We actually got a quick primer on RSI in college. There are a lot of tools and equipment out there. But the simple fact is that you need to do at least one of two things to avoid RSI:
Stop stressing your poor wrists and hands.
Vary it up.
Stop stressing your poor wrists and hands:
If you take your hands off of your damned keyboard when you're not using it, and use your brain instead for a bit, you will not stress your hands. You can reduce stress to your hands by getting special keyboards, varying your sitting height, adding padding, etc. But just remove your hands from the keyboard, and there is no repetitive stress from keeping your fingers hanging in the air.
Vary it up:
Don't keep a static posture for too long. Doing exercise, etc, will strengthen your core and your arms, or whatever, but actually having something different going on as far as your body kinematics throughout the day is probably better. Drape a leg over that armrest. Squat. Lean back. Lean forward. Type with one hand. Humans are not meant to be statues.
And, the unspoken third rule:
If you are experiencing RSI, you need to ramp it down or take a vacation. RSI gets worse over time. You can treat inflammation with drugs in the short term, and you can point to mental components if you like, but the first two points don't mean very much if you don't give yourself time to heal, which means not hovering over a keyboard for an extended period of time.
Stop stressing your poor wrists and hands. Vary it up.
Stop stressing your poor wrists and hands: If you take your hands off of your damned keyboard when you're not using it, and use your brain instead for a bit, you will not stress your hands. You can reduce stress to your hands by getting special keyboards, varying your sitting height, adding padding, etc. But just remove your hands from the keyboard, and there is no repetitive stress from keeping your fingers hanging in the air.
Vary it up: Don't keep a static posture for too long. Doing exercise, etc, will strengthen your core and your arms, or whatever, but actually having something different going on as far as your body kinematics throughout the day is probably better. Drape a leg over that armrest. Squat. Lean back. Lean forward. Type with one hand. Humans are not meant to be statues.
And, the unspoken third rule: If you are experiencing RSI, you need to ramp it down or take a vacation. RSI gets worse over time. You can treat inflammation with drugs in the short term, and you can point to mental components if you like, but the first two points don't mean very much if you don't give yourself time to heal, which means not hovering over a keyboard for an extended period of time.