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Many people sit badly whilst at work.
This can contribute to aches and pains and other health problems.
We're going to look at some of the small changes you can make
to improve your workplace health.
First of all you need to make sure that your back's properly supported.
The normal human back, when sitting properly,
has a nice S-curvature to it,
and this part here, the lumbar area, particularly needs to be supported.
If you don't adjust your back rest to support your back,
your back muscles are having to work a lot harder
and that is why you can end up with aches and pains.
Now we've got your back properly supported,
we need to look at the height of the chair.
Could you raise your chair up, please?
Now, the first thing we're trying to achieve
is getting the arms so that the upper arm is fairly vertical
and we have a nice L-shape here,
and the forearm should be horizontal.
Now we've got the height set properly
we need to have a look just to make sure that the feet are supported.
Your feet ideally should be flat on the floor.
In this case we can see that they're not,
so the solution to that is to use a foot rest.
There we go.
It's important to have the feet properly supported
so you don't get pressure on the backs of the legs from the front of the chair
and also to stop you sliding down, making your back posture rather poor.
Now what we need to do is to make sure
that the workstation is set up so you can work comfortably.
We need to bring the keyboard closer.
What you're looking for is a distance of four to six inches
between the keyboard and the front of the desk.
The other thing you want is to keep your wrists fairly straight.
Some people find it hard to keep their wrists straight
without something to support them,
so you can get a wrist rest if you wish.
We can see straightaway we've got a problem here.
The arm is having to stretch out in order to reach the mouse.
That's leading to a straight arm, the shoulders pulled forward,
and that's twisting the shoulders and putting a twist in the spine
which will lead to problems in the upper back.
Ideally what we're looking for is to have the mouse close in to the body.
Now, let's have a look at the screen.
The height of the screen should be roughly the same as your eyes.
If we're looking across like this
the top of the screen should be roughly there.
So that screen needs to come down.
The height of the screen's OK.
What we're trying to avoid is having to look up.
That can put pressure on the back of the neck.
Or if it's too low you end up looking down
and that strains the neck as well.
So we want the head in a fairly standard upright posture.
Now we need to check that the distance of the screen is correct.
The easy way of doing that is to stretch your arm out in front of you like this.
If you do all of these things,
make sure you get your chair adjusted properly to support you,
set up the workstation correctly
and take frequent breaks or do stretching exercises,
then you will find that you work much more comfortably
and avoid some of the common health problems
that office workers have.