Tips On How Transcribers Can Maintain Good Health

Professional Transcribers have sit long hours on ends on a computer while working on audio transcription projects such as podcast audio to text transcript conversion. This can lead to some serious health complications. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is one such health complication. It symptoms are pain in wrist, swelling and the inability to rotate or twist the wrist. CTS is caused by a pinching of a nerve. CTS can also in turn cause other health problems. A recent study has linked migraine and headaches to Carpal Tunnel.   

Sitting long hours on a computer can lead to a weak eyesight, pain in the lower back, spondylitis, headache and even depression.  

If you are freelancer or an IT specialist or a professional typist who has to spend a lot of time in front of the computer, then what steps can you take for a healthy body and mind? Here are some simple and easy to follow steps:

1. Neck Rotation: Rotate the neck in a clockwise direction for 7 times (2 or 3 sets at one go). Then repeat the same this time in an anti-clockwise direction. Neck rotation should be done at a comfortable pace.  Sitting on a computer can result in a stiffening the neck muscle. Neck rotation exercises results go a long way to help in relaxing the stiffness. However one needs to be consistent and should do these exercises 3-4 times a day, or, once every hour and a half while you are sitting on the computer. 

2. Wrist Rotation Exercises:  A very important exercise especially for professional transcriptionists. Here is how you do it: Lift both the arms, palms should be facing downwards. Now fold the thumb inwards and close the fingers. This will result in a fist formation. Now rotate both the fist in direction opposite to each other and do around 30 twists per set. Switch the direction and do 30 twists. One to two sets of rotations are good and should be done 4-5 times in a day. 

 

3. Play with a Squeeze-Me Ball:  A squeeze ball like this one is very popular amongst Call center employees and IT professionals. Usually employees would keep a squeeze-me ball on their desktop drawer. And you can play with the ball, actually squeeze it hard while you are on a telephonic call. These squeeze balls are very cheap, safe and fun to squeeze. Some of the squeeze balls have blunted protrusions which press on nerve endings of the palm. We highly recommend all transcriptionists and IT professionals to keep a squeeze-me ball at their work place. It definitely can do wonders for your hand health.

4. Take a 2 minute walk every 90 minutes: We cannot emphasize the importance of this exercise. Not many people know this that sitting continuously on a chair is not good for the heart. Sitting for long allows the fatty acids to clog up the arteries. And this eventually leads to heart problems. The only way to avoid this is either by having an active lifestyle. Gymning, jogging, swimming everyday will take care of this. If you are a lazy type and for some reason cannot give yourself the joy of physical exercise then just a simple 2-3 minute walk once every hour can done. This could be made part of your hourly break regime. 

5. Stretching Exercises: Here is a list of simple stretching exercises that can be done by person of any age. 

Combination Exercises:  Rather than doing the exercises individually, you can try and do it in possible combination of 2 or 3. For example, one can take a 2 minute walk every hour and then just stretch themselves out. Another example, one can first stretch their wrists and then go in for a neck rotation exercise. Rotation of exercises is a good way to keep the flexibility of the body going. No matter what your profession is, or what your age is these exercises can be done very easily. 

Summary: Computer professionals such as transcriptionists, programmers, coders, bug testers, website designers etc. have been reporting increasing health ailments. There are many scientific studies to prove that sitting on a chair could be a direct or an indirect cause of this. We highly recommend to all computer professions in the Information Technology word to keep good care of their health and follow the above mentioned exercises on a daily basis. And your work efficiency, productivity will enhance tremendously.

Thanks,

AllTranscript.com Transcription Service.

“A fit, healthy body—that is the best fashion statement”
Quote by Jess C. Scott.