Health is something common in between all of us irrespective of our work life. An employee working at a construction site haves more physical work to do whereas an IT professional seems sitting in front of the computers and laptops in AC room doing his work calmly. This is how it looks from outside but the reality is something different.
Software developers who code for long hours like 8–9 or some days beyond 11 hours they might not doing physical work but whatever mental draining they are having from these 8–9 working hours is painful as any of physical work.
Being a software developer It is necessary to code for as much as possible hours but also we need to take care of our health too. You might say “Well everyone takes care of their health, what’s different with a developer’s health ?” Answer is yes! you have to take care more .. LOL but in different ways.
I have observed many of my code’s bug or any error is getting solved in my night sleep dream. So this process of thinking too much needed to be monitored or analyzed.
Three things we need to care about while working: Mind (Brain), Eyes & Back
1 The mind :
Coding requires constantly learning. So you learn , repeat ,fail and tries again and again to get your code bug free. After long working hours you might start forgetting a few things in real life or might start getting angry on your family members or friends. Being focused on career is good but pushing your loved once away because of lack of anger management is not a good thing.
what can save you ?
- 10 minutes break after every hour working
- Drinking water multiple times while working
- stretch body
- replace coffee with a healthy fresh drink like green or lemon tea.
- Talk (have conversation with someone cheerful)
- Limit mobile phone use
- A healthy diet can help you to stay fresh and active for long hours
- Meditation ,Yoga or Workout for at least an hour a day
- Avoid peer pressure caused by seeing other coders working for more hours. Every one is different so everyone needs their own time to make the work done. Don’t compare working hours with other developers.
2 The Eyes:
Keeping screens at appropriate distance is the need. As it can affect straining your eyes and loosing eyesight slowly day by day.
Make these good habits
- Wash eyes in that 10 min break. It keeps your face and eyes fresh and clean
- Using a good quality eye drop
- If possible keep a bowl of carrots near your work desk and eat them while coding. Make it a habit
- Doing eyes exercise every day at least 5–10 minutes
- Don’t take your eyes for granted.
3 Back & Shoulders :
Your sitting position can say a lot about your health. The more time you spent sitting in wrong position, more it harms you.
Inappropriate sitting takes more oxygen out of your body, it leads to fatigue, back pain and shoulder pain too.
what to do then ?
- Sit properly !
- Use a right height table to keep your laptop and don’t use laptops in your arms, floor, space ,mars etc. ….. lol
- Use a comfortable chair to sit on. Invest in this table-chair setup instead of spending the same money to hospital.
At the last I want to conclude is, this todays life is of too much pressure and work. But we can make it worth by making our lifestyle strong and capable of handling this work pressure. Our brain, eyes and back are one of crucial body parts and they are affected by our daily work. So take care of them as they are taking care for you now and making you earn !
Stay healthy , Stay Happy
