ergonomics is the study and design of equipment and devices that properly fit
the human body it's a big topic but in this video I'll be talking about
computer related ergonomics if you're a computer worker like me and you spend
your whole day sitting down in a fixed position you should know that this can
lead to all sorts of health problems like a repetitive strain injury and
trust me you do not want to get RSI like I did it's really painful more info
about that and how I recovered in this video but an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure with some ergonomic fixes and changes in Behavior
you can keep on working or gaming or whatever while minimizing the negative
health effects but first please note that everyone is different at 6'3 an
ergonomic solution for me might not work for someone like lonus cuz he's short
did did you know that lonus has to stand on an Apple box in some of the videos
that we make you're fired worth it so anyway let's start
with the monitor the top of your monitor should be right around your eye level
the monitor should also o be arms length away from your face but still large
enough so that you don't have to lean forward to see things if that makes it
hard to read text you can try increasing the text size or UI scale you can even
try using a lower than native display resolution but that's kind of a terrible
solution you can get special computer viewing glasses which allow your eyes to
more easily focus on your monitor reducing eye strain it's the same idea
behind reading glasses talk to your optician some people love these but I
don't speaking of eye strain make sure your monitor isn't too bright or too
dark your screen should match the brightness of the room you're in note
that if you're doing color sensitive work you'll still want to properly color
calibrate your monitor also be aware if your monitor has a matte or glossy
finish glossy monitors can have more Vivid colors but they can be hard to see
if there are a lot of bright Reflections in the room now onto the chair most
office chairs already have lumbar support Wheels swivel and height adjust
all of which is great you may also want a chair that can lean backwards
especially with tension adjust and lockable angles by the way we've
reviewed a few adjustable chairs online as Tech tips already you might prefer to
have a headrest and it's also nice to have fully adjustable armrests but if
they just get in your way you might want to remove them completely now your
keyboard and mouse should be at the same height as your elbows when your
shoulders are relaxed with the keyboard tilted slightly away from you lots of
ergonomic advice tells you to use a roll out keyboard tray which hangs under the
desk which I completely disagree with I
prefer to move the entire desk down to that height which allows for so much
more room I also like to sco up as close to my desk as possible so that I can
rest my arms on it rather than my armrests but again your preferred setup
will vary and speaking of desks height adjustable desks are great especially
the ones that can go from sitting to standing height however it's important
to note the mechanism by which this is accomplished you should be able to make
the transition in oh I don't know like less than in a minute also when it comes
to desk space I feel like bigger really is better so what about keyboards well
there are lots of different ergonomic keyboards some terrible some amazing
more like amazingly expensive I tried the Microsoft natural ergonomic keyboard
but then I realized that as a video editor I need to use my right hand on
the mouse and my left hand on the whole keyboard for keyboard shortcuts but this
split design makes that stupidly difficult a programmer or a writer would
have a much better experience you might also find that typing on a mechanical
keyboard is easier than a membrane keyboard but keep in mind that there are
many different kinds of mechanical keyboard switches as we cover in this
video also you might want to consider switching to a Colac or dvorac keyboard
layout uh more info in that video and finally the mouse there seem to be an
endless selection of weird looking ergonomic mice some of them are
vertically oriented some of them are at an angle some of them aren't actually
mice the trackman marble has great reviews but I just hated it like
scrolling requires a button toggle what this is not good for video editing note
that some mice and keyboards have macro buttons which can be wonderful or they
might just get in your way wait what's a macro oh look we already made a video
about that but most importantly with whatever ergonomic equipment you decide
to get you need to fully test your new equipment in the context of your current
setup to make sure it truly works for you for example foot pedals plus a
standing desk probably a bad combination with anything you buy be aware of the
return policy and save that receipt now listen I know that not all of you or
your employers can afford to drop hundreds perhaps thousands of dollars on
fancy new ergonomic equipment but some solutions can cost little to nothing uh
try using boxes as monitor stands use books or wood to raise your desk height
use software like Auto hotkey to turn your numpad or function keys or whatever
into macros you're smart enough to mcgyver up something right get creative
and Beyond ergonomics you can also adjust your behavior getting regular
exercise is obviously important for good health but to combat the negative
effects of too much sitting you should take frequent small breakes where you
just stand up and move around the
general consensus is to take micro breaks of 30 to 60 seconds every 15ish
minutes and to take longer 5 minute breaks every hour is yeah there's really
not much consensus here there are lots of different options for reminder
software which will alert you when it's time for a break and if you want to be
more productive while you are working to make up for all those little breaks you
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watching don't forget to like subscribe share comment all that YouTube stuff
because it helps the channel somehow and we'll see you next time