What is Reddit's opinion of
Workrave?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
66 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
Sitting 9-5 is bad for your body particularly your back and general flexibility.
Focusing at a fixed distance for too long is bad for your eyes.
So I use workrave to remind me to get up and go for a 3-5 minute walk every half hour.
If you work a job where you are tied to your desk at least follow the 20-20-20 Rule and look out of the window every so often.
Walks are very important. I have a utility on my work PC that detects if my input has been active for 27 minutes straight, and if so locks input for 3 minutes. This way I'm reminded to get off my butt every half hour. Workrave is designed to help with RSI but is configurable.
I use an application called workrave (http://www.workrave.org) It runs on your machine and interrupts you to link away for x amount of seconds (user defined). It also stops you at a set time (I set mine to 45 minutes to take a 5 minute break, and will force you to do simple eye or muscle exercises.
this. i remember reading this from a different study a while ago and this is the most frightening part of the study. I train 10-15 hours a week but sit the rest of the time. i have a feeling i need to do a standing desk but dayum, i get tired from training and just want to sit. :)
i do use a program called workrave to get me up once an hour tho...
somewhere in the thread someone linked a blog with incredible standing desk ideas. I'm going to try it again. thanks all!
http://iamnotaprogrammer.com/Ikea-Standing-desk-for-22-dollars.html
You are supposed to get up for 5 minutes at the very least every two hours. If you don't you lose bone mass and decrease the ability to produce blood and thus your brain gets less oxygen and your intelligence suffers and eventually your moods will to.
Install Workrave to help motivate you to get some stretches into your day. You can customize the timers. I was suffering horrible repetitive stress injuries before using this. Turned it off after about year, went back to my old bad habits quickly and the pain returned.
The microbreaks in workrave can be a little distracting, adjust the time to maximize your 'in the zone' working,
The microbreaks are a good chance to stretch your neck muscles, look high and left, then high and right, stretch the neck. When you are using your computer you are relying on the back of the neck muscles and the front of the neck muscles become weaker and weaker, eventually the whole bowling ball weight of your skull is being held by the back of the neck and you develop stiffness and pain and will end up hunched over. Stretching the front neck muscles strengthens them to support heavy load.
Workrave reminds you to get up and move. However, it can be intrusive and irritating but it's worth a try especially if you tweak the default settings.
Sketch out your time in the morning and accept that a lot of it won't be working. Plan 10-20 mins blocks of actual work that you can tick off. That way you won't feel bad about procrastination.
Get the most comfortable chair you can. It should have casters, adjustable height and back incline etc. Don't be afraid to get occupational health involved.
Even if you don't get a good start in the morning, you can still start the day anew. "Reset" the day by making your bed, get dressed, drink a glass of water, take some vitamins, go outside (if the weather allows it) to feel the sun on your face, come back in and open whatever you're working on. Even if it's 5 pm it's not too late to reset the day and get something done.
As for computer distractions, I like to use Workrave http://www.workrave.org/ It's intended for people with repetitive stress injuries. At set intervals, it will remind you to pause what you're doing and rest your hands for 5-10 seconds, or take a longer break from the computer if enough time has passed (which you should be doing anyway). The short rest periods will shake you out of your trance if you're distracted, and the longer rests get you out of your chair and you can reset the day if need be.
I tried nearly everything. I used workrave: http://www.workrave.org/ to force 30 second breaks every 5 minutes and 10 minutes breaks every hour.
I took two naproxen (aleve) daily. I took ibuprofen daily.
I bought a logitech wave keyboard. I bought about six different mice, before I ended up with the evoluent vertical mouse, which has awful drivers. I bought a new chair and desk.
I wear those big stupid wrist braces. I went to physical therapy, who told me to lift weights - doing wrist curls with a 5lb weight. I went further, did pushups, used free weights and barbells.
The third doctor I went to in three years, a sports medicine specialist, figured it out. Know what was wrong? There was a cyst growing on the tendon underneath my wrist.
tl;dr It could be anything. Try to reduce your use time, take frequent short breaks or try different hardware.
