– Sathish Nandagopal, founder-director, S Cube Ergonomics Pvt. Ltd.

The Covid-19 pandemic has induced unprecedented disruption to education. Classes have been suspended to ensure social distancing and educational institutions, from schools to universities, have shifted to online methods of teaching and evaluation. Now ‘Study From Home (SFH)’ has become the new normal for students of all ages.

For online classes, students are often required to sit for long hours hunched in front of their laptops or mobiles, often maintaining an incorrect posture on the bed/sofa/dining table etc. triggering health issues like pain on back, shoulders, and neck muscles, ultimately leading to lack of focus and decreased performance.

To enhance academic performance, it is essential to create the right study space for students at home. Be it a school, high school or college student, the right study station can make a huge difference. A bad posture and lack of movement can be damaging resulting in increased stress levels, making it extremely difficult for students to focus.

Especially for those students living in compact spaces, studying from home can sometimes feel more like a stressor than a perk. Hence the task of finding the perfect home study station that enables good posture, reduces exertion and fatigue and promotes overall well-being, becomes an absolute must.

In a scenario where most home study spaces are not ergonomically optimised, finding the perfect chair and a desk that are well integrated with other ergonomic tools that meet the SFH requirements becomes imperative.

Here are some tips for setting up ergonomic tools and accessories that suit all the SFH needs ensuring complete comfort and enhanced productivity.

• Finding the perfect chair is an important first step when creating a healthy comfortable study space. A good choice would be a comfortable ergonomic chair, a light-weight, all-mesh chair designed with minimal parts for the ultimate user-friendly experience. This can lead to an increase in alertness as well as an increase in blood flow, benefitting a person’s well-being.
• The next step is to find a desk. For students, a fixed desk is a perfect solution to a compact home study space along with a pedestal having two drawers for keeping books/stationery.
• Though often overlooked, monitor arms promote a clutter-free study space and support a healthier, more ergonomic working posture, making it a must-have for the ideal desk setup. Many students tend to lean in toward their computer monitor in order to see it better, whereas monitor arms enable them to pull the monitor closer so they can sit in a healthy posture, with their back against the back of the chair, and still see the work on their screen.
• Alternately, if the student is a heavy user of a laptop then a laptop holder is the ideal solution instead of a monitor arm. It raises the laptop screen height to promote good ergonomic posture while drastically improving user comfort that puts an end to the risks and discomfort of “laptop hunch”.
• A keyboard tray is another vital tool that helps achieve an adapting, ergonomic Study space. This underrated tool brings the keyboard and mouse closer and encourages students to sit in a healthy, neutral posture without leaning forward.
• And finally a foot rocker that relieves soreness from static sitting through gentle rocking of the feet.

With each of the above mentioned tools working in harmony to provide ergonomic support and comfort, anyone can have a “perfect”  study station while learning from home and be healthy and safe ultimately leading to increased academic performance.

If you are keen on encouraging your children to establish a good posture, this is the right time to consider investing in a good home study station that will ensure that the students feel happy, comfortable and experience less fatigue while studying from home as they battle health issues and other challenges like loneliness, stress, anxiety, and depression due to the ongoing pandemic.

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