Keep Calm and Work from home :)

Work from home is the need of the hour today to maintain social distancing in these tough times of COVID-19 pandemic. Work from home as lucrative and easy as it sounds to be, just like every good thing has it’s flip side too… due to the fact that we think that the home environment is easy going and casual, which in turn leads to the ergonomics etiquette getting neglected. Most of our homes are also not ergonomically designed nor do they have the right ergonomic furniture to give the same comfort that is provided in office as we are working long hours. As the name suggests (working from home) one tends to work from different corners of the house like bedroom, drawing room, coffee table, dining table etc… while this may be fun in the short term but it may also lead to variety of issues like awkward posture, lack of proper back support, discomfort in the back and hands in the long term becoming cumulative and building up in no time. It is better not to let these develop into a severe condition where one will end up regretting. It is easily possible to achieve better working conditions at home simply by having an appropriate posture and by following some ergonomic etiquette to reduce the chances of developing discomfort and pain while you are having long days while working from home. To make a home more ergonomic and comfortable for a situation like this, where there is a need for long days of work from home, we have some simple and basic ways of achieving it.

• Do not be stagnated/confined to one place, by changing your posture often be flexible and move around

• Placing the laptop appropriately will ensure that the strain on the neck and eyes is minimal, by keeping some books or boxes or pillows to raise it at a height just below the eye level

• Most of the pressure is on the hands and to take care of them well, one can have their elbows at 90-degree with the wrist at a neutral position

• To ensure that the back has better support, rolling a towel and placing it between the back rest of the chair and lower back is ideal

• Placing a pillow on the chair to increase the cushion, will ensure that there is more comfort for long hours of work

• The feet should be supported on a proper surface and not hanging, with the thigh kept at a 90-degree angle

• Planning the day with a proper schedule that has regular breaks will be the best thing to do, so that the body, mind and eyes get to relax.

• Some flexes and stretches during breaks will be helpful to break the sedentary nature of the desk-bound work.

A few of these tips will for sure make work from home more pleasurable and relaxing. “Keep calm and work from home”

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/keep-calm-work-from-home-riddhi-artwani