“Worries about job losses have helped stress become the most common cause of long-term sick leave in Britain, according to a report that underlines the pressures on workers in a deteriorating labour market.

Stress has overtaken other reasons for long-term absence such as repetitive strain injury and medical conditions such as cancer.”

The article continues:

“The report highlights the strong links between job security and stress levels, with employers that are planning redundancies most likely to see a rise in mental health problems among staff.”

This is certainly to be expected given the current challenging economic times that we live in. I think the main disconnect in these articles about stress is that they infer that stress is a condition on its own, when stress in actual fact can lead to people being more susceptible to injuries and illnesses including Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI) and many other health related conditions and, as such, we may not really have seen the full impact of stress on the British workforce.

Indeed I said as much in my article (from Dec. 2008) about it in the last major economic downturn in 2008 titled “RSI potential in these stressful economic times“.

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Up until I injured it, I didn’t even know that there was anything there to injure. I had been working out in the garden carrying stones in a bucket (a large muscle activity involving upper arms, shoulders, core, back) on and off for a day, when I finally sat down and noticed a general ache around the sternum area, as well as everywhere else I should hasten to add! Over the course of the next few days, all the aches disappeared except the one in the sternum. It was at that stage that I realised I’d injured something, I just didn’t know how bad it would be. Symptoms can include pain, tingling and an itching sensation around the centre of the chest area.

Over the course of the following week, I resumed my normal life doing picture framing, but noticed that I could induce bad pain in the sternum area when attempting to push against something heavy. This wasn’t good! At this point I did a little research and found out about costochondritis.  It is an injury to the soft connective tissue between the ribs and the sternum and can take a long time to heal due to the fact that there is not a huge supply of blood circulating to this area. I also got the advice of my GP who said that I just needed to rest it.

For the next 3 months I did my best to rest the chest area, which meant no lifting, pushing or carrying of anything remotely heavy in weight (including shopping bags!). One main difficulty I found was trying to rest the sternum while sleeping. The natural position of the body when sleeping on your side is to have both arms on the bed. This posture forces the sternum to be compressed and as a result does not give the area ample rest during sleep. Having restless nights also doesn’t help matters in this regard. One solution that I found is to sleep whilst hugging a pillow. The pillow has to be a puffed out largish one to keep the chest area open. It has proven to be a very useful method.

After 3 months of resting, the sternum had improved to the extent that I could actually do more. The question was, how much more? This, I found out by trial and error. If I did too much, the sternum would get more prickly, “itchy” and sore. It followed the same pattern every time: perform an activity, followed by prickly, itchy soreness for a few days, then it would calm down and I’d feel better again after a week. The trouble was that this went on for the best part of a year! Even now – some 14 months after the initial injury, I still have to be choosy about whether to try lifting something heavy or not. All in all, this injury has taken a long time to get better, and is one I could most certainly have done without!

The following are a few recommendations I would make for anyone suffering from costochondritis -

• Rest up well for 2-3 months, avoiding all lifting of things including heavy shopping bags.
• Hug a pillow while sleeping on your side to keep sternum area from being compressed.
• Gentle reintroduction to exercise – yoga can be a good form of exercise to start recovery, so too is swimming.
• You can use NSAIDs, eg ibuprofen to help with symptoms, but consult your GP first. I have also found much relief by taking Devil’s Claw (a natural anti inflammatory)
• Have patience and don’t rush your recovery. After 14 months I feel like I am back to 90%, but I’ve been in the 70-80% range for a long time (nearly a year) and have frequently found a way to aggravate it somehow, usually by carrying something heavy.  This has happened even up to the 13 month mark!

This condition has certainly been very persistent, and has been quite frustrating to deal with mentally as well as physically, but after 14 months I am finally feeling like I am getting there. Fingers crossed!

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m no technophobe and realise that social media is playing a big role in people’s lives these days, but it was perfectly obvious to me that this person lived a virtual life almost all of the time! Her ‘real’ friend sitting next to her was relegated to staring out the window  most of the time, but was occasionally invited to check out a witty comment sent by one of her companion’s virtual friends. The insanity of this is that it shows how we are slowly losing the ability to communicate in any traditional, ie personal form. The new ‘normal’ is becoming the social media way.

