The complexity of building a lie-down workstation
altwork.com
altwork.com
The effects of this happen slowly over the course of years but you could potentially develop tight hips and a bad back, which can accelerate further mobility problems.
Common advice is to get up and move once an hour. Your productivity might dip but mental/physical health will benefit. Seating that forces you to change positions frequently (floor cushions) might be a save too.
Personally I've been working lying down for 20 years, almost all day, almost every day. I only have back problems when I use beds that are not very firm.
I'm over 6 feet tall and weigh about 120 kg and I'm in my early 50's. I run 10kms (without stopping except for quick drinks) regularly, in 1:20. I can do bench press, shoulder press, lateral pull down, seated row and seated dip machines with the weight set to my bodyweight (about 4 sets of 8 reps each machine, ramping the weight).
I actually don't do a lot of exercise on the scale of things, and I can regain the above abilities within a month or so if I become totally inactive for a long period. I'm actually a fairly large person which helps with the weights but makes the running pretty rigorous.
Like most things, if you work your body regularly you will be fine. How you don't use your body when you're not exercising doesn't affect that.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/much-sitting-linked-hear...
I feel like this is one of those things where they will later find out that some co-mingled variable is skewing results. See the studies years ago that said moderate drinking was good for you, but didn't control for socioeconomic status. Turns out the types of people who have a nice red with dinner every day are also high income and relatively health conscious.
I just got into a cardio routine for the first time in my life in the hopes of becoming healthier, and this has all but destroyed my optimism.
If not even exercise and a good diet can save your life if you are still sedentary, then the advice should be clarified to also suggest sitting as little as possible. I ended up believing that checking both those boxes was enough.
From what I've read (I'm no kind of expert, so don't just trust my interpretation), is that sitting can interfere with your blood circulation. It constricts blood flow to your legs, and when you're sitting you aren't contracting your leg muscles which is part of what helps move blood around your lower body. It's not so much that sitting itself is bad for you; it's sitting for so long without moving.
So just... move around. I love having a sit/stand desk but if that isn't something you can do then just get in the habit of frequently getting up from your desk and walking around a bit. If you need to think about something, do it while you walk. Pretend you have a smoking habit and you need to get up for a cigarette every 20 or 30 minutes. Once you get used to frequently moving around you'll start to become sensitive to sitting down for too long. I can't sit through a movie at a movie theater anymore because I get this overwhelming urge to get up and move around.
https://www.sciencealert.com/getting-a-sweat-on-for-30-40-mi...
Edit: pretty sure I read it as 1:40 hmm
To the contrary, that's from sitting.
Remember we already lie down for 8 hours a day while sleeping. It's restorative, not harmful.
What you do need to be careful of is generally weakened bones and muscles. But provided that you're getting up every hour to walk around for five minutes (and stretch, ideally), or at least every two hours, and you go to the gym moderately, then there's absolutely zero problem.
Sleep is restorative. Lying down all day is not. Just ask literally any nurse.
As long as you're taking breaks to be active, it's not harming you the way that sitting can do great harm to your back and shoulders and neck. That's the point.
Every morning when I wake up my back and hips are extremely tight and it takes me about 2 hours to loosen them up. However if I spend those two hours laying down waiting for my body to loosen on its own, I get up 2 hours later with the same problems.
I agree with you that sitting also causes the hips and back to get stiff and tight.
There are lots of possible causes, with possible fixes including a different mattress, changing your sleeping position/posture, specific stretches, and massaging specific muscles.
If lying down were harmful then we'd wake up in the morning with big problems.
Granted some people do wake up with problems but that's not normal, and often has to do with specific sleep posture problems (mattress too soft, stomach sleeping, sleeping too curled up, etc.).
All my back problems have disappeared after WFH since now I can lie down and code. Also, I have observed, I move more lying down. Since one tends to shift position, legs and back more often on the bed without explicit mental effort.
A chair tends to confine you more like a straitjacket. 2 hours on a chair and my lower back aches.
Maybe someone with more knowledge on anatomy or physiology could chime in.
disclaimer: I haven't exercised regularly since the 'rona hit. Trying to go swimming a few times a week now at least, in theory the chlorine kills the virus well enough.
I agree this would be probably overall negative if you lie in it for hours and hours all day.
Off-topic: Am I being overly sensitive today or could Altwork have responded better to this?
Don't get me wrong, I love the write-up going through the different prototypes, it was very insightful. But the above paragraph seems very defensive. Paul in no way attacked Altwork, merely stated that their products are beyond his budget at the moment. Instead of saying that Paul's DIY project is "in no way a comparison" to Altwork's products, they could have commended Paul on taking this project on in the first place, highlighting the difficulties it comes with and how their product solves them. Just seemed unnecessarily defensive.
But honestly I don't think it is the case, I've talked with the CEO of Altwork a few weeks ago and honestly he was very nice and even helped me to improve a few parts of my setup.
