Yes, I know all the advice is to keep work out of the bedroom.
But not everyone has that choice.
Self-employed people who have just had a baby and may still be recovering from the birth, and who don’t get paid maternity leave.
People who have a chronic illness and may be having a pain flare-up and need to rest in bed physically, whilst also working to a deadline.
Because whilst our bodies may be struggling, our minds might still be running fine and we still have things we need/want to get done!
And working in bed is sometimes the only way to be productive at all!
Whilst some believe working in bed can be good for productivity too, so it’s not ALL bad news!
So after years of dealing with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, fibromyalgia pain flare-ups and even recovering from a 2 litre blood loss after my last birth, and also being self-employed, I’ve done more than my fair share of working at home in bed on a laptop!
And these are the things I’ve found really helpful in minimising pain and enabling me to carry on working during these periods:
- It sounds rather facile but my first must-have is a bedside table, even a folding one, if you haven’t already got one. Brilliant for sticking my hot drink on to avoid spillages during the umpteen changes of position I make in bed to take pressure off the different areas of my body as the pain starts to build up in them! But keeps it close to hand so I don’t have to waste valuable spoons getting up each time to get my drink, or cause more pain and discomfort stretching to reach one that’s too far away.
- A large capacity drinking bottle. I can fill it up with water before I start working and then I know I’ve got a good supply of water close to hand so I probably won’t have to get up to refill it at all during my working day.
- A metal reusable straw. During pain flare-ups, even holding a full mug of drink can cause considerable discomfort. So a full, large capacity bottle of water can feel like lifting a boulder! If I keep the top open though and stick a long metal straw in it pointed towards me, all I have to do to have a drink of water is lean towards the straw and suck! Saves a lot of discomfort and ‘spoons‘ over the course of the day; especially important when I also have a VERY active 4 year old who STILL doesn’t sleep through the night 🙂
- Ehlers-Danlos can cause considerable neck pain and subsequent headaches and migraines. So keeping my head balanced in a good position is vital to prevent my working time resulting in “Bear with a sore head” syndrome too 😉 But the trouble with laptops is you’re often looking down at them, which can make the neck pain worse. So another tip I’ve adopted for working in bed is to use an old smart TV that we set up on the chest of drawers at the foot of the bed as a computer monitor, by connecting it to the laptop via HDMI cable. The large screen makes it very visible (although I still need my glasses, being short-sighted!), and it means I’m looking up and forwards, keeping my head and neck in a more favourable position than aimed down at my lap for hours on end!
- Curved neck pillow. Even with the TV-monitor trick (no. 4), my neck muscles can still get very strained and fatigued, so I may need to lean back against the headboard behind me to rest and take the weight off. But our headboard is metal, so NOT the most comfortable of surfaces to rest the back of my head against! Plus, leaning back too far causes similar problems to leaning forward! So a curved neck pillow is a must-have for me! It protects my head from the headboard, and I can shape it to exactly what thickness I need to position my head perfectly so I can let the pillow take its weight instead of my neck – bliss!
- Talking of pillows, I use additional pillows underneath both my elbows to support the weight of my arms so the muscles, elbow and shoulder joints aren’t strained from being held over the laptop keyboard for hours whilst typing. One thing I want to look into finding next are some padded wristbands that I can wear to support my wrists, as they too get painful resting on the laptop casing.
- Trackball mouse. This is one of my favourite tools! My shoulders, arms and wrists get very painful moving a traditional mouse around, so when I tried out a trackball mouse on a friend’s recommendation a few years ago, I was blown away with how much difference it made to my working day! Now I can prop my right arm up on a pillow as much as I do my left arm, and still operate a mouse, whilst keeping my arm almost completely still! My absolute favourite is the Logitech Trackman Marble*, and I’ve just had to buy my 3rd one in the last 7 or 8 years as, unfortunately, the left button fails after a few years with all the hammering it gets!
- A headset with microphone. Nope, not for gaming! But for dictating articles when all my previous measures to minimise upper body strain are still not enough! With the inbuilt Windows 10 speech recognition, when my arms/shoulders/wrists get really tired/pained and I just CBA to move them anymore, I can speak into my headset and see the words appear on the screen like magic! It’s not perfect, and a lot of the text formatting will still need to be done at a later date when I’m feeling up to moving my arms again. But it allows me to still get my ideas/articles out of my head and onto the laptop when I feel inspired to create something 🙂 And I didn’t even need to buy an additional separate headset, as the one that came with my mobile phone, with an inbuilt microphone for phone calls, works just fine!
- A basket beside the bed for any additional comfort measures I might find useful during the day. Temperature regulation can be a big issue with Ehlers-Danlos related dysautonomia, so I like to keep a fleece close at hand for when my temperature drops (yes, even though I’m in bed, I can suddenly feel FREEZING and need a boost of warmth!), and also a mini USB fan for when I start overheating! CBD oil for periodic doses, homeopathic remedies box, toilet roll for clearing out the nose (a deviated septum causes breathing issues so I need to keep my tubes cleared!), tiger balm (hot) for rubbing onto extra painful areas, Polar Gel (cold) for smoothing onto extra painful areas, and lipbalm for keeping my lips soft when I have to breathe through my mouth are a few of the others things in there, although these can change depending on season/current issues.
- And finally, I’ve just discovered the holy grail! I was doing some research for this article, on items that would make working in bed even more easy/comfortable, and just found something that will make an additional difference to my life! A bed-desk*! Oh my gosh, why have I not looked into one of these before?! It looks so useful! I love the fact that I’ll be able to move my legs around under it without the laptop jiggling around all over the place! AND a book stand, space for my trackball mouse, and even a little pocket for my phone (I usually leave it on the bed beside me and then it gets lost in among all the other paraphernalia I’m using, like lever arch files, pens!). I’m ordering one tonight and can’t wait to try it out! I’ll add my thoughts to this article once I’ve road-tested it for a bit.
- Bonus item! My furry, purry friend! Yes, really! My lovely, affectionate cat Precious is like therapy! Just having her snuggled up beside me, purring away, genuinely seems to help me feel a bit better! And that’s not just my imagination either; there’s actual science behind it!
Anyway, I hope this has been a useful run-down of things that might be helpful if you need to work in bed for any long-term period! Please feel free to comment with any additional measures/tips/hacks you have found helpful when working in bed! I’d love to hear them 🙂
* This is an affiliate link. If you purchase this item through this link, I may receive a commission from the seller, at no extra cost to you.