So what? I hear you all ask. Well,  aside from the implications for “real” social skills, all of the virtual lives that we are leading are at the cost of our bodies interacting with computers, phones, and other hand held mobile devices nearly all of the time!  Which means we are clicking them and using small repetitive micro movements in doing so. I really fear that our virtual lifestyles will lead to a  guarantee of an epidemic in RSI type conditions, and the debilitating pain that goes with them.

Is it not about time that we questioned the importance and necessity of our virtual lives against the necessity that we will have a healthy future in which we will be able to do perform our work as well as successfully interact with real people?

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It doesn’t help that RSI isn’t a terribly visible condition. Even so, when I was wearing 2 arm braces pretty much on a permanent basis, initially they attracted some comment along the lines of, “What have you done to your arm(s)?”. After some time, however, my colleagues became accustomed to seeing me wearing them and I simply became the guy with the arm braces. It also doesn’t help that an RSI such as mine can preclude the movements that caused it, ie working at a computer, but does not necessarily (and thankfully) mean that other activities can’t be undertaken, ie ones that do not employ the same worn-out muscles. When the activities that can still be engaged in happen to be recreational in nature, this only serves to feed suspicion that the RSI somehow isn’t genuine.

I am fortunate in that I can participate in an outdoor activity that involves the use of my arms, and that is kayaking. To the uninformed, that might seem like a contradiction. How is someone who gave up their career because of forearm pain able to paddle? Some brief consideration of the movements involved should answer that question. There is a substantial difference between clicking a computer mouse and a keyboard all day every day and lifting a paddle in and out of the water over a period of a few hours per week. Indeed, the latter could be deemed as a healthy movement involving mainly the upper arm muscle groups including biceps/triceps and shoulders, with minimal forearm motion, and only a light grip. Regardless, I do still have to be mindful of my paddling technique as, for example, incorrect paddle grip could lead to exacerbation of my RSI, especially in the right hand wrist. Indeed, I have invested in a “neutral bent shaft” paddle that is ergonomically designed to lessen the impact of paddle stroke upon the wrists. It is also exceptionally lightweight.

It is easy to form immediate judgements about others’ conditions, but I would encourage anyone who is suffering from an RSI, or who knows someone who is, to educate themselves on the subject thoroughly before jumping to conclusions concerning capabilities.

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Repetitive activities, including computer use, can adversely affect more than just the wrist, hands and arms, but also the neck and shoulders. Some years ago, my wife developed a constant and debilitating shoulder problem on her right side. At the end of each day in the office, her shoulder would ache such that the muscles would feel as if they were exhausted. Being right-handed, the most obvious association was with her computer mouse, yet it was apparent that this type of large-muscle ache would most probably not be addressed by using a different, more ergonomic mouse. It wasn’t until she moved jobs and her new desk included a drop down keyboard and mouse tray that the shoulder injury disappeared. Simply lowering the mouse pad had solved the problem. Even today, should she momentarily use a laptop and external mouse on a table top, for example, the shoulder issue will recur.

In addition, the range of occupations potentially affected by RSIs is wide. On several occasions now, I have encountered checkout cashiers wearing tell-tale arm braces which I instantly recognise  as probably indicating an RSI. I have chatted to such individuals and, indeed, they inform me that the repetitive motion of swiping products in front of the barcode scanner has caused their injury. I have recently heard of a tree surgeon having to scale back workload due to pain in his arms from the constant overhead operation of a chainsaw.

Examples of occupations at high risk of RSIs include:

• Journalists, programmers, software engineers – anyone using a computer to do their job
• Construction workers
• Checkout cashiers
• Production assembly line workers
• Machine operators
• Postal sorting workers

Sometimes it is not necessarily repetitive motion that is at fault, but holding the same position for hours on end. For example, many neck problems develop after possibly years of bad posture and/or inadequate breaks whilst staring at a computer screen, or performing any occupation that involves looking downwards (eg a jeweller). Even sleeping is not without hazard, if you are in the habit of lying on your front with your head to one side for example.

