Wrists at a Mac: keyboard, trackpad and mouse without the strain

The short version: keep your wrists roughly straight, in line with your forearms, rather than bent up, down or out to the side. Set the keyboard at or a little below elbow height. Let your hands float while you type and rest them only in the pauses. Keep the mouse or trackpad close, use a light touch, and take short breaks to move your hands. Keyboard shortcuts help too, because every one you use is a trip to the mouse you didn't make.

If your wrists already ache, or your fingers tingle or go numb, read the last section first. Those are reasons to see a doctor or a physiotherapist, not to keep adjusting the desk.

What a neutral wrist looks like

A neutral wrist is a straight line from your forearm, across the back of your wrist, to the knuckles. Your fingers curve gently over the keys. Three things break that line:

• Bending back. The hand tips up toward you, usually because the keyboard is too high, its back edge is propped up, or the wrists are planted on the desk while the fingers reach for the keys.
• Bending down. The hand drops below the wrist, which tends to happen when you hold your hands high over a keyboard that sits too low.
• Bending sideways. The hands angle out toward the little fingers. A standard keyboard brings your hands closer together than your shoulders, so many people type with their wrists turned slightly outward.

Holding the wrist bent for long stretches is thought to put more pressure on the tendons and the nerve that pass through it. The evidence on whether keyboard work by itself causes conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome is mixed. Still, a straighter wrist is widely recommended, and for most people it is simply more comfortable over a long day.

A quick check: next time you are typing, look at the side of your hand. If you can see a clear upward angle at the wrist, something in the setup is pushing it there.

Keyboard height and angle

Sit back in your chair with your shoulders relaxed and let your upper arms hang. Bend your elbows until your forearms are roughly level, or slope very slightly down. That is the height for the home row, or a fraction lower. If the desk is too high, raise the chair until it isn't and put something under your feet if they no longer reach the floor. Why your shoulders creep up at the desk covers the same fix from the shoulders' side.

Two details are easy to miss:

• Keyboard feet. Many keyboards have little feet that flip out at the back. They raise the far edge and tip your hands back, so many ergonomics guides suggest leaving them folded, especially if the keyboard already sits above elbow height.
• Hard edges. On a MacBook, the flat areas on either side of the trackpad are fine for resting the heels of your hands during a pause. Try not to press the inside of your wrists against the front edge of the case, or the edge of the desk, for long periods.

A MacBook's built-in keyboard is low and flat, which suits the wrists. The trouble is that it comes attached to a screen that is then too low for your neck. If you raise the laptop on a stand to fix the screen, use a separate keyboard and mouse at elbow height. Desk setup for a Mac goes through the rest of the desk, from the chair up.

Rest in the pauses, not while you type

Most ergonomic guidance says to let your hands hover while you type and rest them only when you stop. If you plant your wrists on the desk or a wrist rest while typing, your fingers reach the keys by bending the wrist upward, which is the angle you are trying to avoid. Keeping the hands up also lets you move the whole hand to reach far keys, instead of stretching a finger with the wrist cocked sideways.

That makes a wrist rest a palm rest. Use it for the heel of your hand, and use it in the gaps: while you read, think or wait for something to load.

Type with a light touch, too. Many people press keys much harder than the keys need, and a lighter touch is easier on the fingers and wrists over a long day.

Trackpad or mouse

Neither is clearly better for everyone. What matters most is how you use whichever one you have.

• Keep it close. Beside the keyboard and level with it, so your upper arm can hang instead of reaching.
• Move from the elbow and shoulder. Ergonomics guides usually suggest moving the mouse with the whole forearm rather than flicking it with small, quick wrist movements all day.
• Hold loosely. A mouse doesn't need gripping. Notice whether your hand is clenched around it while you read.
• Mix it up. Some people find it helps to switch between a trackpad and a mouse during the day, or to use the mouse with the other hand for part of it.

A few Mac settings reduce the effort:

1. Tap to click. In System Settings > Trackpad, under Point & Click, turn on Tap to click, so a light tap replaces a press.
2. Lighter clicks. On the same screen, if your trackpad shows a Click setting, Light needs the least force.
3. Faster tracking. Raise Tracking speed in System Settings > Trackpad or System Settings > Mouse, so smaller movements cover more of the screen. Go up a step at a time, and stop while the pointer still feels easy to control.
4. Three finger drag. Dragging with a trackpad usually means holding a click while you move. In System Settings > Accessibility > Pointer Control, click Trackpad Options and choose Three Finger Drag as the dragging style, if your version of macOS offers it. Then you drag with three fingers and no press at all.

Shortcuts that cut down mousing

You don't need many. These few cover most of a day:

Add Shift to the last two and they select text instead of just moving the cursor. Two more settings are worth knowing. In System Settings > Keyboard, turning on Keyboard navigation lets Tab move between buttons and other controls, not only text fields. And Dictation, set up on the same screen, lets you speak a paragraph instead of typing it.

One caution: some shortcuts need an awkward one-handed stretch. Split them across both hands, holding Command with one hand and pressing the letter with the other, rather than contorting a single hand.

Breaks and gentle stretches

A day of typing is a long run of small, repeated movements. Short breaks give your hands a rest that even a perfect setup can't.

• Every so often, drop your hands into your lap and let them go loose.
• Shake them out for a few seconds.
• Open your hands wide, then make a soft fist. Repeat a few times.
• Make slow wrist circles in both directions.
• For a forearm stretch, hold one arm out with the palm down and use the other hand to draw the fingers gently toward you. Hold for a few breaths, then do it with the palm facing up. Keep it mild.

Stop any stretch that hurts or makes your fingers tingle. For stretches that cover the neck, shoulders and back as well, see two-minute desk stretches.

If you use Notchpals, a Movement character can do the remembering. Its Stretch visits come now and then between 8 AM and 10 PM, and some of the lines are about hands, which suits the end of a long typing stretch:

HonkAll that typing. Stretch your fingers. I'll watch the keyboard. Totally safe.

That is your cue for the shake-out or the fist and spread above. Press Done once your hands have had their minute. Stretch is a repeating reminder, so it shares one daily allowance with the rest of the crew rather than arriving on a fixed schedule. If your hands want more breaks than that, hang the others on natural pauses, such as a file saving or a page loading. If Barnaby is your Posture pick, its Shoulders down visits look after the other end of your arms. Neither one can see how you type or whether you stretched. They trust your Done.

When to see a doctor or physiotherapist

Don't push through hand and wrist symptoms in the hope that a new keyboard will fix them. See a doctor or a physiotherapist if you have:

• Pain in your wrists, hands or forearms that lasts more than a few days or keeps coming back.
• Tingling, pins and needles or numbness in your fingers, especially if it wakes you at night.
• Weakness, clumsiness or dropping things.
• Swelling, or pain that is getting worse.

Problems like these are usually easier to sort out when they are looked at early. Get advice before you start wearing a brace or splint, too, so that you are treating the right problem.