10 ways to prevent back pain when using computer

Within the past five months, Simon Ojo visits the pharmacy every now and then to buy pain relief medicines. The Oyo State indigene, who works as a programmer at a telecommunications firm on Lagos Island, said since the COVID-19 pandemic struck,

a large number of the company’s employees had been required to work from home. Even when businesses were asked to reopen, he said his employer requested that they keep working from home for the time being as a precaution against contracting the corona virus.
Because his work involves using computers a lot, Ojo said he usually developed back pain often, lamenting that he did not know what to do to prevent the recurrence of the ache.

He said, “I spend about 10 hours every day on my laptop. Even before the pandemic, I used to spend eight hours at work and when I got home, I could still spend between two and three hours on the laptop before I went to bed.
“The situation has not changed now. I still spend that long on my laptop. But the challenge I usually have is back pain. When it comes, I can’t stand straight; I won’t even be able to handle the doorknob. It’s always serious. That is why I usually frequent the pharmacy to get pain relief medicines for the pain.”

From Ojo’s chat with our correspondent, the economy may be reopening but some businesses are still requiring their employees to work from home as a precaution against the spread of COVID-19 – since new cases are still being recorded every day with no proven cure yet for the disease.
But even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in December 2019, workers in many countries across the world worked either partly or fully from home. There are also many entrepreneurs whose businesses don’t require physical offices, hence they mainly sit behind their computers working from home and connecting with their clients globally via the Internet.

This is because, in the digital era, many jobs have become globalized, meaning they are not restricted to a particular location. For instance, a Nigerian living in Nigeria might be working for an American company using an Internet-enabled computer.
With the COVID-19, many people are now perhaps working from home, which implies that people are spending more time on their computers.
Meanwhile, as with every job, anyone whose work revolves around the computer also has their own challenges.

For instance, such people may have noticed that they experience back pain from time to time, and this is primarily because most people who use computers don’t use ergonomic furniture and accessories designed to prevent issues such as back pain. Most computer users who experience back pain are likely to be using their computers on a regular table, kitchen countertop, lounge chair or bed.

According to experts, the truth is anyone using their computer in such manners aren’t doing so in a healthy posture. If one does this for only short periods of time, there might not be any need to worry, but when one does this often, they may be on the road to a potentially debilitating musculoskeletal injury such as a bad back, sore neck and shoulders, carpal tunnel syndrome or even a deep vein thrombosis, which is a condition in which blood clots form in the veins deep in the body.
So, what can computer users do? The solution is to spend as much time as one can working in a neutral posture – a comfortable body position where no body part is awkwardly bent or twisted – and periodically move around to promote circulation.
For computer users, the following 10 tips culled from time.com are worth paying attention to to avoid back pain;

• View computer screen with a straight neck

Put your screen in front of you at comfortable viewing height. Don’t look down at your screen, like to a laptop on a table or to your phone. And don’t angle your screen so you must twist your neck. Some people like to put their keyboard and mouse in front of them with their screen off to the side, but then they end up dealing with neck pain from the swiveling. If you have a separate screen or using a laptop, you might have to put it on a pile of books or on a cardboard box to raise it to a comfortable viewing position straight in front of you.

• Put your screen sideways to a bright window

To minimize the chances of visual eye strain from glare or partial retinal adaptation, don’t work with your back to a window, as the light coming in will cause a glare on your screen, and don’t work facing a window, as you’ll be staring into the light. Unless the window has shades or drapes that can be closed, your screen should be perpendicular to the window. If you are working at a glass table, cover it to prevent reflected glare.

• View paper documents with a straight neck

Don’t read from a tablet computer if it is laid flat on your table or your head will constantly have to move up and down. If you need to go back and forth between a laptop or computer screen and separate reading material, use a vertical document holder or put your tablet on a stand.

• Put keyboard and mouse at a height before you

If your laptop has been raised to get your screen to the right level, then use a separate keyboard and mouse. Make sure you can use the keyboard and mouse with your forearms and hands level and straight, and make sure your arm is close to the side of your body when you use a mouse. The nerves in the hand leave the neck and run down through the shoulder, elbow, and wrist. When your arm is at your side, the nerves aren’t being compressed, but the more you stretch it out to the side, the greater chance you have of straining your neck or shoulder.

• Don’t use a soft, squishy wrist rest

It may seem like it’s providing support, but putting anything beneath your wrists adds compression on the finger flexor tendons and on the median nerve, which can increase the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome (also called median nerve compression, it is a condition that causes numbness, tingling, or weakness in your hand. It happens because of pressure on your median nerve, which runs the length of your arm, goes through a passage in your wrist called the carpal tunnel, and ends in your hand).

• Alternate between typing/mousing and using voice input

Voice recognition is good for most text and emails. This gives your arms, wrists, and hands time to rest. Thankfully, the two main desktop operating system providers (Apple and Microsoft) have equipped their software with virtual assistants that use voice queries and a natural-language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of internet services.

• Sit back in your chair

Don’t try to sit upright and don’t hunch forward in your chair like a turtle. Your lower back curves in toward your belly. This is called lordosis, and it is the most relaxed posture for the lower back and puts the least pressure on the inter-vertebral discs in that region. When you lean forward, the lumbar spine bends out, called kyphosis, and that puts a lot of pressure on the inter-vertebral lumbar discs.
So ensure you sit in a way that the natural lordotic curve of your lumbar spine is supported.
Make sure that you can sit back in your chair so some of your body weight is being supported by the chair back and sit close enough to comfortably reach your keyboard and mouse. If the chair does not have good lower-back support, use a cushion or rolled-up towel behind your lower back. It’s a cheap and less effective substitute for an ergonomic chair, but it’s better than nothing.

• Rest your feet flat on the floor or foot support when sitting

If your feet don’t reach the floor, use a box, pile of books, cushion, or footrest. Don’t pull your feet back underneath the chair or let them dangle in the air; this puts pressure under the thighs, restricts blood flow to your lower legs and feet and increases your risk of deep vein thrombosis. This prevents blood from flowing normally through the circulatory system.

• Limit the time you work on your bed

A bed is even worse for you than a chair because unless you sit on the side of the bed, your legs will be crossed or extended horizontally, acting as support for your laptop. That’s too low for optimal screen viewing, so you’ll have to hunch over. If a bed is your only option, put a pillow behind your back to rest against the headboard and put your laptop on a cushion in your lap. Or get a low table for the laptop to go over your legs so you can type at a comfortable height without straining your neck.

• Avoid prolonged standing for computer work

The existence of standing desks makes many people believe standing is a better option for their bodies – and it’s true that it’s not healthy to remain sedentary all day. But ergonomists have long recognized that standing to work requires more energy than sitting and puts a greater strain on the circulatory system and on the legs and feet. For men with ischemic heart disease (a condition of recurring chest pain or discomfort that occurs when a part of the heart does not receive enough blood), it has been linked to the progression of carotid atherosclerosis (a buildup of plaques in arteries that deliver blood to the brain).
Standing for extended periods of time also increases the risks of varicose veins (faulty valves in the veins that allow blood to flow in the wrong direction). Stand and walk around to make or take phone calls. Every 20 to 30 minutes, stand, stretch, and move around for a minute or two to promote circulation and relax muscles. Walk to get a glass of water or make tea or coffee. Don’t try to work for hours while standing up.
As a reminder, the more you can work on the computer in a neutral posture, and the more you can move around, the less the chance of back pain or other injuries.

-PUNCH.