I take the sentence as a mark of respect, but yeah could have been written in a less confusing way
Paul benefited from Altwork's ten years of development, protoypes, 80,000 hours bla bla bla. The existence of the Altwork station and especially the 3-8 generations means that Paul could essentially avoid all the ergonomic decisions and many of the technical ones too... until he comes across something that doesn't work for him. But it saves a lot of time having something to crib from!
In some ways this is like a code refactor - different tools, aiming to make it cheaper/more efficient, but using the R&D knowledge from previous iterations. Given the state of the software industry I'm just glad he didn't get tempted to use Svelte somehow.
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/06/15-years-later-heres-why-a...
Maybe one day the sounds of gaming rigs on LANs will roar back again, for the sake of nostalgia. Maybe some kind of Computers and Coffee type meetups where people show off their powerful rigs and their elite gaming skills on a LAN.
1. open an ordinary laptop screen to 180 degrees.
2. Place the laptop face down on a desk with the laptop's screen hanging over the side of the desk.
3. Put a big heavy object on top of the laptop (I used a hug e book).
4. Plug in your peripherals and put them under your desk
5. lie down underneath your desk so you can see the monitor
6. rotate the display settings as necessary.
Advantages:
* lying on the floor is great for your back
Disadvantages:
* Make sure book is huge enough, otherwise laptop comes crashing down on your head.
* Monitor space is limited to a single laptop screen.
You may have fancier requirements that require a trip to the hardware store. OTOH, you might not. the real trick here is I only need one small monitor to do my job.
It can quite easily point downwards, and you don't have to worry about the whole thing falling down on you. Add wireless keyboard and mouse and you're done.
This seems like the ultimate setup. I personally hate sitting at a desk.
In any higher pressure (non-lying down position) the problem then is simply the combo of higher pressure preventing diffusion and no movement increasing diffusion. Fix one, or the other or both.
Hunch is though 60 min straight without movement in any other non-lying down position is way too long. Sound right?
(me: bike accident, L2 compression fracture, now paying attention to my back) I am working on this too from another vector but get the lie-down desk angle, and at the moment it is credible to me.
[TLDR: Typing for long periods while lying down with hands elevated above heart may cause an injury.]
A few years ago I built a lying down / "zero gravity" workstation. The position of my keyboard was very similar to the Altwork station, I.E. with arms bent at about 90 degrees with a keyboard and trackpad positioned above my body.
After a couple months of using it during full time working hours I developed severe pain in my wrists and forearms. This had never occurred before when using a conventional workstation / position. I soon became unable to type, and nearly any use of my hands resulted in intense pain. Writing code using a keyboard was out of the question.
After much reading during my forced hiatus, I came to a hypothesis: elevating my hands to type while on my back caused a decrease in diffusion of fluids to the non-vascular tissues of my forearms and hands, that is, the tendons and muscle fascia. While in this unlubricated, "dry" state, the small, continual movements of the tissues against each other (the motions of typing) led to the injury. I concluded it was tendonosis. (IANAD, but had no health insurance at the time.)
The injury took six months to fully heal, during which time I self-administered massage, myofascial release therapy, and grip strength training to increase circulation around the various tissues. For much of that time, I could barely work. Truly it was hell.
As for the workstation, I modified it to use a split keyboard (Ergodox EZ) that kept my hands below my heart (basically at my sides). But ultimately I abandoned the whole thing after failing to achieve a reasonable touch typing speed with the Ergodox.
My current workstation is based on an Ikea lounge chair and ottoman. Keyboard and trackpad extend from the side into my lap on a low-mounted, adjustable arm. The monitor is also on an arm, cantilevered out over the ottoman (and my legs) at a comfortable viewing angle and distance. This setup is certainly not as relaxing for the back as the previous zero gravity position, but in approximately three years of use I've had no further injuries from typing.
YMMV.
What about pointing a projector to the ceiling above the bed and using a split keyboard?
Another idea could be setting up a monitor with an arm[1] attached to some furniture or wall at the head of the bed.
Making use of the bed seems both easier and more space efficient.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=monitor+arm&iax=images&ia=i...
1. There is limited adjustment potential.
2. The keyboard is not positioned correctly in full supination and my typing error rate goes way up. A fully split design may help this.
3. It's not a good posture for focusing, although it's great for calm viewing.
For focusing I'd go for floor sitting with a lap desk to hold wireless peripherals, and anything that can elevate the screen. This method allows postural adjustment with deep stretches over the course of the day.
What kind of adjustment are you missing? Is is lack of degrees of freedom on the arm or is it the bed?
> 2. The keyboard is not positioned correctly in full supination and my typing error rate goes way up. A fully split design may help this.
