A home office is a dream for a great number of professionals, there is an immense benefit to do work activities in the comfort of your house. There's more time to dedicate to your job, you don't get trapped in the traffic, waiting to get to the regular office, the schedule is more flexible, there's an economy of money and time. It's the perfect place to build a career.
But not all are flowers, a problem that has affected millions of workers all around the world is related to ergonomy. The body´s health can be affected when you work in your home in a careless way, without worrying about the right conditions to do the job activities. Maybe the place is not adaptable to correctly spend hours concentrating and focusing on your labor.
This way, the person who works in home office can have a lot of health complications like pain in the body, in the back, shoulders, fist, and worst, develop the famous diseases called, Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) and Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WRMSDs). Therefore, it is necessary to take care of yourself. Your body deserves it.
When working in a home office, the professional should think about ergonomy as a primordial factor of comfort and health. Only then he will guarantee his productivity, efficiency and motivation. There's a need to configure your work environment to avoid physical discomfort, as well as fatigue, reduced concentration, and a drop in the quality of activities.
Ergonomy has a main goal, offering a great adaptation to the person for laboring. You can say it's a science, which studies the association between the person and the environment. There's a search for an optimization of tasks and processes. Besides that, it prevents occupational diseases, encourages productivity and efficiency, and considerably improves a high quality of life.
Ergonomy can be divided into three areas: the first is physical ergonomy, linked to human anatomy, anthropometry, physiology, and biomechanics. There's a cognitive ergonomy, related to mental processing, perception, reasoning, and motor memory. At last, organizational ergonomy optimizes socio technical systems, like structures, policies and processes.
To do activities in the home office, professionals need a workplace adequate and ergonomic. It should be projected to adapt to the person providing comfort, health, safety and productivity. It should consider their physical and cognitive characteristics, reducing injury, fatigue and stress.
A home office configuration needs to be optimized, with the right and adjustable furniture, considering the worker characteristics. To initiate, we will talk about ergonomic chairs. It must have a seat height adjustment, the foot needs to be supported on the ground, or on a support, with the knees making a 90º angle.
In this way, the chair must have support for the lumbar region, accompanying the spine curvature. Armrest supports have to be adjustable in height and width, avoiding injuries. It allows support for forearms and shoulders, again, avoiding injuries. A backrest with adjustable inclination is ideal to obtain different postures, bracing the spine.
In ergonomy, a workbench and the table have a great importance. Their height must be adjustable, elbows need to be on a 90º angle, with straight wrists, when the person types. Shoulders need to be relaxed so it won't compromise physical health. The ideal here is to give a correct space to the legs with profundity and width below the table.
In work, the professional should be capable of moving his legs and extending them. Also, the table´s surface must be clean and organized. There's a need to put besides the objects which will not be used. In many cases, they get in the way, causing visual and mental disorders. Table´s borders have to be rounded, avoiding fists and forearms compression.
In relation to computer monitors, or work notebooks, the superior part of the screen, the display, should be at eye level, or a little lower. Distance between equipment and eyes should have an arm of distance, 19-27 inches. It must be centralized in front of the body, to avoid neck torsion. It´s indicated that the equipment be perpendicular to the window, avoiding glare and reflections.
Talking about mouse and keyboard, they should be positioned in a way that the fists can be straight, it can't have deviations, and the shoulders must be relaxed. The ideal is that keyboards should be closer to the body and mouses at the fingertips. This will provide comfort when using them. It's necessary to prevent stretching the arms using the equipment.
Fists supports can be useful, but it's not completely necessary, only in rests moments. If the worker is used to consulting other types of documents, it's indicated to have an adjustable support for them, putting it beside the monitor. It's a healthy way to avoid repeated movement of head and eyes when doing an activity.
In case the feets can't reach the floor in a comfortable way, even with an adjustable chair, a foot support is needed. That's a healthy way to keep the spine in a correct posture. It's worth remembering that this adjustment favors a correct blood circulation in the body.
In a home office, lighting has an important role in health and should not be demized. It needs to be adequate and uniform, not too strong or weak. It must avoid glare and reflection on the screen. You can have an artificial and natural combination of light on the environment, but the first is preferible. Artificial light can be complementable, without shadows or excesses, avoiding extreme contrasts and searching for harmony.
In an ergonomic home office, there's a need to consider the environment temperature. It should be pleasant and constant. The ideal here is to guarantee that the ambient doesn't have extremes like heat and cold. They cause discomfort, and disturbs in a considerable way the concentration and focus. A good idea is to also control the noise, preventing distraction and stress, a headset with noise cancellation can be used.
Another question that should be observed is related to high quality and ventilation of the air. With adequate humidity, the person will have a respiratory comfort while working. A good air circulation must be guaranteed. It's a good idea to open the windows and doors, make a cross ventilation, use air conditioned, fans, or exhaust fans.
The ambient layout in a home office needs to be functional, with objects and tools most used in hand. This will minimize the necessity to stretch or twist the body. Therefore, work flux will be optimized, and to do that, it's a great idea to work with projected tasks with the objective to avoid excess of repeated movements, or having a forced posture for a long period of time.
During work in a home office, some regular and short pauses are necessary, after 50 minutes of activity. It can be a 5-10 minute rest, when the person should stretch, make some movements, and rest their eyesight. A good idea is to practice laboral gym, alternate postures, and stand for a period of time.
To avoid pain while working, the professional should do some stretches and exercises, to alleviate muscular tension, and increase flexibility. To stretch the neck and shoulders, it's necessary to tilt the head to one side, trying to put the ear on the shoulders, keeping them relaxed. This can be done in 20-30 seconds, then repeated on the other side.
Shoulders rotation is also indicated, doing small circles to the front and back, alleviating the tension. Pull the arm straight out in front of the body with the other hand, while keeping the shoulders relaxed, for 20-30 seconds, then switch. To stretch the spine and back, twist the spine while sitting, spin the back trunk to a side, using the opposite hand to pull the thigh, get the other hand to lean on the chair, hold, and switch.
Forward bending is also beneficial, sitting on the edge of the chair, leaning the trunk forward, trying to touch the ground with the hands. This will relax the back. The archery stretch is characterized by a standing posture, with feet shoulder-width apart. stretching the arms up, interlacing the fingers and stretching the torso upwards.
The fists and hands also need a stretch, the legs, hips too. Include exercises in the routine, to make the body stronger. It can be a walk, run, bodybuilding, yoga or pilates. Strengthening the core, the abdomen muscles, and the lumbar, gives a better posture when working, increasing the support of the spine.
Diseases like Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) and Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WRMSDs), affect muscles, tendons, nerves and joints. The causes can be work activities, which involves repetitive movements, inadequate postures, excessive effort, and a leak of pauses.
In a home office, these health conditions can be aggravated due to a lack of adequate ergonomic structure, long journey of work, lack of movement. Besides that, psychosocial factors also have an influence on RSI and WRMSDs. We can mention stress, mental overload, and social isolation.
The main RSI and WRMSDs diseases in home office are tendonitis, tenosynovitis, low back pain and neck pain. We can also cite shoulder pain, shoulder impingement and thoracic outlet syndrome. The most common symptoms are pain, discomfort, tingling and numbness, fatigue, loss of strength, swelling, sensitive alterations, and movement limitation. In these cases, search for a doctor's assistance.
Working in a home office brings great advantages in the routine of a professional. Nonetheless, a bigger care for good health is needed, and an ergonomic environment is an investment in your well-being. That way, there is greater satisfaction in labor, reduction of occupational diseases, increasing productivity and efficiency.