You type every day for several hours at a time, so it can feel frustrating when you experience discomfort in your wrists, hands, and arms. If you use a standard office keyboard to type, it could be the cause of your aches and pains. Over time, this could lead to a repetitive strain injury and time off work to heal.
In this post, you’ll learn more about the problems a poor keyboard can cause. Plus, how you can reduce pain in the future while boosting productivity.
What Problems Do Traditional Keyboards Cause?
Traditional keyboards have a flat, often bulky, profile that you can’t adjust for comfort. As a result, if you do a lot of typing at work, you can position your hands, forearms, and shoulders in a way that can cause pain and discomfort over time. Here are some common problems associated with using a typical flat keyboard for work.
Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI)
Repetitive strain injuries happen when you repeatedly perform the same task in an unnatural way. This includes typing. Typing may lead to a range of injuries, including inflammation of the joints in the hands, wrists, and shoulder. You may even compress nerves in your arms by planting your elbows or wrists at uncomfortable angles while typing, which could lead to carpal tunnel syndrome.
For example, ulnar deviation is common and happens when you use a keyboard that doesn’t adjust to fit your upper body, causing you to twist your hands outward. Over time, this can lead to nerve damage.
Flat keyboards that can’t tilt could lead to wrist pronation, where your hands sit flat against the desk, against their natural, angled position. Over time, this may cause painful symptoms of an injury.
Poor Posture
Poor posture can happen when you don’t have a supportive chair, but an ill-fitting keyboard can also be to blame. For example, if you use a laptop regularly, the keyboard is connected to the screen. This either means slouching forward to bring your eye level down to the screen or raising the laptop and continuing to type on its keyboard with your wrist uncomfortably extended.
Extended wrists could lead to injury, and slouching causes various health problems, from breathing difficulties to persistent headaches.
Even typing on a traditional keyboard for a desktop computer may be too narrow or too wide for your body type. Over time, you may have to squeeze your arms inward or stretch outward to reach the keys properly.
How Can You Reduce Pain When Typing on a Keyboard?
Traditional keyboards can cause many health problems over time, leading to more time off sick and decreased productivity. So how do you combat keyboard-related pain?
Choose a Supportive Chair
Opting for an ergonomic chair with proper back support and height adjustment can ensure you sit at your computer comfortably. The correct chair can help you sit straight with relaxed shoulders as you type. Plus, you can ensure your forearms are parallel with the desk for the correct typing angle.
Use an external keyboard with your laptop
If you must use a laptop for work, use an external keyboard with it. Raise the computer so the screen is eye-level, then plug in an ergonomic keyboard so you don’t have to rely on a laptop keyboard’s flat, restricting profile.
Choose an Ergonomic Keyboard
There’s no better solution to uncomfortable typing than choosing a truly ergonomic keyboard like the Goldtouch V2 Adjustable Keyboard. An ergonomic keyboard can split the keyboard into halves that rotate at a slight angle and tent, to mimic your hand’s natural resting position. Every body shape is different so an adjustable keyboard can fit around your body instead of you having to fit around a restrictive flat keyboard.
Reducing Pain With an Ergonomic Keyboard
Traditional keyboards don’t offer any customization for the user. Over time, the flat shape can lead to you holding your hands, wrists, and forearms at unnatural angles. This could lead to repetitive strain injuries such as bursitis or carpal tunnel syndrome.
To help reduce pain, use an external keyboard when working from a laptop and opt for an ergonomic keyboard that allows you to change the width of the typing area to suit your shoulder width. Split keyboards offer a more natural angle for your hands and wrists as you type, that you can tent and splay at an angle so your wrists feel relaxed as you work.
For a keyboard that fits your body, explore the Goldtouch keyboard range.
