Is typing on a keyboard good for your health? – analysis with my personal experience

Typing on the keyboard is something that’s not very natural. However many jobs require you to use your keyboard a lot. Just sitting for a long period of time in the same place is unhealthy for us. What about typing itself?

Can typing on the keyboard cause any health problems? If so, how can you prevent them?

Those are the questions that I will answer in this article.

Is typing bad for your health?

We know that sitting all day long every day is bad for our health. That alone can cause a lot of trouble. Pack pain, bad posture, weakness – those are just a few health issues from sitting for too long.

What about the typing itself?

In order to type you need to twist your ankles in a somewhat unnatural way. This can cause pain when done for a long period of time. Especially when typing with bad hands position. This only amplifies the bad effects that it can have.

However, if you keep your position right as it needs to be you don’t have much to worry about. You can experience discomfort after typing for a few hours. No matter what you should always give yourself a break every hour. Those 10 minutes to stand up every hour go a long way.

If you don’t do that and spend 2, 3, or 4 hours nonstop typing then yes – you will experience discomfort and later pain. Especially when doing it for many weeks. It can turn into some serious injuries.

It can’t be said that all typing is neither bad nor good for your health. It all depends on how you type. If you type in a healthy, proper position and you maintain brakes often you usually won’t experience any health issues (if you do go see a doctor). However, typing in a bad position can put stress on your fingers and your whole body.

As I said, maintaining a proper position is very important in order to stay healthy and safe. It is so important that I made a detailed article about it. I took some medical recommendations into practice and tested them myself. You can read my article here – ARTICLE ABOUT PROPER BODY POSITION

Remember, if you feel pain when typing anywhere – that’s your body telling you there’s something wrong. You won’t find an answer for that on the internet. In fact, it will probably make things even worse. If you experience any persistent pain when typing go see a doctor. It will be much better and much safer for your own health.

Does typing damage your fingers?

Typing itself is just a movement of fingers. You place your fingers on the keyboard then you move them to press keys. There’s nothing harmful to your fingers there.

However, if you type using the hunt and peck method (you look down at your keyboard, find and press the key and then go back up) you might be hitting your fingers too hard onto the keyboard. It’s not very efficient to type that way.

If your goal is to type faster you might be pushing yourself to, well, go faster. With bad techniques like hunt and peck typing, it can cause you some trouble.

If you want to read more about the hunt and peck method and why it’s not the best you can check out my article. It will tell you all you need to know about it. You can read it here – ARTICLE ABOUT HUNT AND PECK

Let’s wrap everything up. Does typing damage your fingers?

Typing requires you to move your fingers when typing. At the end of the day, it’s just the movement of your fingers like any other. It won’t cause you any damage if you’re going slow. It might cause you trouble if you’re trying to reach high speeds with bad technique. If you want to go fast you need to learn the proper typing method.

A typing method that minimizes the movement of your fingers. That also reduces the risk of potential damage. And guess what? I have the right method for you.

I recommend you to check out the technique called touch typing. I’m using it for quite a long time and never had any trouble typing with it. It’s in fact very comfortable to do so (especially with the right keyboard layout).

I made my own article where I talk about touch typing. It will be a great introduction for you to this skill. You can read it here – ARTICLE WHAT IS TOUCH TYPING

Remember: If you experience any persistent pain during typing go see the doctor. It might be a signal that your body is giving you about some other illness. If you ignore it you might get into some bad trouble.

Is typing too much bad?

A lot of people need to spend quite a bit of time typing every day. As their job or maybe as their passion. Myself included. I type quite a lot every day. Do we need to be concerned about our health?

I can’t give you straight up „Yes” or „No”. It depends on a few factors. Especially on your typing technique.

See, how you type indicates how safe you are from any health issues. Let’s start with few straight-up factors that can tell you how safe you type.

First of all your body position. How you sit in front of your desk while typing has a huge impact on your health. It seems not that important at first. But when you spend more than an hour daily in front of your desk it the consequences start to accumulate.