Of course, the key words here include “repetitive”, “overuse” and “habit”. The same principles apply in addressing these conditions:

• Awareness
• Good ergonomics
• Adaptive software or hardware (this can include anything from computer mice to chairs to running shoes!)
• Adequate breaks
• Improvement of posture
• Therapeutic exercise such as yoga, pilates etc
• Avoidance, if necessary

So, regardless of whether you are at work or play, upon experiencing the first twinges of pain, it is time to become aware of the cause and to address them accordingly. The choice is yours – you can make the necessary adjustments to your work or leisure habits now, or be forced to give them up entirely later.

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One question they asked that has stuck in my mind to this day was, “When was the last time you listened to music?”, to which I replied well, “In the car driving here”. Their response was, “No, when was the last time you listened to music just to enjoy the music, not as part of something else?”. I really had to rack my brain to think that one through. I couldn’t remember. Not for many years and probably when I was a lot younger, had a lot more time on my hands and a lot less to worry about – probably in my teens! I had to be honest and say, “I really don’t remember”.

The lesson she was trying to impart was that we rarely take the time in life any more to just enjoy simple things that once were a source of relaxation. Music should have been there to enjoy and relax to on its own. By then my life was so busy that music had been demoted to something less.

It may be a part of the reason we hanker after music during our childhood to teen years. Back then, we had more time to listen to music with fewer worries and distractions in our lives. Not only that, but we spent time listening to whole albums from start to finish (which back in my day were on vinyl) and playing them to death whilst memorising the lyrics. This changed in my busier twenties, demoting music to be something listened to when I was driving about, at my desk whilst working or when I went for a workout at the gym. It just wasn’t something I had time for any more on it’s own, yet it was still an important part of my life, just not for relaxing to. In other words I always added something else into the mix with music without obtaining any of the mental relaxation that could be found from listening to an entire album and doing nothing else.

Move forward a couple of decades, and we find ourselves in a completely different situation. The invention of home computers, MP3 files and players have completely revolutionised music and the way we listen to it. We now have thousands of files on our players that are very easily mixed and are frequently listened to in random order, which can be great, and really allows you to find stuff in  your collection that you’d forgotten about. However it has led to being spoiled for choice, and we tend to flick through music tracks at the push of a button, not listening to albums in the way they were intended to be appreciated. Many artists spend a lot of time sequencing an album into a specific order which ‘flows’ or tells a story, and is really part of the overall experience of that music. This sequencing is more often than not completely wasted with shuffle plays of MP3 players, and really adds to the sense that music is just a cheap commodity in our already over commoditised life.

If we spent a dedicated hour a day to do nothing but listen to a favourite album the way it was intended to be listened to and for no other reason but to enjoy that album, we’d find that the music does a wonderful thing and takes us to a different place, where we can lose our worries and stresses for an hour and start to relax again, just as we did when we were younger. It may also help us to de-stress and unwind from tension induced conditions such as RSI.

So when was the last time that you really listened to music?

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The mind boggles at the mere though of this. It’s a very Orwellian concept. Imagine other sensors out there being able to read your thoughts – scary!

The assumption is that due to the ease of the technology, we as consumers will beg to have this implanted technology. I’m not convinced of this argument. I also tend to believe that new concepts in computer control are never going to be risk free in themselves. Eye motion controllers could cause eye strain. Thought controllers could cause brain strain!

The human brain is not a device that tends to tackle one sole task at hand. Out thoughts are random, parallel, and varying in nature. You may be thinking about the weekend holiday ahead or be excited about a forthcoming birthday etc. How would thought control devices differentiate these ‘human’ thoughts from ‘control’ thoughts? Would your employer be able to see when you were not thinking about the project you are working on each day? Would they be able to pay you per thought control hour rather than per 8 hour day?

Only time will tell whether this plan comes to fruition, but it seems to be no more than wishful thinking. I suspect that if it does come into existence it will be treated very cautiously by discerning workers.

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I may not be a medical professional, but I am able to tell when I encounter descriptions of body motion that just make plain sense, and this DVD contains some enlightening information. In a collection of well narrated chapters complete with diagrammatic video illustration, the evidence is laid bare of our common tendencies to keep our bodies out of balance, causing pain through muscle tensions that, in turn, keep our bodies in bad posture. This is due in part to us having mapped the body in a particular way, eg in relation to position, when in reality the position is entirely different.