The data was collected using a program called Workrave, the intent of the program is to get you to get off your computer after using it for a certain amount of time. I had it on snooze for a couple of months and then realized I could see the data it collects (not sure if they use it, I'd like to think they don't).
I made the graph by copying the data into google sheets and then mapping it, I also found major things that would influence my clicks per day and annotated those.
If there is interest I could publish the google sheet, I don't thing it'll be all that interesting though.
I use Workrave to prompt me to take microbreaks.
It monitors keyboard/mouse usage, so if you get up and walk away from your desk, it will know you took a break and won't prompt you again right after. Also, while it trys to make you take a break, you can work through the prompt and it won't stop usage as long as you keep using the keyboard/mouse. Great if you are in the middle of writing a paragraph and don't want to stop...it will remind you again a short while later.
I thought the default settings were too intrusive, and I will confess to ignoring its prompts more than I should, but I am pretty ok with it telling me to take a 30 second micro break every 10 minutes (keeping in mind that the timer resets any time I stop using the computer for 30 seconds) and a longer break every 50 minutes.
Since it only counts time you are actively using the computer, the longer breaks are actually >1 hour apart. And they even suggest some exercises/stretches to do during the break.
Your only best position is your next position.
The only way to combat office chair use is to move and move often. Every 5-7 minutes you should change your position. That is better than sitting upright in proper posture for an hour.
I use this free program, Workrave (Windows & Linux) to remind me to change positions every few minutes and to get up and take a walk every 1.5 hours.
I"m really surprised no one has suggested this: http://www.workrave.org/
It's a FREE program that forces you to get up and walk around, do short exercises at intervals designed to prevent injuries.
Generally, I listen to music while I clean. And dance to it for good measure.
Also, I use workrave, which locks my computer every half hour for 1 min to give me time to refocus if I got distracted. Perfect time to put one thing away as well.
You can set up everything: how long breaks should be, how often, how many times user should be allowed to deffer them, whether to count just time or real usage (mouse/keyboard activity; the idea is that if you don't interact with computer, it assumes that you have taken unscheduled break) and total time allowed to spend with computer a day.
Workrave is using GTK+3, but most of the time it just sits in system tray.
Some things I've learned from a few episodes of this:
(1) If you push through the pain, it will get worse.
(2) Even just one extended session of pushing through the pain can f**** you for months.
(3) Frequent (every 3 minutes) short (30 seconds) breaks can be very effective. Consider using something like workrave: http://www.workrave.org/
(4) Using a differently shaped input device is less helpful, but still helpful.
The best advice I can give is to cut your word count goal until you aren't experiencing pain. Be a baby about pain. Even very, very mild pain is a warning that you're injuring yourself.
maybe a new mouse?
trackball:
https://www.kensington.com/nl/be/4493/k72327eu/slimblade-trackball vertical mouse: https://www.amazon.com/Evoluent-VerticalMouse-Regular-Right-model/dp/B00427TAIK
and this is nice software i found that reminds you take breaks:
> could it be that you use Ubuntu with a custom icon package
I believe it's because I installed Xubuntu as my distro and then installed ubuntu-desktop package, so my desktop changed to default Ubuntu appearance, but some elements (e.g. icons) remained as they were in Xubuntu. It was not intentional, however.
> Also, what is that sheep icon, a snapshot program?
It's workrave.
It's a program that pops up a timer every so often to enforce typing breaks. Typing breaks help prevent RSI injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome. It has micro-breaks which pop up after 5 minutes of typing and long breaks after every hour of typing. If no keyboard or mouse movements are detected, the timer stops. The break times and wait times are customizable in the script. The popup dialog has a progress bar that shows how long until the break is finished.
Here are some similar tools:
workrave - Linux, Windows
RSIBreak - Linux
AntiRSI - MacOS
Some months ago I started using a exercise/balance ball instead of a chair and I feel it helped a lot. At least with posture, as you kinda have to keep a upright posture to stay on top.
