If your monitor sits too high, you’re probably tilting your head back slightly all day, which strains your neck and shoulders over time. The fix depends on your setup, but the goal is the same: get the top edge of the screen at or just below your eye level, so the center of the display falls about 15 to 20 degrees below your horizontal line of sight. Here’s how to get there.
Where Your Monitor Should Actually Be
OSHA recommends placing your monitor so the top line of the screen is at or below eye level when you’re sitting upright. Your eyes should naturally rest on a point about 5 to 10 centimeters (2 to 4 inches) below the top edge of the screen. This means you look slightly downward at the center of the display rather than straight ahead or upward.
Research on self-selected monitor heights found that most people naturally prefer their screens lower than the traditional “top of screen at eye level” guideline. Lower positions tend to reduce both visual and musculoskeletal discomfort. When a monitor is too high, your body compensates through a combination of trunk lean, neck extension, and changes in gaze angle. Even modest differences in height can translate to 4 to 7 degrees of extra cervical flexion, which, over hours of daily work, contributes to neck and shoulder pain.
Check the Easiest Fixes First
Before buying anything, look at what’s already raising your monitor too high. Many monitors ship on stands with height adjustment built in. Check whether your current stand has a release button or lever (often at the back of the neck) that lets you slide the screen downward. Some stands require you to press and hold a button while pushing the display down. If you’ve never adjusted it, the monitor may be locked at its highest position out of the box.
If your monitor sits on a riser, a stack of books, or a shelf attachment, simply removing that platform may be enough. This sounds obvious, but it’s the most common reason a screen ends up too high: someone added a riser at some point and never reconsidered it. Place the monitor directly on the desk surface and check whether the top of the screen now lines up with your eyes.
When the Built-In Stand Is Still Too Tall
Some monitor stands, especially on larger screens, position the display higher than you need even at their lowest setting. In that case, you have a few practical options.
Remove the stand and use a monitor arm. A desk-clamp or grommet-mount monitor arm gives you full control over height, depth, and tilt. Most arms use the VESA mounting pattern (a square of four screw holes on the back of the monitor, spaced either 75mm or 100mm apart). Check the back of your monitor for these holes. If they’re hidden behind the stand, you’ll see them once you detach it. A basic single-monitor arm costs $25 to $80 and clamps to the edge of your desk. Arms let you position the screen lower than any fixed stand because they can bring the display nearly flush with the desk surface.
If your monitor has no VESA holes, universal adapter kits exist that clamp or bracket onto the monitor’s body, then provide a standard 75x75mm VESA plate for an arm to attach to. These work on most 17- to 27-inch screens. Search for “non-VESA monitor adapter” and match it to your screen size.
Swap the stand for a shorter one. Some manufacturers sell low-profile stands separately, and third-party stands designed for specific VESA sizes are widely available. A short fixed stand with a tilt joint can bring a screen several inches lower than the original stand while keeping your desk uncluttered.
Adjust Your Desk and Chair Instead
Monitor height is relative to your eye level, so raising yourself achieves the same effect as lowering the screen. If your chair goes higher, try raising the seat until the top of your monitor meets your eye line. The catch: your feet need to stay flat on the floor (or on a footrest), and your elbows should remain roughly level with the keyboard. If raising your chair lifts your feet off the ground, add a footrest to compensate.
A keyboard tray is another indirect solution. Mounting the keyboard and mouse under the desk surface lets you raise your chair height (bringing your eyes up relative to the monitor) while keeping your arms at the correct angle. The University of Minnesota’s ergonomics guidelines recommend positioning the keyboard and mouse at elbow height in a straight line with your wrists. A pull-out tray achieves this even when the desk itself is too high for comfortable typing, and the net effect is that your monitor sits lower relative to your eyes without you touching the screen at all.
Fine-Tuning Tilt and Distance
Once the height is roughly correct, tilt the screen back slightly (about 10 to 20 degrees) so it faces your eyes directly rather than angling away from you. This reduces the need to bend your neck forward to see the bottom of the display. If you tilt the screen too far back, overhead lights will cause glare, so find the angle where the screen surface is roughly perpendicular to your line of sight.
Distance matters too. Position the monitor about an arm’s length away. If you find yourself leaning forward to read text at the new lower height, increase the font size or scaling in your display settings rather than moving the screen closer or raising it back up. The goal is a posture where your head, neck, and torso all face forward without strain, your gaze angles gently downward, and you can read comfortably without leaning.
Laptop-Specific Considerations
Laptops present the opposite problem from tall desktop monitors: the screen is usually too low, but if you’ve been using a laptop on a riser with an external keyboard and now the screen feels too high, the same principles apply. Remove or shorten the riser until the top of the laptop screen is at eye level. If you’re using the laptop’s built-in keyboard without a riser, the screen will almost always be below the ideal height. In that case, lowering it further isn’t the fix. An external monitor at the correct height, or a riser paired with an external keyboard, solves the conflict between arm and neck ergonomics that laptops inherently create.
Dual Monitor Setup
If you use two monitors, the height rule applies to whichever screen you look at most. Place your primary monitor directly in front of you with the top edge at eye level, and position the secondary screen beside it at the same height. If you use both equally, center the seam between them in front of your nose so you turn your head evenly in both directions. OSHA notes that monitors should not sit more than 35 degrees to the left or right of center. A dual monitor arm makes height matching much easier than trying to align two different factory stands.