I’m a caring person, so allow me to care for you: You should get yourself an elbow rest pad for your desk. Trust me on this.
It doesn’t really matter which one — you can get a variety of colors/options on Amazon, or Staples, or wherever you shop. This isn’t an ad, just my own genuine recommendation coming from the bottom of my cold, dark heart.
Do you find yourself at your computer, and while you’re not actively typing, you rest the elbow of your non-mouse-using arm onto your desk? Me too!
And do you find that sometimes, that elbow gets a little sore from sitting there on a hard desk surface for potentially hours a day? Me too!
(Body horror storytime: Several years ago, my elbow suddenly swelled up and got hot and painful over the course of a few hours; I got woozy and feverish, requiring a trip to urgent care for an antibiotic shot. An orthopedist told me the next day it appeared to be a case of bursitis, which can appear rapidly in the elbow if banged or just from resting it on your desk for hours a day.)
Do you ever find yourself wanting to put something soft — the end of your sweatshirt, a folded-up winter hat, the edge of your Neoprene laptop case — under where your elbow goes to give it some comfort? Buddy, you know what I’m about to say (me too).
What if I told you that there is an item you can use, a special one made exactly for this purpose, that will relieve that specific pain and, by extension, the suffering and misery of your tortured existence? And that this one magical object will break you free of the prison of your corporeal suffering and help you ascend to a plane of pure light and fully locked-in-ness of being able to use your computer without any distractions of physical sensations in your body — just pure oneness with your Excel spreadsheet or Chrome tabs.
I know what you’d say. You’d say, Katie, thank you. Thank you for changing my life. I owe you everything; you are the queen. Hey, pal, you said it, not me.
Katie Notopoulos/Business Insider
I bought myself an elbow rest pad on Temu last year. It was marketed to nail technicians. Which makes sense — like using a computer, doing a manicure includes a lot of time with your arm’s weight on your elbow while doing small tasks with your other wrist. (The exact product listing I bought no longer exists, but this one for $4.74 is nearly identical.)
Admittedly, I’ve had spotty luck with ordering ergonomic desk products from Temu. In that same order, I also got a mousepad with a gel wrist support, which started leaking goo all over me after a few weeks. I admit I have no one to blame but myself here. But the elbow rest doesn’t use gel; it seems to be just regular foam underneath plastic, and it has held up well.
More importantly, it’s a boring pale gray and blends in with the rest of my desk. It’s small and easy to move out of the way when I don’t want to use it. It does one thing, and it does it well. Cheap, unobtrusive, and effective: those are the best possible qualities of any sort of gizmo or doodad.
Like I said, you don’t have to get the Temu one. But wherever you get your desk supplies: Get one!
