3 Risks of Doing to Much Office Work

The days of hard labor are gone, for most of us. When we set off to go to work, we are heading to a comfy office building with aircon and proper lighting. Compare that to a few decades ago when most people were employed by manufacturing and heavy industry.

There used, with some professions, an outspoken risk profile where you might go to work and get seriously injured, maybe even worse. Those days are gone, but there are still serious risks, even for office workers.

This is not to the tune of ‘mineshaft collapsing,’ but nonetheless can lead to injury that could lead to loss of employment. Here are some of the critical dangers to look out for.

#1 Get Out Of Your Chair

One of the main dangers of office work is sitting too still at your desk for extended periods of time. Repetitive movements will eventually put a significant strain on the body.

Most (larger) corporations will have training programs (usually online) that give advice on how to reduce the risk of long stretches of desk work. There are training programs out there that instruct you to do very specific exercises at your desk.

And as valid as these exercises are, they will be rarely seen ‘in the wild’. In most cases it’s simpler: “get up once in a while” Taking breaks, even if it’s just to get some water to drink, is beneficial to stretch the legs. Find a good balance between getting things done and getting up once in a while.

#2 Posture

One other thing to look out for is how your workspace is set up. First, take a look and your chair and desk. It’s essential that your chair is set up correctly, not too high and not too low.

If needed, get foot support if that helps to maintain a good posture. What you are looking for is that the body and the arms can fall naturally and maintain a typing posture without putting additional strain on the body. Some people also argue that having armrests promotes terrible posture.

The desk is also essential to consider. The best thing to do is to get ergonomic desks for your office, which offer a good range of settings to make sure they can be adjusted to the person using them.

More recently, people have been promoting standing desks, which supposedly should stimulate an active posture and reduce the risks associated with sitting.

#3 Lighting

With desk work usually comes a significant portion of monitor work. One of the harmful things here would be screen glare, screen brightness too low or too high, or fatigue in general.

You mustn’t need to strain to see things on your screen clearly. If, for example, the sunlight is on your screen, you might need to work your eyes extra hard to see things clearly, leading to fatigue, and, in most cases, headaches.

You could ask to get your desk moved, and the screen moved to a different position or get a screen filter that reduces glare or stops over- or underexposure.

What are you doing to improve your office work situation?