Prevent repetitive strain injury (RSI) with WorkRave

As you’re reading today’s post, my question to you is do you currently feel any pain on your wrist, neck, back or eyes? If you do, try to take a minute or two to stretch your arms, fingers, neck and if possible look out to the green trees and grass. I’m sure you’ll feel a bit better after doing so.

The image on the top left above depicts a surgery for a patient with carpal tunnel syndrome, potentially caused by a repetitive strain injury. Image from RSI Warrior.

I can’t imagine the pain and trauma if I get a repetitive strain injury from typing too much on the computer. Come to think of it, it’s really not worth it because we use our hands so much for our daily activities.

I found out that one of the main causes of RSI is typing on the computer or using the mouse for too long without taking breaks by doing some simple stretching exercises leading to poor blood circulation and muscle inflammation.

Sometimes when we have deadlines to meet, we can be focusing on our work with full concentration. Time can really pass by very quickly especially when we’re busy. That’s why, by the end of the day, when we’re done with our work, we feel as if our body has taken a hundred hits and feel aches all over especially at the neck and shoulder area.

To prevent this from happening, it’s really important that we take preventive measures such as micro breaks every 3 minutes and take a walk every 45 minutes. Is there a way to help us take these time outs?

If you agree to this method of RSI prevention, then this neat little open source software called WorkRave can help by notifying us when we should take a micro break.

I have installed WorkRave on my machine as it’s actually running while I’m writing this post. Every 3 minutes, there will be a pop up which looks like below to notify me to take a micro break, where I will do some quick stretching exercises.

Although it can be really distracting to have a pop up appear while we’re busy concentrating on our work, I find that in the long run, if we really do take micro breaks, it does help us think and perform better at what we’re doing. At least after several stretching attempts during the micro breaks, my neck and shoulder isn’t as painful as it was before the stretches. It does help, and you should try it too!

In case you’re wondering how to do perform stretching exercises while sitting on your chair, WorkRave has some examples for you to follow.

Besides stretching exercises, also try breathing exercises during micro breaks. I don’t know about you but sometimes when I’m really busy with my work, I realize that my breathing is very shallow, which limits the intake of oxygen. Oxygen is really important for our brain to function well.

To try breathing exercises,

1. Breath in for 8 seconds with your tummy protruding
2. Hold it in for 8 seconds
3. Exhale slowly for 16 seconds.

You should feel refreshed after this breathing exercise.

WorkRave also allows us to set the timing to the breaks based on our preference. If you feel that a micro break every 3 minutes is way to quick, you can reset the time to maybe 5 or 10 minutes.

I believe WorkRave will be kept installed on my machine as I really do like the benefits its providing so far. Usually I would have shoulder pain by the time I complete writing a post. But today, I’m feeling very energetic and have no pain at all while I’m completing this. This is really a brilliant piece of software.

Head on over to WorkRave today and download your very own copy today! Together we prevent RSI from happening to us. Happy micro breaking! Oh ya.. . Happy Thanksgiving.

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