Optimizing Your Home Office (Part Two)

(This post is a continuation of Optimizing Your Home Office (Part One) – Optimizing Your Home Office (Part One) – Security First IT)

Glare

• The display screen should be placed at right angles to windows and light sources.  The task lightings like the desk lamp should be placed in such a way that the light does not reflect on the screen.
• You should clean the monitor frequently by wiping with a clean and dry cloth.  A layer of dust can add to glare.
• You can help reduce the glare by using blinds or drapes on windows.
• You can attach glare filters directly to the surface of the monitor to reduce glare. Take care that these filters do not significantly decrease screen visibility. In order to redirect lighting, you can install louvers, or “egg crates” in overhead lights.
• To reduce glare from overhead lighting, you can use barriers or light diffusers on fixtures.
• You can slightly tilt down the monitor to prevent it from reflecting overhead light.
• The computer monitor can be adjusted for dark characters on a light background.  This reduces the reflection compared to the light characters on a dark background.

The users may suffer from discomfort, annoyance, or loss in visual performance and visibility due to the reflected light from polished surfaces such as keyboards.

You can paint your walls and work surfaces to limit reflection around the screen.  Use a medium colored, non-reflective paint. Arrange workstations and lighting to avoid reflected glare on the display screen or surrounding surfaces.

Note: It is noticed that a few number of high-powered lamps will minimize glares than a large number of low-powered lamps. 

Ventilation

• Your eyes tend to get dried easily due to the dry air, especially if you are wearing contact lenses.
• If the air circulation in the room is poor, it can result in stuffy or stagnant conditions.
• Your comfort and hence the productivity is affected if the temperatures are above or below standard comfort levels.
• If the air conditioning vents in your workplace are not designed to redirect the flow of air away from the underneath areas of the vents, try not to place desks, chairs, and other office furniture in these areas.

Awkward Postures

Let’s see a few instances that we face in our everyday life to which causes misalignment:

• When your monitor is positioned too high, you tend to tilt your head back, which fatigues the neck and shoulder muscles.
• Muscles when stretched or compressed become inefficient resulting in possible fatigue and overexertion.
• Postures that are not neutral ones can pull and stretch tendons, blood vessels, and nerves over ligaments or bone thus increasing their chances of being pinched.
• Tendons and their sheaths can rub on bone and ligaments leading to irritation and fraying. This in turn leads to swelling within confined areas such as the carpal tunnel, which then restricts nerves and blood vessels.

Contact Stress

There are two types of contact stress – internal and external. When working in our home offices all day, we’re susceptible to both types.

• The users experience contact stress to their forearms when they rest them on the leading edges of worktables or, if the nerves in the forearm are affected, their fingers and hands may tingle and feel numb, similar to the feeling when they hit their “funny bone”.
• If blood circulation is cut off by contact with the leading edge of a chair, the users are sure to experience pain and numbness in their legs.
• The forearms and wrists can be affected if the edges of the wrist rests are sharp and hard leading edges.
• If the wrist is kept bent throughout the jobs like typing which is a repetitive finger motion task, the tendons are sure to get damaged.

You can solve such problems by carefully selecting wrist rests, chairs, and desk surfaces as well as by taking frequent rest and stretch breaks to minimize the amount of contact stress that you may experience. Your workstation should be adjusted in such a way as to maintain neutral wrist postures.

Force

Let’s face it, computer work seldom requires physical labor, so we aren’t talking about huge entire-arm sprains, but there are occupational hazards!

• Pretend you are using a pointing device that is too sensitive that you find it so difficult to control. There are all chances that your finger and forearm muscles become sore because the muscles of hand and arm must work hard continually to keep the device steady.
• Pretend your mouse is placed very far from you that you have difficulty reaching for it every time. This time what really happens is that your shoulder and neck muscles become strained.
• Pretend your monitor is kept very high from the recommended height. You tend to tilt your head back to get a clear view of the monitor.  This time the muscles of your back can become strained due to continued use.

Normally, when injuries happen, the first point of pain is the muscle.  But, the tendon, which attaches the muscle to bone, can also be affected. Localized pain, stiffness, and tenderness are some of the symptoms showing that the muscle or tendon has been exerted beyond its capacity. If you arrange the computer and associated components in your workstation properly and appropriately, so as to maintain neutral postures, you can avoid such problems to a large extend.  Select adjustable furniture so that you can minimize the amount of time spent in one posture.

Methods to Avoid Eye Strain

• Give ample exercise to the eyes by periodically focusing on objects at varying distances
• Blink regularly.
• Try to keep the air around you moist – For instance, you can use plants, open pans of water or a humidifier (spider plants are said to be particularly good for this and removing chemical vapors from the air.)
• Adjust the screen height/seating so that while you are comfortably seated, your eyes are in line with the top of the monitor screen.
• Adjust the brightness control on your monitor for comfort.  Focusing on the monitor for a long time with full brightness can cause eyestrain.
• Adjust the contrast on your monitor to make the characters distinct from the background.
• Keep the screen and document holder (if you use one) at the same distance from your eyes.
• Try to place the reference materials as close to the screen as possible.
• You need to service, repair, or replace monitors that flicker or have insufficient clarity.
• Wear rigid rather than soft contact lenses.