Posted on 3rd Sep 2011 @ 6:34 PM

More and more Americans are spending their working lives in front of computer keyboards. On the plus side, they don't have to worry about freak accidents that are possible in manual labor jobs. However, carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive stress injuries caused by hour upon hour of keyboarding can be just as debilitating.

It’s easy to blame your workplace for such discomforts, but it’s possible that the cause of this pain is actually your typing technique. Here are six common typing (or keyboarding) errors and how they may be causing you pain.

1. Stretching your fingers. Do you pull your fingers apart to reach different keys? That’s a big N-O. In other words, don’t stretch your fingers to reach from the letter N to the letter O. This stretching also commonly occurs by curling or pushing out your thumb on the space bar, and excessively stretching your pinky to reach the CTRL or SHIFT keys. Typists may feel pain or tension in the fingers, forearm, and hand; thumb pain that may extend to the wrist; or pinky pain which could stretch all the way to the elbow.
   
   
   
2. Curling your fingers. Remember how we were taught to always keep our fingers on the "home" keys of the keyboard? Well, this position tends to cause our ring, middle, and index fingers to curl up in order to maintain that position. This could lead to difficulty in moving the fingers or tension or pain in the forearms, hands, or fingers.
   
   
   
3. Isolating our fingers. Again, typists are often instructed to move only one finger at a time to strike a key without dislodging the other fingers from the "home" keys. This may cause undue stress to be placed on a certain finger, especially one which tends to strike more common letter keys. Finger isolation can result in pain, tendinitis, and a condition known as "trigger finger" where a finger suddenly pops out while a person tries to unbend it.
   
   
   
4. Twisting your wrists. This occurs when you rotate or swivel one or both of your wrists without moving your forearm along with them. You can see how this would put extra stress on the wrists over time. Wrist pain that extends to the elbow is not uncommon, and some people develop a wrist cyst known as a ganglion that usually has to be removed surgically.
   
   
   
5. Bad positioning of the wrist. A typist's wrist should be in perfect alignment with his or her hands. If the wrists drop below the hands, they start to take on the added weight of the forearms. This can result in wrist pain, back pain, or carpal tunnel syndrome if the position is not remedied. (Holding your wrists too high inhibits finger movement and may lead to wrist tension.) Wrist rests may not help - in fact, they often make the problem worse!
   
   
   
6. Setting your seat height incorrectly. If you sit too low at the computer, the weight of your forearm shifts to your elbow, making it less able to support your fingers. This can leave typists with wrist pain, finger tension, or pain in the neck, shoulders, arms, and back. Sitting too high also causes problems; it elevates your hands and forearms to the point where they cannot adequately support your hands. The overcompensation in body position can lead to pain in the neck, shoulders, or wrists.

Ergonomic chairs, wrist rests, and adjustable desks won't help you avoid pain if your typing technique is improper. So make the effort to improve your body position while typing. It can reduce or eliminate the many types of pain and discomfort which are often seen in typing-heavy occupations.