Programming And Health: Two Dissonant Things…
We all know about the amazing lifestyle which programmers have, not working at a 9–5 job, not having to show up at a workplace, etc-. But something that we often miss out on is the health of a programmer. It’s really important for every one to stay healthy, and fit, but its not always the case for programmers.
Seeing so many popular YouTubers like Dev Ed and Travery Media already facing severe health issues, Its quite obvious now for us to know that its highly probable that any coder can experience health issues.
Health issues as a student: As a student, if you are that kind of a person who likes to take things slow and steady over a period of time, rather than going all in at once, you are probably not facing enough health issues but even you should keep in mind the key points which I’ll be sharing in the last part of this article. Although, if you are like me, like a person who likes to go ALL IN for 1–2 days in a week but you can manage around 15–20 hrs of non stop coding, then you can be facing health issues, or at least you should prepare for them. The number one thing that is common in the people who go all in, is malnutrition. You get so engrossed with code that you never find times in between these sessions to have a good meal, rather you end up having a monster or 2. Because of this high amount of caffeine consumption, regularly, and also because of the huge coding blocks which we assign, we see 2 things — Lack of sleep and malnutrition. These problems can later turn into some really bad ones and it might grow even more.
For Workers: People who are past the learning phase, who are out there either making projects or working, also have some really common health issues which we will be discussing right now. One of the things which is common among these people is neck and back pains. This is almost always due to bad posture and you should always try to follow the good posture for coding. One more thing which happens is frequent headaches and migraines. This is because of excess screen time and improper eye care, or just because of stress from the workload which they have.
Solutions:
- Malnutrition: the best way to fight malnutrition is by taking 5–10 minute breaks from your work flow and having something, but it might not be possible for you to disconnect and reconnect to your work flow easily. Because of this, I encourage you to find better alternatives to energy drinks, or if possible, go and have a full meal. Its really risky to stay in the state of malnutrition for a prolonged period of time.
- Lack of sleep: for this problem, I encourage you to reduce your screen time to an extent which is okay with you. I also suggest having more sleep in the days of the week you do not code to compensate for your lack of sleep in the huge coding tiers which you do.
- Back pain: For this, the precaution would be to maintain a good posture, but if you are already a victim of this problem, then I would suggest you to try yoga. Perform yoga religiously and emphasize on the back workout exercises. Some of the asanas which you might find helpful are: tadasana or the mountain pose, bhujangasana or the cobra pose, and shranasana or the downward dog pose.
- Stress: For stress, I would like to suggest going for an occasional walk, reducing screen time(you can even follow digital detox if you want to), and performing eye exercises.
Note: All the recommendations which I have listed here are the ones which I have personally tried and the ones which have worked for me. I am not a doctor so take my advice with a grain of salt, try what suits you, This is just my own personal blog
Programming is a really good sport, as long as it is played the right way.
Thank you! I hope that you found value from this article.
