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Are your shoulders sore after a day at your computer? Do your hands or wrists ache when you spend too much time at your keyboard? Here are a few tips to help you stay healthier and pain-free while typing.

Confirm proper keyboard placement. Make sure your keyboard is sitting flat, or with a slight negative slope away from your body. The optimum placement is one to two inches above your lap, only slightly lower than your elbow height. Always center the space bar to your body. A keyboard tray allows for easy adjustments to height, angle, and position for every user.

Sit up straight! Remember your mom always telling you to sit up? She was right. Proper posture while typing is one of the most significant changes you can make to relieve pain and discomfort. Make sure your chair properly supports your back. If not, additional lumbar support is easy to add.

Keep your wrists straight. Your arms and hand should form a straight line from your elbow through your wrist and down to your middle finger. Never bend your wrists to the side, or up and down, in order to reach a higher key, or to use your mouse.

Float your hands. Your hands and wrists should always hover over the keys, with your hands relaxed. Never rest them on your desk or wrist rest while you are typing.

Rest on your palms. Between keystrokes you can support the weight of your hands on the ball of your hands. Never place weight directly on the wrists; any surface pressure on the wrists can injure the sensitive carpal tunnel area.

Press the keys gently. There is no need to pound on the keys. It requires only a small amount of pressure to actually press a key. This one tip can save you significant muscle wear in your hands and wrists throughout the day.

Never stretch for a key. When your hands loosely hover over the keyboard, it should feel natural to move your entire arm and hand to press the needed key. By stretching or straining to press higher keys, you add wear on your muscles and tendons.

Keep your fingers bent. With your hands hovering over the keyboard, it feels natural to loosely curve your hand, almost like you are holding a golf ball. Be careful to follow this rule specifically with your thumb and smallest finger.

Use both hands for two-key combos. If you need the Shift key (or Ctrl or Alt), always press it with the opposite hand than the one for the letter key. Using only one hand for two simultaneous keystrokes can stress the tendons in your wrist and hands.