable and safe for health, you’ve come to the right place. This blog post is all about how you can make your quarantine comfortable with the help of ergonomic products.
Understanding Ergonomics
Ergonomics is a way of making the workplace fit for the workers. Most employers make it a point to provide all their employees with a comfortable chair and a pleasant work environment, but that’s not what you call an ergonomic workplace. For a workplace to be ergonomic, the workplace must be customized to meet each employee’s comfort. And this is where ergonomic products come into the picture. According to several studies, the efficiency, productivity, and creativity of employees working in an ergonomic environment were higher than those who were working in a non-ergonomic environment.
Making Your Quarantine Comfortable with Ergonomic Products
Since you’re in quarantine, it’s on you to make your home office ergonomic. You’ll be surprised to know that there’s a whole wide range of ergonomic products that can make your quarantine comfortable. Let’s look at some of the most basic yet the most essential ergonomic products that you need to ensure that your work and health aren’t compromised.
Ergonomic Chair
If you’re working from home, you might have to spend most of your day sitting in front of your computer. All the tasks that you did physically at work are to be done remotely, which means you’re probably spending more hours sitting than you did at your office. The first thing you need to make your temporary workplace comfortable is an ergonomic chair. While you may think your couch is super comfortable, we would strongly suggest that you not sit on the couch for long hours.
If you sit in a wrong posture for too long, you may get a misaligned spine, resulting in soreness, pain in the shoulders, neck, and even consistent headaches. Sitting in the wrong posture can also impair and constrict the blood flow through your extremities, making your muscles fatigued and sore. To prevent all of this from happening, you need to invest in an ergonomic chair.
An ergonomic chair is a specially designed chair that can be adjusted to meet the comfort needs of everyone. These chairs have the following features:
Adjustable backrest
Lumbar support to provide support to the lower back
Adjustable height
Adjustable armrests
Adjustable seat depth
Adjustable headrest
Swiveling feature
Breathable fabric
All of these features ensure that there’s no strain and exertion on your body and that your body doesn’t feel stiff after sitting for long hours.
Ergonomic Desk
An ergonomic desk is the next essential product that you’ve got to invest in to make your time at home comfortable. You may have made your dining table or the kitchen counter your temporary workstation and may be doing just fine. We would like you to observe closely and evaluate whether you’re really comfortable? Do you have to sit too upright or have to hunch to reach your laptop? Do you have support for your elbows? Do you suffer from consistent shoulder and neck pain? If the answer to any or all of these questions is a yes, you’ll understand just why you need an ergonomic desk.
Ideally, your computer screen should be at eye level, your keyboard and mouse must be at a comfortable height, and the desk itself should be at a height that doesn’t require you to stretch or slouch your body. An ergonomic desk is all of this and more.
You can either opt for an ergonomic desk with an adjustable height feature, a stand-sit ergonomic desk that helps you alternate between sitting and standing, or a standing desk like the Comhar All-in-One Standing Desk Glass Top paired with an anti-fatigue mat. Some of the features of an ergonomic desk that make them so beneficial include:
Adjustable tabletop height
Adjustable keyboard tray height
Spacious enough to accommodate all your work essentials so that you don’t have to stretch much to reach out for things you need frequently
Ergonomic Keyboard
Working from home means you’re typing away at your keyboard all day long. Did you know that your keyboard could be one of the reasons why your fingers and wrists hurt so much? Take a closer look at your hands while you type. Your wrists are raised at an angle while your fingers work on the keyboard. Moreover, your elbows are nearly fully folded, and both your hands are close to each other all the time. All of this could be the reason why your hands hurt constantly.
This is where you can benefit from an ergonomic keyboard. Let’s have a look at the features of an ergonomic keyboard that can prevent putting any strain on your hands:
Wrist and palm rests that allow you to rest your hands at a suitable angle without the need of flexing your wrists
It can be titled to adjust the angle at which your keyboard sits to reduce the strain and exertion on your wrists
The keyboard is split into two halves so that both your hands can be placed further apart and your arms are positioned at a more comfortable angle
It’s curved so that keys are more aligned to the different lengths of your fingers
Softer keys so that you don’t have to put a lot of pressure to engage the keys
Ergonomic Mouse
Investing in an ergonomic mouse is as important as an ergonomic keyboard. To move the cursor across the computer screen, you’ve got to move your wrist side-to-side and up-down. This puts excessive strain on the wrist and is also one of the major causes of carpal tunnel syndrome. An ergonomic mouse is nothing like what a regular mouse looks like. It features sensitive buttons placed across the device in a way that ensures that you don’t have to move your wrist in unnatural patterns. These buttons are highly responsive and will get the cursor just where you want it to be without having to move your wrist.
Monitor Mount
If you don’t have enough space in your home to bring home an entire work desk, you can simply use a monitor mount, which is just as good, if not more. With this mount, you can mount your monitor on any desk and adjust the angle and height of the monitor of your preference. The height of a monitor that sits atop a work desk can’t really be adjusted. However, a monitor mount is just what you need to transform a regular desk into an ergonomic workstation.
Ergonomic Headphones
Headphones are an essential work accessory. Whether you’re attending never-ending Zoom meetings or listening to music to enhance your focus, your workspace can’t be complete without headphones. However, regular headphones might be too heavy for long-term use. They may strain your neck and lead to neck pain. What you need to make sure your headphones don’t become a pain is to bring home a pair of ergonomic headphones. These are extremely light in weight and are wireless, so you don’t have to worry about the wire going all over the place. They’ll be adequately padded, too, to ensure that your earlobes don’t hurt with prolonged usage.
With all the right ergonomic products, the time you spend in quarantine will be a lot more comfortable with little to no consequences to your health. Keeping ergonomics in your consideration will go a long way in ensuring that your body stays fit and healthy. Not only this, you’ll notice a visible boost in your efficiency and productivity. It’s time you make your quarantine comfortable and productive!