On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 05:11:05PM -0400, Gilbert Wilson wrote: > All: > > So, I've recently started going to yoga to help relieve my persistent back > pain. I hope it helps because I'm too young for this kind of rubbish. I've > been looking for lumbar support pillows and/or other devices that will force > me to not slouch while sitting at a desk. While looking at Amazon I realized > sending an email to the group might be really helpful. > > For those of you who have (or hopefully /had/) back pain what do/did you do > to relieve it? A particular kind of exercise? Physical therapy? Lumbar > pillows to stop slouching? Something else? A combination of things?
#1: make sure your vision is properly corrected. If my glasses are not just right, I lean forward, causing back pain. #2: get an external monitor and keyboard for everywhere you use a laptop for any period of time. My back starts hurting after about 30-45 minutes of using a laptop in proper keyboard position, as I kinda gotta bend down to look at the display. My wrists hurt (and it is just damn awkward) if I put the laptop in proper monitor position. #3: adjust the keyboard and monitor height. For me, the keyboard on lap typing position is perfect. But that's about the wrists, and you are asking about the back. Monitor position is key for that. I try to keep the bottom edge of the monitor just below eye level, but I use a chair that reclines, too. Make sure the font is big enough that you can see it okay from your preferred monitor distance. Adjustable monitor arms that clamp on to your desk or the wall are pretty nice for getting the monitor in the right position while reclined. #4: get some exercise. This is really more of a wrist thing than a back thing, but strengthen your wrists; it's the only way to maintain straight wrists when typing, and typing with bent wrists leads to pain. A heavy bag works for this, as does knuckle pushups and those little grip spring thingies. Practice doing some proper squats; that will help you not screw up your back when you are not sitting down. Careful, though; doing improper squats is a great way to injure your back; but it's probably the easiest way to get an expert to teach you how to lift things. -- Luke S. Crawford http://prgmr.com/xen/ - Hosting for the technically adept http://nostarch.com/xen.htm - We don't assume you are stupid. _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
