Ergonomic Tips for Sitting Correctly at Work

Your screen should be at least arms distance from you, with a 10-20 degree tilt upwards and in terms of height; the top of it shouldn’t be higher than eye level. The reason tilting the screen is good for you is due to the fact it reduces the strain on the muscles in the back of your neck caused by looking up and down.

When adjusting your office chair, if it has the option to slide the seat you should leave a 2 finger gap between the chair seat and the back of your legs. The reason this is so important is that the correct positioning on the chair seat means that your body weight is spread out and it also ensures that you are getting the maximum support available from your back rest.   You should adjust any other adjustable settings on your chair so that it is perfectly suited to you.

Your arms should always be supported by the arm rests. If you don’t do this you’ll be putting your neck and shoulder muscles through torture.

If you’re working on a computer, every half an hour, look at an object far away for a few seconds to avoid eye strain.

Have the keyboard directly in front of the screen so that you’re not constantly twisting your neck to look at it.

When you have chance, take a minute out of your time to stand up and do a few stretches so that your muscles don’t stiffen up. Even if you can’t stand up to do it, there are plenty of stretches you can do while sitting down to loosen your muscles.

Any items that you tend to use a lot throughout the day, keep them at a bit of a distance from you or on a high shelf so that it encourages you to stretch and stand up regularly.  Some people do disagree with this but from my point of view, it is best to get a good balance between productivity and comfort. If keeping something far away from you will drastically slow down your work rate then maybe that’s one object you should keep closer to you.

Position your screen so that there is no lighting glare on it, this can cause eye strain. If screen positioning isn’t an option, there are anti-glare screen covers on the market.

Your feet should be flat on the floor when sitting down. If your chair is too high to do this, make sure that you get a foot rest to take the pressure off the back of your legs. Doing this makes sure that you have an increased blood flow.