It’s simple to change your posture to make it a proper and healthy one. I made a detailed article about how to position yourself and how to maintain this proper posture. You can read it here – ARTICLE ABOUT PROPER BODY POSTURE

Another important factor is whether or not you make any breaks. When typing for longer than one hour you need to take a break and stand up. Walk for a few minutes during this brake. This will get back your blood flow and make typing much safer.

Typing can cause health issues when typing for too long. You should definitely give yourself a break at least every hour for 10 minutes. Stand up and walk for a second. During the typing time itself make sure that you maintain proper body posture and hand position to reduce the risk of health hazards. Remember: if you experience any persistent pain go see a doctor.

There’s one more thing that takes care of your hands and fingers. The proper hand position on your keyboard. I made a whole article about it for you to read. You can check it out here – ARTICLE ABOUT PROPER HAND POSITION

Why is it painful to type?

This is a serious subject. There can be many, many health issues that have symptoms such as pain when typing on the keyboard.

Let me start by saying that you should never ignore such pain. It means that your body is telling you something’s wrong. It is a great signal to find the cause of this problem.

That’s what I want you to focus on. Don’t try to hide or cover the symptoms. Don’t take painkillers and continue typing when it hurts. It sounds like something great, you know, push through the pain. In this situation, it is just stupid.

There can be many reasons why it hurts when you are typing on the keyboard. What I want you to do is understand this – pain is just a signal that something’s wrong. Don’t ignore it. Don’t try to cover it. I’m not going to tell you the illness. Go see the doctor, that’s the best you can do.

Seriously, don’t rely on the internet when it comes to your health. You can’t diagnose yourself. It would only cause you more trouble.

There’s no easy solution to this problem. If that’s what you came for you’re in the wrong place. I’m not going to tell you that everything’s alright, or maybe that you just need to drink a glass of tea at 9.42 am and then do 10 jumping jacks every day. No, it won’t magically cure you.

Go see a real doctor. You’ll do yourself a favor.

How do you type healthily?

This, however, is a question that I will answer without a doubt. When it comes to health issues that you already have you need to talk with a real doctor. But when it comes to prevention and healthy typing – here I am!

I’ve been typing for quite a while now and I never had health issues because of typing. There was a time when I felt uncomfortable when typing. Then I changed my typing position a bit and everything’s great.

Now, there are a few important factors to healthy typing. You need to take care of all of them in order to type safely.

First one – body posture. That’s one of the most important aspects of healthy typing. At the same time, it’s mostly overlooked. You need to take good care of your body posture when you are typing. I made an article where I go more in detail about it. You can read it here – ARTICLE ABOUT BODY POSTURE

The second one – breaks. Whenever you work on your computer you need to give yourself a break from time to time. If you don’t you won’t just get „typing” health issues. You will get „using computer nonstop” health issues. Even if it’s important work you need to take a break every 1 hour.

Third one – technique. That part is all about how exactly you type. The placement of your keys, where you position your hands on the desk, how you hit the keys, othat layout are you using. It all matters and it all makes a huge difference.

To sum everything up for you: How do you type healthily?

Typing in a healthy way is accomplished by taking care of a few aspects. First of all, you need to have a proper body posture. Second, you need to take a break every 1 hour for at least 10 minutes. It’s best to stand up and walk for a few minutes during this brake. The third aspect is the right typing technique and hand position.

There is one technique that I personally love. It’s just great to use it. You not only get a great movement efficiency, which leads to better speed. It has many great benefits to it. You can read about this technique in my article here – ARTICLE WHAT IS TOUCH TYPING

Is typing good for your brain?

Typing on your keyboard has an effect on your brain. Many times after typing on the computer we feel tired. You might think that it’s just because of work. Because of doing other things. How typing itself can be tiring? It is so simple to do.

Yes, it is simple. But at the same time, you need to do this small task all over again. You need to look down at your keyboard, find the key, type it and then look back up. Over and over again. Believe me, it has an impact on your brain.

However, there’s another aspect of typing’s effect on your brain. It is much more interesting and worth noticing. The effect that learning advanced typing methods has on your brain.

I will take touch typing technique as an example. It is a skill that requires you to spend time on practice. You need to learn it.

