[frompdx]

Personally, having an ergonomic workspace works the best for me. I used to get pain in my neck, shoulders, wrists, and even the joints in my hands. Everyone is different. Here is what I recommend and do myself.

* Get a good chair. I bought a secondhand Herman Miller Mirra chair from an office furniture liquidator.

* Buy a sit/stand desk. I have one and while I rarely use it in the standing configuration, the easy control over the hight of my desk is very useful.

* Go tenkeyless. Full-size keyboards require you to move your arm to reach the mouse and put force you to work in awkward positions. For me, getting a Kinesis Advantage2 LF keyboard was the most important improvement I made. I can never go back to any other kind of keyboard now. I also bought an external tenkey pad that keep on the left side of my keyboard to minimize arm movement.

* Use a trackpad instead of a mouse. This might not apply to everyone, but I tend to grip a mouse too firmly and it causes pain in my fingers and wrist. I tried a Logitec trackman, which is an improvement, but I get pain in my thumb. What works best for me is an Apple Magic trackpad.

* Do you work on on monitor and have it sitting directly in front of you. Make sure it is adjustable. Extra monitors mean you have to turn your head to use them. I use my laptop display as an extra monitor and only put things that I check infrequently and need to interact with little on that display while working.

* This one might be unpopular, but learn the VIM keybindings and use them in your IDE. This will reduce how often you need to use the mouse once you get the hang of it.

Last but not least, work from home. Every employer I have had, big and small, had sorry excuses for ergonomic office equipment. Getting something better always seems to involve some kind of political drama. I'm much happier with my personal equipment that suits my needs.

[mackraken]

OP this is the way. I’ve landed on all these same things. Will add a few more that you can’t buy , but should do to stay healthy: 1. Immediately attend to discomfort. This is your body telling you it’s hurt. Trying to power through it is going to risk more injury. Once you’re hurt the road to recovery is long and prone to re-injury. 2. Take breaks. Do some light stretching before and while you work. Less intensive, but more frequent gentle stretching has worked better for me. 3. Drink water. Take it easy on caffeine and booze.

Inflammatory response is complex. Do everything you can to avoid it. In my experience, long term use of anti inflammatory drugs won’t heal you and will cause other problems.

[foxandmouse]

Different jobs stress different parts of your body. You can't dodge it, but you can find out what stresses your job exposes you to and try to reduce it. For instance, if you stare at screens for long periods, you can ease the strain on your eyes by using dark mode and night shift, and switching to an e-reader for lengthy articles.

But there's one thing that people often overlook, and that's working out to strengthen your back and shoulders. It can work wonders for reducing pain in those areas.