Also installed this program, Workrave, to make sure I took pauses once in a while.
Well, i noticed it when i fell off my bike and had to go in for a checkup. I don't suppose that's a frequent occurrence :)
Since programming, at it's core, is a rather sedantary exercise, it frequently affects the spinal cord ( often resulting in a bad posture ). Another fall-out of programming is RSI ( though a love for video games probably played a bigger part in my case )
Nowadays i use software like workrave which forces me to take frequent breaks from my laptop. I also make it a point to force colleagues who work long hours to knock it off and go home. ( It helps that i am their boss :)
I have also realized that often, long hours is due to insufficient planning and scheduling and i make it a point to make my project managers aware that i will hold them to task if any programmer has to frequently work late.
To all fellow desk job workers...please take care of yourselves. Every few minutes or so, take your hands off the keyboard and stretch them out. Get up from your desk once every hour to stretch and walk around, or get a drink. Use dark mode whenever possible to reduce eye strain. Make sure you are sitting properly to mitigate long term effects on posture/lower back. An ergonomic mouse and keyboard can do wonders for your wrists. This might not be for everyone, but look into a standing desk. I used to have one at my old job and not only did I feel less strain on my back, but I also felt more alert and productive throughout the day.
Check out http://www.workrave.org/ if you need that extra reinforcement. The 3-minute micro break intervals can get annoying, but overall a great idea. My dad had back surgery after working at a desk for 30+ years and is now losing feeling in his feet as a result. Please be wary of this.
I manage mine through strict adherence to microbreaks and stretching/relaxing exercises.
I use WorkRave to manage my microbreaks, but there are plenty of other options...
Also I have found that doing strenuous arm and shoulder and back exercises at the gym also helps. The microbreaks and stretching seems to help counter the muscle-micro-movements that cause carpal tunnel. But doing REAL (but safe) exercises that breaks muscle fibers and forces new ones to be formed seems to help the most. BUT please talk to your gym instructor, otherwise you risk doing yourself permanent injury resulting in disability!!! Take professional advice. Be careful and sensible about how you exercise.
You already got your answer; rest now to play later.
He said it because he saw it is already injur*ed* (past tense) so that your body "need" time to heal itself before playing. Take it like this, assume you have a twisted ankle yet you insist to continue playing soccer even if you've been warned that it will damage you further.
Most players and medical staff don't understand the basics of RSI as it is a damage done by repetitiveness; meaning what should change is your habits that caused it in the past, causes it now again. So any medication, exercise whatever magic trick they offer you will only help on recovered body to lessen symptoms but not completely heal them unless you keep those bad habits with you (like your posture, your consecutive gaming session hours etc.).
Been there, done that and only things that help are apps like Workrave, splitting work between both hands, making regular exercises with proper diet and sleep. Any and every time I skip any of those, my hand reminds me how it was before then. So be wiser and listen to your physician and when recovered be sure to split your time between gaming > rest > gaming > exercise kind of time frames.
I post this every time a post like this pops up.
Take. Regular. Breaks. If you have a hard time doing so, download this and it will nag you to death until you do.
Carpal tunnel is no joke. I have to carefully approach everything I do and be conscious of HOW I'm doing it to make sure I don't injure myself further. Symptoms can be managed, but there are things I simply cannot do anymore. All it takes to avoid it is literally just letting go of mouse and keyboard for a few seconds every few minutes, and taking a break of a few minutes every hour or so.
I have very very flat feet too. I'm also the guy who gets into the groove and codes 5 to 6 hrs strait if it's a cool problem. There are lots of Timer Programs http://www.workrave.org that say. Hey dude, stop and move around. You just have to get into the habit of taking a break, get up get coffee or water. I have also found 5 to 15 min breaks through the day make me more creative and a better coder. Moving around gets O2 to the brain. So get up walk around do something to break the brain patterns. I'm lucky. I work from home. At 11:30 mail comes the dog and I go out get some fresh air and check the mail. At 3:00 I go out and give the horses cookies. It's just a break to reconnect to the real world. Also take your shoes off.... Wandering around the office in just socks is amazing. Unless you office sucks and has dirty floors. Then you just need a new job.