I also think a fully split keyboard would be essential here. I don't think it'd be comfortable/ergonomic at all to have the keyboard over your body while typing. I think ideally the arms should be spread to a degree (maybe hands at half a foot distance from the legs) to more evenly distribute the body-weight on the bed.
> 3. It's not a good posture for focusing, although it's great for calm viewing.
Are you referring to how it's easier to doze off? Although, that would also be a problem when viewing.
I have the opposite experience.
> 2. The keyboard is not positioned correctly
This is probably the biggest issue which I think requires some kind of stand or other supporting equipment. Right now I prop up the keyboard in front of me using my arms and elbows or with the aid of a cushion or something on my chest.
Excited for when resolution improves. Maybe paired with a keyboard like this: https://www.cbkbd.com/product/eek-keyboard
being on your belly with your spine arced up slightly really does help the back through.
It's good to see more of how that process goes and the kind of result looks to justify the effort in this case. that's a nifty solution.
It is not.
> In healthy patients there is normally little difference between lying and standing blood pressure.
https://www.nursingtimes.net/clinical-archive/cardiovascular...
Oh, also read this
Records show that diastolic pressure is about 55mm/Hg lower when taking blood pressure lying down vs. sitting.
https://www.belmarrahealth.com/blood-pressure-differences-wh...
Perhaps more relevant would be the diagnostic criteria for orthostatic hypotension, a condition that most people don't have: https://www.aafp.org/afp/2011/0901/p527.html
> Orthostatic hypotension is defined as a decrease in systolic blood pressure of 20 mm Hg or a decrease in diastolic blood pressure of 10 mm Hg within three minutes of standing when compared with blood pressure from the sitting or supine position.
Most people, then, have less of a decrease in blood pressure than that between supine and standing.
You may be dealing with significant sleep deprivation, if you lying down affects you this way.
I've always found office chairs hideously uncomfortable, so it's been pretty great. The key seems to have been getting my reclining posture to be almost neutral, with my head up a bit. My monitor sits on the corner of the table so it's almost directly in my sight-line.
Because my body is totally relaxed I don't get the discomfort or tightness of sitting upright for extended periods. I have to remember to get up and move around regularly though, because there's no discomfort trigger.
1: ignore text, just look at pictures https://de0.hatenablog.com/entry/2015/10/30/212015
2: https://www.pixiv.net/artworks/36289488
3: https://www.paramount.co.jp/cms/img/product/homecare/new/200...
Right now, it's just a MBP sitting on a laptop stand, with no other peripherals other than headphones/mic. I found a few different stands online but they are pretty expensive. It would be awesome if I could get a desktop setup going—rather than a laptop—that's still easy enough to move out of the way when not using it. But the setup has to be easy enough for my non-technical assistants to help me with.
I switched four months ago and my small remaining wrist issues are completely gone.
I've tried a few things, the first something like 20 years ago. More recently I stuck with it for a full week, but it still felt really awkward, and like I just couldn't be as accurate as with a mouse.
If you've any pointers (hur hur), they'd be much appreciated!
Critical to the experience was disabling the "Enhance Pointer Precision" setting on Windows, which ironically felt like it does the exact opposite of what it says.
I probably wouldn't use it for, say, competitive FPS games but for regular workflow stuff it's just great.
WON'T THE KEYBOARD AND MOUSE FALL OFF THE DESK?
The desk has a layer of steel under its surface. Magnets on the keyboard and keypad hold them in position on the desk. We provide specialized magnet kits for standard Apple products and a general-purpose kit to accommodate other products. The mouse pad has a ring of steel on its outer edge but no steel in the center. This allows the user to slide the mouse easily when mousing and store the mouse anywhere on the edge of the pad when not in use.
It works a treat.
I often see people complain about having poor sleep, difficulty sleeping etc. I myself used to sometimes take 3-4 hours in bed to fall asleep, no matter how tired I was or what I did. But only using my bed for sleeping is part of what lets me now fall deeply asleep within 5 minutes of shutting my eyes.
I hope your sleep health is good, but if anybody reading this wonders why they have such a tough time falling asleep or waking up on time, I would recommend giving this strategy a shot.
Another thing I like is to listen to audio (I like scary stories on youtube) while I lie down with my eyes closed. Gives me something to ponder before I get knocked out.
Or like, you know, don't, because its stupid.
That said, the need for sleep may be considered a problem for some people. So maybe it's actually a two-birds-one-stone solution.
Worked like a charm.
I've looked into other workstations but most of them only go between sitting and reclining. Unfortunately, I think the ability to convert to a standing desk for pain relief will continue to be a necessity based on my experience with recliners (the only recliner I can actually sit in cost me quite a pretty penny), so a station with only two positions is no better than my standing desk now.
I can't wait until workstations like this one are affordable.
I won't pretend that EVERYONE "works" this way, but picking a resting position (lying down) to work sounds like a long term problem.