Keyboard Trauma

Hello, my loyal readers. Today, I'll be caring about your health and your well being, to make up for my late self centered raving. Today I'm going to give a tip to all the keyboard potatoes (I just coined that combining the familiar object, keyboard, with the term, couch potato, to indicate someone who spends much of their time at their keyboard. Isn't it clever?). As you probably know (at least you should), one of the major health hazards of your typing intensive lifestyle is upper limbs distrophy, along with carpal tunnel syndrome and reduced sex life. I'm afraid I can do very little about the two latter, but for the former, I have a little piece of advice for you.
Mind you, I make no claims about how good it is.
First off, let's know a little something extra about the foe at hand. Upper limbs distrophya, in plain English, means the muscles on your arms become weak, so much so in fact that one may become unable to raise his arms above his head. It makes sense, because, unless you keep your keyboard above your head, which, I assume, isn't very comfortable, one usually rests his arms at about waist level as he types.

And now for the prevention. Yes, prevention, not cure. Sorry. Some, quite a few, in fact, will advise you to raise your arms above your head every now and then or wave them around periodically, but imagine how silly that looks. Furthermore, it draws attention from nearby co-workers, no to mention you have to remember to do it, and since it's not much fun, you'll most likely end up thinking of it as a chore. Nevertheless, I suppose you could stick to that. Meanwhile, I have my own ways.

First and foremost, you need silly putty. Clay or plasticine won't do, not as well, at least, but it's counterpart, Thinking Putty, will do superbly, and it might look more sensible. Now that you have your Weapon of Mass Distraction, shape it into a rod about as long as from the base of your piky to the tip of your thumb. Then held one end with your pinky and your ring fingers against your palm and the other with your index and thumb of the other hand. Now stretch it to about three times it's length, but don't tug too hard or it'll tear. SHould that happen, don't panic!!! Calm down, pinch the ends together, take a deep breath (or yawn, that might relax you further) and continue. Once it's three times as long as the initial rod, fold it in three, give it a little twist so the strands stick together and stetch again. After a few dozen stretches, switch hands. Because silly putty is only a litle tough, iy will give your upper arms a mild workout, and becuse it's silly, it's fun! (Thinking can be fun too, if you give it a try)

Why so much methodology? Everything has some reason behind it. The initial length of the putty rod isn't too important, it just feels more comfortable this way, to me, that is. Feel free to go another way. The reason you should hold it by the ends is to ensure no length of the rod goes unstretched, which could make the stretched part too thin, so thin it could break, and nobody wants that! Also I find that it stretches more evenly when you hold it by the ends. Finally, you should stretch to three times as long and fold in three is so that you don't get a thich end and a thin end, which usually happens if you fold it in two, since it tends to grow thin at the middle every time you stretch.

While this silly putty thing might not be much more sensible than holding up your arms like your computer has a gun at you or flapping your arms about as though swatting a swarm of flies, it's not quite as flashy.

So remember, if you stretch your putty while the kernell compiles and whatnot installs, your arms won't let you down too soon. And there may be hope for your sex life after all.

Pax vobiscum atque vale.

ArabianShark got two tins of this wonderful Thinking Putty. Unfortunately, whatever thoughts this very entertaining putty has, it keeps them for itself... but it sure is fun to stretch.