You tell your boss about your chronic pain and your medication and that you need a couple of days. Book a hotel room with a pool. Swim, take the gravity off. Rest. Try not to take your meds so much.
Make an appointment with a psychologist so you can vent and learn some coping techniques.
Why the chronic pain by the way? Maybe your posture is bad at work? Maybe you aren't taking breaks? Try workrave
A mi me sirvió tener una app timer que me recuerde corregir la postura o moverme un poco.
Para los ojos lo mínimo es la regla 20-20-20 para relajarlos.
Windows/Linux: Workrave
Chrome: PostureMind
This free timer includes exercises to prevent eye-strain and computer bod: http://www.workrave.org/ You can customize everything, length of work time, breaks, work day limit and number of exercises per break. Works well with the Pomodoro method.
I hike almost every day. I'm getting back to fitting in short bursts of vigorous activity during the day - fast walk uphill, chores at a brisk pace, anything to get moving between bouts of writing. Clears my mind as well as keeps me feeling better physically.
I use these glasses which block blue light from the monitor and also have slight magnification. My eyes used to hurt after work every day, now that is all gone http://i.imgur.com/yV3eeDc.jpg Flux didn't really help at all.
I also have a program on my pc...which i dont really stick to to rest my eyes by popping up and giving me a countdown to not use the pc for 60 seconds or for 5 minutes etc http://www.workrave.org/
I'd also recommend Workrave.
Set it to mini breaks every 10 minutes for 1 minute (you get up and walk away from the computer), and for 10-15 minutes every 50-60 minutes, where you completely walk away and do something else. I turn off the daily limit feature because fuck that.
Obviously this won't help you playing Warframe, but if you type a lot at work like I do, it might help :)
Standing up for 10 minutes an hour, every hour through the work day, helped facilitate my weight loss. I used WorkRave to help remind me.
I lost 86 pounds since implementing this, with no change to my diet. I would love this on my watch since I'm not always at work!
For sure, the right chair is significant. Also get and install Workrave set it to take a 5 to 10 minute break every 45 minutes or so. If you find yourself procastinating, on reddit etc, set it for 25 minutes and try to focus that long.
Try Workrave - little program that sits about and warns you to take regular breaks. For longer breaks, it gives you exercises to build muscle support and things You can adjust break frequency / duration, etc, so it's probably pretty suitable for you as a long term solution.
Short term, get some braces for support, experiment with changing keyboard angle, desk height, etc.
(Edit for formatting)
- Do not underestimate the importance of taking breaks! I use WorkRave to remind myself to take breaks (10 mins every 50 mins).
- I have a big todo list but everyday I write a list of 2-3 tasks to do that day in my paper journal.
- RescueTime is very useful for working out where your time went.
- I also use a paper journal to track what I do each day e.g. tasks (planned and unplanned), meetings, etc..
hey dude, i've been programming for a while but i'm also recently suffering from rsi, wanting to become a software engineer, and am experimenting with voice coding. my advice is to just go for it. Dragonfly is hard to set up and takes a lot of time to configure, so just install Caster and start learning to program. Caster will give you a good foundation, and from there you can start adding your own commands to the ones it provides
voice coding is frustrating as hell for me right now, but i'm thinking of it as learning a new (spoken) language. with time, i believe this will come naturally to me. i may never be a fast programmer, but i can become a damn good developer
/u/tending from r/rsi voice codes full-time as a result of his rsi, so it's definitely possible
also, use a program like Workrave to limit voice strain and use of your hands
Use Workrave (http://www.workrave.org/).
FOSS software that pretty much makes it impossible to not take a break. You can configure whatever set of time period/break length/repeat quantity you like.
