Some helpful hints to optimise your sitting environment.
- Furnish your office with a two-part saddle chair and an electrically height-adjustable table with a recess and elbow rests.
- Purchase an ergonomic keyboard that suits you, and two high-quality screens and a good graphics card.
- Get a Bluetooth headset of good quality, so that you can walk and stretch while talking on the phone. It’s also worthwhile to have a little mat for stretching on the office floor. Note that a couple of incidents have been reported, where people seemed to experience facial nerve problems after using a wireless headset for long periods of time.
- Learn to use and adjust the table and chair correctly. You should sit on a saddle chair from behind.
- Learn to use the different height settings of the table: sit approximately 2 cm lower in the afternoon than in the morning, 3–4 cm lower when writing than when reading and 15–40 cm lower when sitting than when standing.
- When working, use trousers and underwear that are not tight on the buttocks and around the genital area.
- It would also be good to use sleeveless shirts. If the armpits get moist, the sitter may try to hold their hands up in order to get more ventilation, which increases tension in the shoulders.
- Place your printer, cabinets and other things you often need on different levels so that you have to reach for them many times a day. The correct way to reach is to have the supporting foot underneath and the back straight, so that it is the pelvis that twists and not the back. Reach evenly with both hands and alternate the supporting foot.
