Your cell phone can give you RSI too

Sending text messages can cause RSI too - Ok, let's just say it - technology causes RSI, except when it's curing it ... (Pretty soon, your cellphone will have voice recognition software built in and you can just say your text messages.

Keep your Kids and yourself active - but don't do just one thing

GROWING PAINS: Playing one sport only leads to repetitive stress - Interesting, that in this day and age of childhood obesity, we also have kids going the other way and having the elbows and knees of 50 year olds way early in life, because they played outside (at their sport) too much. So, it seems it's not just computers that are causing the problems, it's anything you do too much of.

a soft touch is very important

When working on the computer, I have found that relaxed shoulders and hands, and a very soft touch on the keys are as important as stretching. My physical therapist recommended some relaxation exercises before starting to work - I'll go one step past this and say that besides trying to relax, and doing exercises that should relax you, you actually need to sense the level of tension in your forearms, shoulders, neck and back while you are working. Set a timer for every few minutes and then actually "check in" with thoses muscles.

I know this all sounds very flaky, and I am actually resistant to flakiness most of the time, but I have had to adopt a few flaky, crunchy attitudes in order to continue working. So - just try it - put your fingers on the keyboard like you are going to type and stop - think about the muscles in your forearms and fingers and neck and back. Try to feel what they are feeling - assign them a descriptive word like relaxed or tense or light or heavy. If they are tense or heavy you've got to stop and stretch till the feeling is gone. Working with tense muscles will give me pain within minutes, but constant checking in to be sure my muscles are relaxed will let me work all day with minimal pain.

It's not just from computers

This article about When music hurts reveals that musicians are at just as much risk as comptuer users for RSI. I used to play the saxophone in high school, so I certainly can understand how the mechanics are similar, but I never had RSI back then - probably because I rarely practised.

Another name for RSI

In this article: Maintaining A Healthy Work Place And Workers I discovered another name for RSI. It's CTD, or Cumulative Trauma Disorder. This article is from the Bahamas, so maybe it's a non-American English thing. The article itself has good points, but nothing we haven't seen a hundred times before - you know: stretch, don't overreach, take breaks, etc.

No RSI in children

This article about an NES Controller hacked into a laser mouse contends that ergonomic products created RSI because children play on video games for several hours a day and never get RSI.

Hmmm, let's think about this. RSI takes a long time to develop. I worked on a computer 10 or so hours a day for 10 years before I ever got it. Children tend to do a lot of things adults don't, like natural exercise, lay around on the floor, contort and stretch their bodies in gym or sports. Besides, who here worked with ergonomic products before they were injured? Anyone? Not me. I just use them now.

Nope, I don't believe it.

a stretching breakthrough

I am thrilled because I have reached my goal of little or no pain every day, working or not. My breakthrough came because I am starting to run out of time to do the entire complement of stretches that have caused me so much relief. What I did was, I picked the stretch or stretches that seem to help me the most and I did it for longer, but did not do any other stretches. For example, if I am stretching my head to each side, instead of doing three stretches for five seconds each on each side, I would start out with 5 seconds, stretch to the other side, then increase the time to 10 seconds, then 20 seconds, then 40 seconds, then 80 seconds - then done. I haven't even had the time to repeat the stretches in the evening most times - and I still feel fantastic.

I don't think this would have worked in the beginning, but now that I know how to feel the stretch and my fascia is much looser it seems to work like a charm. yay!