Optimizing Your Workspace Ergonomics: Reasons to Buy a Laptop Stand
Considering its impact on our lifestyle, what can we do to improve the workspace ergonomics? While buying flexible ergonomic furniture like sit-standing work desks and an office chair is always a good idea, it’s not the most affordable solution for everyone. In this case, small changes can make a big difference and optimizing your workspace ergonomics can be as easy as buying ergonomic accessories like a simple stand for your laptop.
The work-from-home trend became the new norm when the pandemics struck in 2020. Two years later, we’re still here. And while the rate people work from home will decline as the economy recovers, this trend may have changed work practices in some businesses forever. This has largely impacted our workspace. Our home office may not be as comfortable as the regular office for many of us, as we had to add on a workspace to our homes which most of us hadn’t planned in the first place.
Boost Your Workspace Ergonomics with a Laptop Stand
With workspaces becoming more mobile, the use of laptops is inevitable. Since laptops were designed for portability and not comfort, people heavily experience posture and comfort problems. Luckily, buying a laptop stand can resolve these problems. There are three most common posture problems when sitting in front of a laptop for a longer period.
Slouched Sitting
Also known as “C” sitting, slouching is when your spine takes the form of the letter C instead of having its natural S form. Slouching the whole time can have some serious consequences and lead to chronic back pain. Most modern laptops come with excellent screens and full-size keyboards but the real problem is the proximity of the keyboard to the screen. Since you can’t adjust the height of the laptop screen and keyboard separately, the “laptop hunch” is a real thing. A stand for the laptop that is height-adjustable allows you to raise your screen to the correct ergonomic viewing height, thus stopping you from hunching over to type. Look for models that are flexible with several points of adjustability so you can use your stand on different platforms and places in multiple positions depending on your requirements at the moment.
Forward Head Posture
This posture problem happens when we tilt over the screen to see well. You can prevent this by buying a stand with a wide-angle range. What is the best angle for a laptop stand? The recommendations are that the top of the display screen should be placed at or lower than 5° below the horizontal line of sight. This means when you sit straight looking forward, you should be looking at the top of the screen. Models that have tilting positions with multiple points and above 20 degrees range will accommodate a wide variety of users. This also addresses another problem – eye-straining, being another common problem.
Reaching for the Keyboard
To save your wrists and elbows from pain and weakening, you can complement your stand for laptop with an ergonomic keyboard and mouse and transform your laptop into a posture perfect workstation. You will be proud of your ergo office setting when you manage to relieve the symptoms of your back pain within a few weeks.
An ergonomic laptop stand designed to simply hold your laptop or iPad can be a game-changer. Some models come with a laptop tray and some have a more open design that improves airflow around the computer, keeping it cool and extending its lifetime. Some models can be fixated to a workspace and some are made lightweight and portable so you can benefit from its ergonomic design anywhere. Your couch, your bed, your favourite coffee house, the office, the train, the plane – the possibilities are endless when it comes to creating your ergonomic workstation on the go.
Boost Your Productivity by Improving Your Workspace Ergonomics
We love laptops, but it’s clear that their everyday use forces a head-down, back-hunching and hand-contorting posture. In the long run, this leads to serious health problems such as weakening of core muscles, joint dysfunction and nerve irritation. And chronic pain can be a real mood killer. It can take all the energy you think you have and get you not having the will to get off the couch the rest of your day when you’re not working. And you’ll probably not give your best at work if you’re constantly feeling tired. When implemented correctly, an ergonomic solution improves productivity. Using ergonomic features as a laptop stand can make you feel well-rested and pain-free and therefore contribute to your productivity in ways you can’t imagine. A laptop stand provides tons of benefits and the following are the most obvious ones.
- Boosts your productivity – By designing a working environment that encourages good posture, you make your work- station more efficient. You show up every day as a healthy and pain-free worker determined for success;
- Boosts your metabolism – We know incorrect sitting posture affects our body in terms of pain and discomfort, but have you thought about how can it affect your metabolism? Many studies indicate that it slows your metabolism down. While we can’t affect the time spent sitting down, we can make sure we sit right.
- Makes multitasking easier – Often the attention span, which is crucial for multitasking, is directly connected to how comfortable we feel in a certain position.
- Feel more organised by decluttering your workspace – Some ergo accessories are designed to help us manage the clutter on our desks and organize our workspace well. This helps us improve our efficiency by keeping us focused on our work, not the clutter.