I've tried a few general purpose desktop Pomodoro packages and this was the best one I found.
I believe org-mode under Emacs already has a pomodoro feature, so this is an option too though it won't stop you doing stuff outside Emacs during break time.
http://www.workrave.org/ is what I use. Tell it how often you want to take a break and for how long. I've been using it for almost a decade now I think, and it's really improved my quality of life as far as PC use goes.
I did. Do get twinges every now and then though. I know what causes it and tend to avoid triggers, etc and make sure my desk and chair are set properly.
Workrave prompts people to take screw breaks. Never used it myself though.
Resting up helped me a lot. Hope you get better soon.
Jokes aside, there are legit reasons to do something like this. Mine was carpal tunnel/RSI issues. As part of my occupational therapy I installed http://www.workrave.org/ and configured it to remind and enforce work pauses. IIRC it was something like 1-2 minutes pause every 15 minutes or so, which prompted me to do some massage or just rest my hands, and then 5 minutes break every hour.
Yes in a critical situation I could override it, but that was rarely needed. I appreciated the reminders. The reason I developed the problems in the first place was long uninterrupted keyboard typing.
I personally use Workrave for that. It detects mouse/keyboard-activity (just watching a movie doesn't count, for example), it's customizable (micro-break every n minutes, long break every m hours, daily limit, etc) and it shows some light stretches / activities during long breaks.
I don't think it's been updated in a while, but it works fine.
Try Workrave, if you follow it's instruction you can alleviate some of your repetive stress.
Take some time off too.
Repetitive stress injury is systemic inflammation and will cause mental problems. Ice pack for 20 minutes will bring down the swelling.
For those of you who, like me, have difficulty remembering (or being bothered) to take breaks: http://www.workrave.org/
This little gem tracks time spent waving the mouse around and will forcibly lock your inputs and coerce you into taking small regular microbreaks and getting up and taking longer breaks (if only out of boredom, because your controls are locked). It's meant to help relieve pain from repetitive stress injuries, but I'd recommend everyone use it preventatively. You'll want to tweak the settings, the defaults are pretty obnoxious unless you have near-crippling RSI. It also has the option of guiding you through some simple stretches and light exercises during your longer rest breaks. For most of you, you'll probably want to turn microbreaks and the daily limit off and just use the rest break timer.
If you actually DO have computer-related RSI (tendonitis, carpal tunnel, etc) seriously give this a go. Once tuned correctly the microbreaks can turn the source of your injuries into therapy for them. Provided, of course, you've already corrected the ergonomics of your workstation.
When I first started using it, working at the computer was making me want to die from the forearm pain. I started with 30 sec microbreaks every five minutes and a five minute break every hour. In two weeks most of my symptoms had not only become bearable, but easily tolerable. Better than I'd been in years. As time went on and I continued to improve, I tweaked the settings. I'm now down to 10 sec microbreaks every 12 minutes, and I almost never actually trigger the microbreak lockout.
I had(self-diagnosed so grain of salt) what seemed to be ulnar nerve entrapment. Pinky and ring finger on my right hand were missing keystrokes, lots of pain etc. Dr. Mylonas mentions 'flossing', this helped un-trap the nerve for me. There are other stretches that will floss the ulnar nerve.
It's a terrible term I wish I'd never learned though, nerve flossing, because of the visuals.
I used a slightly modified version of WorkRave to remind me hourly to do the stretches while showing pictures of what stretches I should be doing. Good way to force you into doing it.
Usa software que te OBLIGUE a ejercitar tus ojos.
Recomendaciones:
Otros: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/ditch-computer-eye-strain-with-these-8-free-apps.html
You don't harm your eyesight by looking at a computer screen. I have better than 20/20 vision and I'm 32 and been staring at computer screens at minimum 8 hours a day since I was 4 years old. That's not how any of this works. Go see an eye doctor, it's likely genetic.