Whenever you learn something it has a great impact on your mind. Look at the kids – they learn all the time. They can learn so quickly. So much quicker than most adults can. You might think that’s because they are kids. No, that’s because they are learning.

If you keep learning it makes your brain more open to learning other things. It improves your brain’s functions. There are many studies that have shown such an effect and there are many benefits to learning any skill.

There is way more to it that I could possibly fit in this article. And I’m not an expert when it comes to brain functions so I’ll leave it to those who know better than me.

What I can confidently tell you is the effect that learning touch typing will have on you and your brain.

Typing has a great effect on our brain. When it comes to typical methods of typing it can be really tiring. It doesn’t seem like it but it does require a lot of mental resources. However, when you learn advanced typing methods you not only benefit from learning itself. Such typing techniques will make typing much easier and faster.

It’s all thanks to the muscle memory that those typing methods build and effectively use. There are not many such working techniques. Some are only experimental and really advanced. But there’s one that works amazingly and everyone can learn it.

It is touch typing. This skill is truly amazing. It wouldn’t seem at first that it can make typing so comfortable. But with the right technique and the right keyboard layout, it is incredible. I can tell you from my own experience.

If you want to read a bit more about touch typing technique you can check out my article. From it you will get a general idea of what it’s all about. You can read it here – ARTICLE WHAT IS TOUCH TYPING

If you already know what touch typing is and want to learn it – guess what? I have an article about it too! It will tell you all the basics that you need to know before even starting to learn touch typing. Here it is – ARTICLE BASICS OF TOUCH TYPING

Can typing make you smarter?

First, let’s talk about what it even means to be smarter. Is it higher IQ? Better intelligence? Knowing more things? Well, typing won’t do much when it comes to the last one.

You won’t acquire much knowledge from typing on your keyboard. If that’s what you want to do you need to read some books. This will help you with your knowledge. Of course, if you choose your books correctly.

Can learning to type make your IQ higher? No, I don’t see that becoming the reality either. It just has barely anything to do with your intelligence. So what learning to type will actually do?

First of all, it will provide you with typing technique. You will learn a new typing method. You will learn a new skill. That thing alone you can call getting smarter. In fact, you simply learn a new useful skill.

Another aspect – can learning to type make your brain function better? To some extent – yes.

Learning any skill for the matter will improve your brain’s function. It will make learning other skills easier for you. It will improve the speed at which you acquire new skills.

Typing doesn’t give you more IQ. It doesn’t give you more knowledge or improve your intelligence directly. However, learning a new typing method will act just like learning any other skill. It will be beneficial for you and will improve your brain’s function. You will have an easier time learning your next new skill because your mind gets used to it.

I guess you could say that learning a new typing technique indeed makes you smarter. After all, you will be left with new amazing skill in your arsenal.

However, typing on your keyboard itself will not make you smarter. It is the improvement that will benefit you. If you improve your typing skills then you will get the benefits of learning a new skill.

Does typing improve reading?

Typing on the keyboard doesn’t seem that far from reading. Many times you need to read something in order to type on your keyboard. In fact, that’s what you spend most of your time practicing your typing skills – reading the text and typing it.

It is true that you need to read the text in order to type it when learning new typing method. Does it mean though that you improve your reading skills? Or do you simply use the already existing reading speed that you have?

Well, it all depends on your starting point. If your reading speed is already high you won’t benefit much in this regard. If your reading speed is low then you might actually improve it when learning to type faster.

In reality, although most of the people have a decent reading speed. Plus you won’t be hitting those higher typing speeds at the beginning. So does typing actually improve your reading skills?

Typing by itself doesn’t improve any reading skills. However, you might become better at reading when practicing a new typing method. It depends on your starting speed (of reading). For most people learning to type faster won’t improve reading too much. You can realistically type at the speed of up to 300 WPM but you can read at 500 WPM.

With the right intentional reading practice, you would crash the improvement that you would ever get by typing. Yes, you might benefit a bit when learning to type faster. Honestly – if you want to read faster spend time on intentional reading practice. You will get much more out of it.