Speaker 1: It's Wednesday. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive podcast
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, and this is your daily coronavirus update.
Speaker 1: How's your body holding up or working from home? For
Speaker 1: a lot of people, it's taking a toll on their
Speaker 1: necks and backs for ergonomics, and weeks of bad posture
Speaker 1: has led to back aches, neck pain, and headaches. Aaron Zitner,
Speaker 1: reporter for The Wall Street Journal, joins us for what
Speaker 1: to do to help your body out. Thanks for joining us, Aaron,
Speaker 1: You be glad to be with you. I saw this
Speaker 1: article from you working from home is taking a toll
Speaker 1: on our backs and necks, and right away I threw
Speaker 1: my hands up in there and I was like, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what's happening to me. You know, as a lot
Speaker 1: of people have been working from home, they've had to
Speaker 1: quickly make home office, and you know, not everybody has
Speaker 1: done it the right way. Per se. I can only
Speaker 1: speak for myself. I have no space in my house
Speaker 1: really for an office set up. So what I had
Speaker 1: to do was we have like a little kitchen nook
Speaker 1: and that's where I've set my thing up. And it's
Speaker 1: a hard bench. I have no back support. There and
Speaker 1: sometimes after working a whole day, they're my back is
Speaker 1: killing me. But that's kind of what's happening to a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Aaron tell us a little bit about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your experience is what I heard from a lot of
Speaker 1: ergonomics people and physical therapists and chiropractors. We were all
Speaker 1: sent home, or a lot of us were sent home.
Speaker 1: Those of us who work in office jobs were sent
Speaker 1: to work from home. And the first month was about
Speaker 1: finding a place to work. And if you're fortunate to
Speaker 1: have a home with some space in it, maybe you
Speaker 1: took to the sofa or an armchair. But I was
Speaker 1: also hearing about people in cities who were crying on
Speaker 1: the phone with their doctors, saying, oh, my roommate claimed
Speaker 1: the kitchen table and I'm stuck working all day in
Speaker 1: the bedroom and I'm on the bed and my back
Speaker 1: is killing me. So the first month for a lot
Speaker 1: of us was about finding a place to work. And
Speaker 1: what I found is that the second month, now that
Speaker 1: we're eight weeks into this, is about the pain that's
Speaker 1: come from not quite getting it right. We haven't nailed
Speaker 1: the ergonomics, and the muscle strain has built up. Now
Speaker 1: for two months and is really causing a lot of problems.
Speaker 1: This is a second month problem more than a first
Speaker 1: month work from home problem. And one of the craziest
Speaker 1: things is you think you have this comfy chair that
Speaker 1: you can sit in and you set up, maybe with
Speaker 1: your laptop or something, and do some emails, whatever the
Speaker 1: case may be, a meeting or something, and even that
Speaker 1: comfy chair, just the way you're sitting in it is
Speaker 1: doing you all sorts of wrong. That's right. I mean,
Speaker 1: our homes are set mostly for comfort. Where are we
Speaker 1: going to sit when we watch TV or read a book.
Speaker 1: But now that we're doing those things, we're still watching TV,
Speaker 1: we're still reading a book, We're probably spending more time
Speaker 1: watching TV, and we're also spending the rest of the
Speaker 1: day with our laptops in that same chair or on
Speaker 1: that same sofa without proper posture. It's really building up.
Speaker 1: And you combine this with the fact that a lot
Speaker 1: of people are more sedentary. Now. I know I is
Speaker 1: to go to the gym before work. I don't do
Speaker 1: that now. At the least I would walk to my car,
Speaker 1: go park it, and then walk to my office. There
Speaker 1: are fewer opportunities to change your posture and to stretch
Speaker 1: your legs, and that's compounding problems. Yeah, I'm on the
Speaker 1: kitchen in the kitchen nook on a hard bench. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I'm in that comfy chair writing emails. Sometimes I'm laying
Speaker 1: down in the bed reading and doing some research. I
Speaker 1: was even outside getting attacked by a squirrel on one day.
Speaker 1: It's I've been all over the place with this whole thing.
Speaker 1: And one of the other things that has been bothering
Speaker 1: a lot of people, to beyond the finding a comfy workspace,
Speaker 1: is actually working on the laptops and our cell phones
Speaker 1: and the way our neck is positioned is also beginning
Speaker 1: to bother a lot of people. You know, you're hitting
Speaker 1: something important. A lot of us are creating strain because
Speaker 1: we work on laptops and we look down at the screen,
Speaker 1: and then we look at our phones and spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time on TikTok or or email or whatnot
Speaker 1: on our phones, and we're looking down at our phones.
Speaker 1: And a bull of chiropractors said that your head, depending
Speaker 1: on your male or female or who you are, you
Speaker 1: can weigh twelve pounds or so. But when you're you're
Speaker 1: angled down and your neck is angled so that you're
Speaker 1: looking down at a screen, a laptop or a phone.
Speaker 1: Your neck muscles have to hold up what becomes the
Speaker 1: equivalent of sixty pounds, and over time that creates a
Speaker 1: lot of strain and you can get headaches and back aches.
Speaker 1: So you spoke to a few chiropractors and ergonomic specialists
Speaker 1: for their recommendations and how to reduce stress on the body.
Speaker 1: This is going to be going on for a little
Speaker 1: bit of times, though, So what can people do to
Speaker 1: help themselves? What I was told by a number of
Speaker 1: people is number one, don't look down at that screen
Speaker 1: if you're working on a laptop. Buy a stand for it,
Speaker 1: or put some books under it so that the screen
Speaker 1: is raised and your eyes should be about at the
Speaker 1: level of the monitor, so that you're looking across at
Speaker 1: the screen or slightly up rather than down. To make
Speaker 1: that work, a lot of people are gonna need to
Speaker 1: buy an external keyboard or a mouse because you don't
Speaker 1: want to raise your laptop on some books and then
Speaker 1: have to raise your arms up high to type on
Speaker 1: the laptop. You want your arms to be at kind
Speaker 1: of ninety degree angle at your sides, about the same
Speaker 1: level as your elbows. You want your keyboard and mouse
Speaker 1: to be at about the same level of your elbows.
Speaker 1: So if you can raise the screen and then get
Speaker 1: a detachable keyboard to keep that lower down at elbow height,
Speaker 1: you'll be better off. And that goes for your phone too.
Speaker 1: Don't look down at your phone you're typing on your phone,
Speaker 1: Maybe kind of tuck your elbows on your chest and
Speaker 1: raise your phone so that it's closer to high level
Speaker 1: some of the other ones. Don't slouch, you know, sit
Speaker 1: up straight with a little arch in your back. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's some of these same things that you
Speaker 1: get tips for in the office. You know, move around
Speaker 1: so you're not always in that same spot, just to
Speaker 1: help relieve some of the muscles. But you know, you've
Speaker 1: got to take care of your body and your posture,
Speaker 1: even at home, especially since we're all spending so much
Speaker 1: more time there. Aaron Zittner, reporter at The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: thank you very much for joining us. You got it.
Speaker 1: Glad to be with you. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this
Speaker 1: has been your daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that. For
Speaker 1: today's big news stories, you can check me out on
Speaker 1: the Daily Dive podcast every Monday to Good Friday, so
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