The symptoms of eyestrain is usually headaches, eyeaches, twitching, dryness, etc... Not loss of vision. If you want to reduce eyestrain, use f.lux, use workrave to remind you to step away, and on your free time don't use a computer much at all (at home, etc...).
How does this compare to Workrave?
> Workrave is a program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit. The program runs on GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows.
I have also suffered from RSI, and still do sometimes, and i wanted to share my tips with you. Try to take frequent breaks get up from your desk every 25 minutes. Do some stretches also every 25 minutes.
To remind myself i use this peace of opensource software: http://www.workrave.org/
It doesn't matter what you do, going to the bathroom, get some water, have a little chat. I can't stress enough how important it is!
In your free time you can go to the pool and swim lanes, it will strenghten your core and allow to sit for longer periods of time, 50 min should be the absolute max you can sit.
I believe there are some special excersies part of aqua aerobics that help your muscle relax even more than you can without water.
As last tip i can give you to train your hands and wrists. There is special equipment that you can squeeze to train your hand-strength. Don't go to heavy on your wirsts, it's a very weak muscle.
Hope you get better soon!
I'm suprised it hasn't been mentioned yet
Workrave is AMAZING and will help you stick to it (put it in the mode where it fully blocks out your screen and no skipping)
Then yoga really helps, when you wake up, before bed, after work especially. Even a 10-15 minute class like this one https://www.doyogawithme.com/content/after-work-revitalizer
Good luck and stay healthy!
I have a chronic repetitive strain injury (tendinosis).
Just don't go too beyond your average activity.
Get Workrave (http://www.workrave.org/), and check your statistics and clicks for the day.
If you want more wrist usage, slowly build up to it, and use the software to monitor.
Dota 1 and TF2 is what gave me tendinosis.
Just sayin.
I would find another game, or quit games before it affects your work.
Pushups are better than pull-ups because you don't really grip.
That's why I can do handstands without a problem.
Just don't go beyond your average activity.
Get Workrave (http://www.workrave.org/), and check your statistics and clicks for the day.
Check out http://www.workrave.org/
It has a silent mode, and you can leave the countdown in your windows taskbar, so it doesn't bother your gaming session. Just take a quick peek and you'll know if it's time to take a break. You can aso setup audio cues for your break and customize break times and duration.
>Walk around, don't sit for extended periods of time.
Can't stress enough how important this is. Many streamers take regular breaks to stretch and walk around the house a bit, as their job requires them to sit for up to 8 hours or more per day. If you are an avid gamer and are able to immerse yourself into the game, it's very easy to lose track of time.
Fortunately, there are many applications that can help you in this case. One that is well known is <strong>Workrave</strong>. It allows you to set up different timers (Micro pause, Rest break and a daily limit) and during the breaks it can display a progress bar as well as useful exercises.
The only downside of Workrave is, that it was developed with only office work in mind. Which means its pop-up alerts will cause your game to lose focus, which in turn might kill your character. So, if you don't have a second monitor available I personally recommend <strong>Scirocco Take a Break</strong>. It doesn't feature Tips or a fancy progress bar, but it is very non-invasive and you can set it to only give you discreet audio notifications when a break is due.
Hope this was helpful to someone.
You're probably developing RSI. You should probably get an ergonomic mouse (I've heard good things about vertical mice). However, even simpler, download the program Workrave. It forces you to take periodic breaks and encourages you to do streches/exercises to prevent computer-related wrist/neck/back pain and eye-strain. In my experience, taking even short-ish periodic breaks is the best way to avoid wrist or finger pain.
i use a program called workrave that prompts me to get up after a set amount of time using the keyboard/mouse. they even have exercises that are shown during the break but i usually go do dishes or laundry or take the dog out. http://www.workrave.org/
Actually, that is 'Miss Workrave' and is the character that demonstrates the exercises in workrave when you do have a work break (as opposed to a micro pause).
http://www.workrave.org/blog/2003/07/07/miss-workrave-first-snapshot/
Here's a compilation link from workrave showing some of the exercise demonstrations: http://www.workrave.org/media/base/img/screenshots/exercises.gif
At my company we had workpace, but switched over to workrave due to cost. With workpace the exercises were video captures of actual people doing the exercises.
