{"id":128,"date":"2008-08-09T12:49:42","date_gmt":"2008-08-09T19:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/?p=128"},"modified":"2009-01-30T14:37:11","modified_gmt":"2009-01-30T21:37:11","slug":"five-physical-dangers-of-working-from-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/five-physical-dangers-of-working-from-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Physical Dangers Of Working From Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of us freelance designers spend the majority of our consciousness sitting in front of a computer.\u00a0 If we’re not doing actual design work, we’re communicating with clients, managing our finances or catching up on our twitter feeds<\/a> – all of which also<\/em> involve using the computer. I figure I spend between 45 – 70 hours a week at the computer depending on my workload, and as such have felt physical effects of prolonged computer exposure.<\/p>\n

Here are a few things to be weary of if you work from home and hope to make it out in one piece.<\/p>\n

1. Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI)<\/h4>\n

I first felt the effects of RSI over 10 years ago in high school when I got my very own Pentium computer.\u00a0 I spent every waking moment on that machine until I started to notice my right arm always felt tingly, like it was asleep.\u00a0 Turns out my computer chair was way too low causing my wrist to bend at an awkward angle.\u00a0 Couple that with hours upon hours of repetitive wrist movement (insert childish joke here) and you have yourself the perfect RSI candidate.<\/p>\n

RSI is one of the most common problems among computer users.\u00a0 I’ve heard of people who don’t have the wrist strength to open a door once RSI has had its way with them. There are tons<\/a> of RSI prevention<\/a> lists<\/a> out there and about a bazillion ways to battle RSI.\u00a0 Personally, I’m going to try to take a 5 minute break every half hour<\/strong>, watch my posture<\/strong> and use my wacom tablet more<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

2. Back Pain<\/h4>\n

A few weeks before I went full time with freelancing I got rid of my $30 Ikea chair and bought myself a shiny, new, top-of-the-line office chair.\u00a0 I was very proud of myself.\u00a0 A few months later my back is killing me and the chair is a likely culprit – this thing sucks!\u00a0 It’s more the kind of chair an executive would kick back and put their feet on their desk to catch a few zzz’s with.\u00a0 If only I could do that<\/em> for a living.<\/p>\n

In the next short while I hope to find an ergonomic<\/em> office chair<\/strong> with a decent height range… oh yeah, and definitely not<\/em> leather this time – what was I thinking?<\/p>\n

3. Eye Strain<\/h4>\n

From what I’ve been reading, permanent eye damage is not that common among computer users – but some days I sure feel it temporarily<\/em>.\u00a0 It doesn’t help that I wear contact lenses for 18 hours a day and probably blink about half as much as I should while I’m staring at the monitor.\u00a0 I’ve had some of the worst migraines since I’ve gone full time and I’m willing to bet it’s a contact lens related issue.<\/p>\n

I would wear my glasses but they are about 4 prescriptions old and missing an arm. The solution here is pretty obvious, get some #$&%#@# new glasses and stop my whining<\/strong>.\u00a0 I’m also going to try to look out the window every once in a while so my eyes focus on something that’s not<\/em> 2 feet from my face.<\/p>\n

4. Neck pain<\/h4>\n

I would love to keep blaming my office equipment and old prescriptions for my problems, but this one is all me.\u00a0 I’ve always been a “huncher”, and I’m probably at my very worst when I’m in deep concentration in front of the computer.\u00a0 I have a feeling that this is going to be the toughest battle for me, as I’ve had terrible posture my whole life.\u00a0 I wish there was an easy trick or top 10 list for sitting up straight, but I think I’m on my lonesome for this one.<\/p>\n

5. Lack of Exercise<\/h4>\n

At my old job I would always<\/em> walk to work – rain or shine.\u00a0 I would walk between 6 – 10 hours a week<\/strong> depending on how many days I was scheduled for.\u00a0 Nowadays my bedroom is<\/em> my office and I haven’t gone on a decent walk since I picked up my final paycheck.\u00a0 I’ve always been a pretty scrawny guy, but lately when I go down the stairs I can feel parts of me jiggle that have never jiggled before.\u00a0 Something must be done.<\/p>\n

I’m not much of a gym guy and I’ve never been particularly fond of sports. As such, I have resolved to walk at least an hour a day, everyday.\u00a0 I will try to wake up early and walk in the morning, but if that doesn’t happen then I will make up for it in the evening.<\/p>\n

So there you have it.\u00a0 Five things I need to work on if I hope to surive freelancing in one piece.\u00a0 Now for the hard part – actually doing them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most of us freelance designers spend the majority of our consciousness sitting in front of a computer.\u00a0 If we’re not doing actual design work, we’re communicating with clients, managing our finances or catching up on our twitter feeds – all of which also involve using the computer. I figure I spend between 45 – 70 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[14],"tags":[6],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phOWv-24","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1233,"href":"https:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions\/1233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellmedicated.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}