How many professionals does it take to keep a computer user healthy? It depends! If you have issues that continue to interfere with working in comfort. you may benefit from consulting a professional.

Work in Balance
Spinal alignment is the most critical issue in working in comfort. If you have chronic muscle imbalances, it will take more than good intentions to find your true center of gravity again. The Balance Center in Palo Alto, CA is a great place to start, and if you cannot take classes in person, get the video due out in January 2002.

Learn to Relax
Do you have muscle tension all the time, even when you are not pounding away on the keyboard? One of the best things you can do for yourself is to re-learn to be relaxed. One of the best ways to live in a relaxed state is to practice meditation. Once you settle into a daily meditation practice, it is easier to stay calm and relaxed, be less reactive, and behave like the real you (as opposed to that nasty, impatient, and self-centered person you fear you are.) I practice a type of mediation that I learned from Ananda, and there are many other ways to learn to meditate. Begin your search with a sincere interest in meditation and you will end up in just the right place.

Improve Your Typing Technique
More than a third of the people I see for evaluations report that they type with two fingers or they have to look at the keys. All it takes is some practice to learn to touch type and save keystrokes by typing more accurately. Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor is just one of many typing tutor programs for improving typing skills for both the standard keyboard layout and a more efficient layout called the Dvorak layout that puts the most frequent keys closest to you.

Although you may have mastered the keyboard itself, you may also be using too much intensity, effort or force (I do not have to name names here, you know who you are). Biofeedback is one way to learn to stay relaxed while you type. Another technique for typing is to use a more natural “home row” and to use the whole arm to depress the keys instead of making the individual fingers do all the work. Norm Kahan, M.D. offers instruction in the Bay Area.

The Eyes Have It
Your eyes follow your work. If you don’t have the correct prescription to see clearly while sitting in a neutral position, you will unconsciously drift to where you can see at the expense of your body. Work with specialists in computer monitor viewing to get the right glasses for you.