We cannot stress often enough that good circulation can prevent annoying pain. A prolonged crooked posture of body and body parts during monitor work should therefore be avoided. The motto for typing is: keep your forearms and hands straight. And use the right keyboard so that you can work in an upright posture.
The flatter the better
The thicker – and thus the higher – a keyboard is, the more you have to lift your hands while typing. The resulting kink in your wrists squeezes the blood supply to your hand. It is tiring, your fingers first get cold and then slowly numb, and after a while it even hurts. If you work like this day in, day out, overuse can occur and even RSI. For this reason, keyboards should always be as flat as possible. Then the forearms can rest on the desktop and the hands remain in a flat, relaxed position.
A keyboard in two parts
Do you work with a standard keyboard? Then you will notice that your posture while typing is not straight: with the hands side by side and the elbows turned slightly outwards, there will almost always be a bend in the wrists. The best way to type with straight wrists, though, is to type with a split keyboard. In other words, a keyboard consisting of two parts; one for each hand.
If you work with a split keyboard, it is almost impossible to type even more ergonomically – though of course you have to keep taking regular breaks. This type of keyboard may look a bit peculiar and working with it also takes some getting used to. People who can type blind are one, or actually two, steps ahead in this respect. With blind typing, you also avoid craning your neck, because you don’t have to look at the keys all the time. Perhaps a good motivation to learn to type blind right away.
Did you know…
Did you know that a white keyboard is officially more ergonomic than a black one? That’s because black letters on a white background provide greater contrast and are better for your eyes. In addition, your eyes don’t have to switch as much when looking from your screen or paper. Can you type blind? Then, of course, the colour of your keyboard makes no difference and you are already working healthily!
