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Working from home has become the new normal for many people over the past few months. Living rooms, bedrooms, and kitchens have turned into makeshift home offices with often limited attention to desk ergonomics.

As a result, many people are starting to feel its physical effects, ranging from digital eye strain to numbing, tingling wrist pain, called carpal tunnel syndrome.

Carpal tunnel syndrome refers to the signs and symptoms associated with the compression of a nerve that runs through the wrist, explains Cameron Yuen, a physical therapist at Bespoke Treatments Physical Therapy in New York City.

“Patients will commonly experience pain and sensation changes along the thumb, index, middle, and part of the ring finger, and occasionally weakness in the same distribution,” Yuen says. “The actual nerve that is compressed is the median nerve, and it gets compressed for multiple reasons, but wrist positioning can play a major role in symptoms.”

Once the nerve is sensitized or wound up, it takes less and less for it to become irritated.

Why does carpal tunnel happen? When you’re typing away at your computer all day, your wrists should be in an ideal, neutral position with the elbow at an angle of about 90 degrees. Your wrists should be straight, not bent, and not resting on your keyboard or another surface.

If your wrists are much higher or lower than your keyboard and mouse, then you’re constantly flexing and compressing your wrists, which closes down the carpal tunnel, reducing blood flow to the nerve, and increasing compression sensitivity. (Here’s how to alleviate wrist pain.)

“There are genetic, structural, and lifestyle factors that play a role in this compression, but overuse, especially with typing, is usually the main culprit,” explains Yuen. “Anything that causes a narrowing in the carpal tunnel will also contribute to symptoms, so, swelling, cysts, and osteoarthritis can also increase pain.”