JWZ on Dealing with Wrist Pain

Kodi writes "Jamie Zawinski has put an interesting page on his site describing his fight with wrist pain. The most important thing is that you don't ignore it. Also check out the Typing Injury FAQ, which he links to. " Having had a scare a couple weeks ago, I can testify to the truth behind this - we've done some AskSlashdots about this before as well. Don't assume it'll fix itself.

I heard this strange theory about RSI

Specifically that RIS I caused by people who use Keyboards and other systems with insufficient resistance. Notably RSI begins to show up at the same time journalists moved away from mechanical typwrites en masse. Something about he lack of resistance ecouraging/allowing bad hand posture?
Any comments on this? It may also have to do with increased typing speed. However, there have been typing pools since before WWII and RSI seems to be a more modern phenomenon.
I've had some problems with my hands while digging a long trench, but I think that was just old fashioned wear an tear, since they occured after only a few days of work digging.

stretching

Stretching is very important. Stretch your arms, your forearms, your neck, your back, etc., do it frequently. Don't be too aggressive--mild stretching is the best.

Stretching helps promote healing, and keeps muscles from tightening up. A good massage is also a reasonable preventative measure--work on shoulders and upper back problems as problems here are often are responsible for inefficient use of your fingers, wrists, and forearms.

How I avoid pains . . .

I'm not sure that this is ergonomically correct, but I have never experienced any major discomfort from the method that I use, even after a multi-hour programming rampage.

For typing, I keep about four inches or so away from the front edge of my desk. The weight of my hands rests on the bottom part of my palm, which allows me to arch my fingers (I have big hands) comfortably over the keyboard, while maintaining my usual typing pace (80wpm avg). When possible, I rest my elbows on armrests.

As for my mouse, I keep it and its pad very far away from the front of the desk. Basically, my arm rests flat on the desk almost to the elbow. I keep my mouse sensitivity turned way up so that I can reach any side of my desktop, even at high resolutions, by only moving my hand a few inches. Since my entire arm is supported, this position is quite comfy.

For FPS games however, I move the mouse forward a bit, so that about half of my fore-arm area is supported by the desk. This seems to be more effective for those trigger-reflex type games.

I'm interested in hearing what positions other people use to stay comfy.

Note: I don't use any ergo-stuff. I use the HP keyboard that came with my old 486 (still love it!), and a microsoft serial mouse (no wheel) for mousing.

Re:Use vi, use vi macros.

Bill Joy uses emacs now.

Re:Wrist pain

The other wrist pain incident was just after Microsoft came out with their "middle-button wheel" mouse. I made heavy use of the wheel when I first got one of these things, and found that it led to wrist pain (perhaps because rapidly spinning the wheel with the middle finger is a rather unnatural motion).

I got one of the wheelmice, and now I don't know what I'd do without the wheel. You're right, though -- using your middle finger to scroll the wheel is rather uncomfortable.

I found a position (without even trying, it just kinda happened) to hold the mouse that makes it a lot more comfortable. You need to hold it at an angle, like shown here:

http://silverlight.org/cray/wheelmouse.g if [silverlight.org]
I drew this in MS Paint, gimme a break =P

It may seem a little awkward to get used to at first -- and it probably is -- but once you get used to it, it's realy easy. Up and down motion can be achieved just by pushing and pulling with your fingertips, side-to-side with your thumb and ring finger, and scrolling can be done comfortably with your index finger.

If anybody else tries this and likes it (or already does this) I'd be interested in hearing about it. My email's cray@[domainGivenInURLAbove].org