>because I've got RSI
Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI)?
Why all these must have defaults? I never can understand that. OK you got your default repositories. You can add more you know.
Most if not all final Linux distros releases are stable. If it's on correct hardware and you set it up properly.
I believe you thought this out. manjoro+awesome isn't a bad choice.
If you don't already, consider using workrave: http://www.workrave.org/
I absolutely cannot recommend that tool enough. It's the reason I'm even able to work right now, much less do wrimo.
I'm using dragon dictate, and honestly, while I've gotten good mileage out of it, it is both glitchy and pricey, and you need to lay aside even more money for a good microphone.
Having been through two episodes of RSI, I would strongly recommend that you fall short of your word count rather than injure yourself further. Go ahead and choose a deadline that won't compromise your health.
There are a lot of threads about this topic on reddit alone.
Best thing you can do is gather up a list of the most popular ergonomic desk chairs and find a few places that will sell them. Try them. Everyone is different so two people won't necessarily find the same chair 'the best.'
A lot of people have commented saying that getting up periodically is more important. This is very true. Even if your chair cost $10k and it's stuffed with pegasus feathers you shouldn't be sitting in it for 8 hours straight. You should be walking around often.
Take a look at workrave.
Firstly, check the ergonomics of your setup. This is an illustration.
Once you're set up well, make sure you take regular breaks and stretch during your work hours. Install a break software like Workrave that forces you to take a break now and then. What I like about this particular software is that it suggests what stretches you should do as well. It's an invaluable tool to prevent problems like CTS down the road. It's default break times are too frequent but you can mess around with them to your satisfaction.
Lastly, after a day's work try to get at least 20 mins of cardio a day. This will help you stay fit and healthy in general. Good luck!
You need to do stretching exercises every 45 minutes for about five minutes.
install workrave to help you keep good habits.
To ease the pain get a 'hot sock' at the pharmacy, its like a sock filled with beans you heat in the microwave and throw over your shoulder, or lay on it. Gets the blood moving, makes the pain go away.
Lack of motion will lead to chronic pain.
Move.
Workrave will do the timing for your and suggest some minor exercises. I suggest using it for the timer purposes and figuring out your own exercise list. Maybe write them down on some index cards and shuffle the deck every few days.
I think I may be able to help here.
First point, do you sit a lot? I work in IT so I spend a lot of time at my desk so I use a free application called 'workrave'. This app pops up reminders every 5 minutes to take a micro break and 30 minutes to getup and walk.
Sitting is killer on your back and causes a lot of lower back issues:
What I do is during the five minute breaks I circle my shoulders and then clasp my hands behind my back and then to the front you give yourself a tight hug (as if hugging someone who is not there if that makes sense).
On the 30 minute mark - I get up and walk about for 5 minutes.
In the morning:
I do exactly the same as amanojaku (super man stretches) but I add this into the sun salutation
Good luck to you, but keep in mind its about consistency...you need to keep up the work you do to get the results.
I ordered one of these: http://www.geekdesk.com/ using ergonomics and health/safety as the rationalization to convince work to purchase.
If you can't manage that and wind up going with something like a ball to sit on (or not) you might also check out http://www.workrave.org/ which is a free work break timer to remind you to get up off your ass and give your body a break.
Install this program on your machine: http://www.workrave.org/ Carpal tunnel is often caused by getting locked in and not taking breaks.
Evaluate your chair/mouse set up. There are plenty of great resources online to teach you proper posture. General guidelines: don't use a mouse or keyboard wristguard, and make sure that your wrists never rest on anything when you're working. Let your ARM do the work, not your wrist.
See a doctor. He/she will get you into physical therapy where you can reverse the damage that has been done.