Extend Your Geek Life

I attended the wonderful "She's Geeky" unconference last Sunday. It's so much fun that I can hardly wait for next year. My best friend Chinchih led a session on ergonomic, a popular topic since a lot of engineers have neck and shoulder pains due to seating in front of computers for too long. There are many useful info so I post our notes here.

Topic: Ergonomic - Extend your geek life
Hosts: Chinchih & Wendy

. Pain, pain, pain
  o work on computer all the time, got neck or shoulder pain, how to alleviate pain?
  o shoulder pain and neck pain is a common theme


. Tools Used
  o special input device (Goldtouch split keyboard, RollerMouse, etc)
  o special seat (or standing)
  o little program to remind yourself to take a break (RSIGuard)

. Things Mentioned
  o seating too long is a problem, cannot be reversed by exercise
  o Great book on posture - "8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back" by Esther Gokhale.
    - Book link on Amazon :
      http://www.amazon.com/Steps-Pain-Free-Back-Solutions-Shoulder/dp/0979303605/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327893970&sr=8-1
    - The author offers "posture classes", and her 's website (http://egwellness.com/) offers some free lessons.
    - The main idea is to build "extending the spine" into daily activities like sitting & sleeping.
    - "Shoulder roll" is more helpful than "holding shoulder back" in opening up the shoulder
  o Alexander technique (teaches how to get out of chair correctly)
  o Bare foot movement
    - May not be very practical
    - Spend some time walking on surfaces with different textures (e.g. pebbles)
    - Get shoes that provide room for feet
  o What has been tried to alleviate neck/shoulder pain?
    - Acupuncture
    - Physical Therapy
    - Chiropractic
    - Massage (Trigger Point massage was helpful)
    - Cervical Traction device (may need physical medicine specialist's prescription)
  o Sitting meditation for a long time (30 minutes) helps
    o how to do meditation?
      o breathing practice
      o iphone apps
      o counting in a foreign language
  o Need to identify and engage core muscle
  o Crunch gym in SF has a combination of yoga, ballad exercise, but be careful of the yoga injury though, use the props