This DVD is broken into multiple sections covering the many aspects of posture imbalance, and covers areas from the head to the feet and just about everywhere in between. Posture is translated by the authors as ‘Body Maps’ which are essentially memories in your mind of where you think your individual body parts are and how you use them. The DVD highlights how you may have had a flawed map (understanding) of your various body parts in your mind from a very young age. This may have led you to actually move according to those flaws and results in the straining of some parts of your body which can lead to pain. As the narrator tells us, “We move in the way in which we think we are constructed …”, either consciously or unconsciously. Wrong body maps can be responsible for many bad posture related problems, from walking to sitting, to using a computer.

Subjects covered in the DVD include -

• Body maps – identifying flaws in the human body map and how to recognise those errors
• Balance – identifying correct balance with core posture, and identifying posture related pain
• Kinesthesia – learning free and fluid movement to correct body imbalances
• Arms – covering shoulders, elbows,  wrists and hands
• Legs – covering hips, pelvis, knees and feet
• Breathing – covering lungs, skeletal/muscular system, diaphragm
• Mapping the whole body
• Correcting the map
• Inclusive attention

The areas I can relate to most pertain to the shoulders, arms, wrists and hands. These are covered in detail and are very applicable to the RSI sufferer. The main posture/skeletal issues with RSI type injuries are listed, adding to the viewer’s knowledge and understanding through plain and straightforward explanations along with clear diagrams and video.

From previous experience, I knew that over-supination of the wrists was a bad thing, but now I know about the natural axis of rotation of the forearm and how it ties in with a neutral position wrist, as well as why supination causes so many injuries.

The company website rather generously shows sample videos of some chapters which are well worth checking out, and will give you a sneak peak of the DVD content and style as well as some key body map information!

• ‘Elbows’ chapter
• ‘Arms’ chapter
• ‘Forearms’ chapter
• ‘Hands’ chapter
• ‘Lower Back’ chapter
• ‘Balance’ chapter
• ‘Lungs’ chapter

I also found the section on breathing very interesting. It’s probably the first time I’ve been able to picture the role of the diaphragm in breathing, and I certainly had my lungs mapped as being a bit lower than they actually are. The related section on the ribcage was also revealing to me having just recently strained my sternum connective tissue whilst gardening. It  also reinforces the benefits of some breathing practices including Yogic breathing (Pranayama).

The DVD run time is a substantial 2hrs,  and certainly lends itself to being watched in stages. There is the temptation to skip straight to the section you are most interested in, however it should be watched as a whole to get the complete picture and overall message firmly ingrained in your mind. I expect that multiple viewings would be best to fully absorb the detail.

All in all this DVD is an excellent resource for just about everyone. It is not solely aimed at one specific group of people eg RSI sufferers, but covers the whole body, and should be a useful education tool for everyone, including ergonomists, physiotherapists, fitness instructors, yoga teachers etc, as well as many others including in the medical profession.

If you have posture related pain it’s likely that it’s down to your bad body map and it’s certainly time to re-educate yourself!

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The reason that developments like this are exciting is that the games business, being a cutting edge, technologically advanced industry, usually pushes the boundaries of software and hardware development for the sake of market share.

Technology like this for, say, computer controls would ordinarily evolve a lot slower if there were a lesser need for it aside  from gaming. However, once developed, you can see how it could easily transform into some kind of gesture control for computer operating systems and applications. Who knows, you may even get a workout whilst doing a spreadsheet in the future!  Will a workout mat eventually replace the old desk?  Maybe we can eliminate the need for going to a gym!  Do employers only hire fit people in the future?

We are certainly at a crossroads with computers, where the basic mouse has been around too long and has created too many overuse injuries. It is more than time that we took computer input to a new level of evolution, and this may be the glimpse of what’s to come.

Whether this technology can save us from RSI related injuries is unknown, but it may help wean us off using a mouse. It may also lead to opportunities in computer use for people with all kinds of different disabilities, and not just RSI.

Is this the dawn of a new age in computer ergonomics, or is it just a gimmick ?

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