.webp)
Long hours of sitting in front of the computer, coding all day and night, and dealing with bugs and deadlines have their own challenges. Programmers and developers face a myriad of physical and mental health challenges- back pain, wrist pain, eye strain, mental fog, and lack of motivation. While programming is not a dangerous and risky profession, it is surprisingly associated with a lot of health issues. We need to keep our body and mind in check to stay sharp and productive. The following healthy tips can benefit in a lot of ways.
5 Easy Health Tips for Programmers
Here we have listed 5 simple tips and tricks that you can follow to stay healthy as a programmer.
1. Regular Exercise
Even though it is the most common and obvious tip to stay healthy, not many people follow it. Regular exercise keeps you healthy, productive, and fit for life. Most programmers forget the need to stay healthy because they do not associate programming with anything harmful. However, sitting for long hours of work causes body ache and muscle pain. It is important to adopt a 30-minute workout practice- be it a light walk, run, jog or swim- and follow it regularly. A good exercise practice keeps your body fit and makes you more mentally resilient, thereby improving your work productivity.
2. Reduce Eye Strain
Staring at the computer all day exposes you to harmful blue light. Your eyes are poor in blocking it out and lead to eye strain. It is essential to take care of your eyes and not strain them. Though it sounds difficult, you can reduce eye strain by following some simple home remedies for eye strain. It can be following the 20-20-20 rule- take a 20-second break every 20 minutes and look at an object 20 feet away, taking a quick nap after a tiring project, blinking your eyes about 15-20 times a minute. You can also use a computer glass which blocks the blue rays from digital screens. As a programmer, you are naturally exposed to the harmful UV blue light, and it is important to take care of your eyes from the beginning.
3. Enjoy a good Sleep
Good sleep is equally important as a healthy diet and regular exercise. Poor sleep affects your hormones and brain functions adversely. As programmers, you need to build a strong focus for logical thinking. Hence, it is essential to have good sleep so that you can stay sharp and focused during work. Sleep recharges your brain and uses the inactivity to reboot your brain for the next day. It significantly boosts your focus during the day and enhances your memory, all of which are critical to staying healthy as a programmer.
4. Maintain a Good Posture
As a programmer, it is important to be conscious about your posture because you spend most of your time in front of the desk. Research says that sitting work can strain your lower back and add large amounts of pressure to your back muscles and spinal disc. Moreover, your body’s metabolism becomes low when you are sitting throughout the day. As an alternative, you need to adjust your posture and sit straight with your computer. You need to stand and stretch for some time in-between work and give your body a break. This will also improve your work productivity.
5. Take Regular Breaks
When you have kept your posture and other healthy practices in place, it is still important to stand up from your desk, move around, stretch a bit, and take regular breaks. This way, you can avoid keeping your body in the same posture for long and give your eyes some rest from the computer screens. It also gets your blood flowing fast and keeps your heart rate up, and strengthens the cardiovascular system in your body. It can help if you set a timer every two hours and remind yourself to take a quick break and relax yourself for some time. This simple tip will also protect you from programming burnout.
Takeaways
As a programmer, you are prone to affect your physical and mental health more than what you think. Though nothing would harm you in your initial days, these issues will keep adding as you get older. Hence, it is advisable to follow the practices mentioned above from your initial programming days so that it does not affect you adversely. With these simple lifestyle changes, you can attempt to stay healthy as a programmer.
Happy and healthy coding.