Top Notch Developer? Geek? 4 Steps You Can Take Today To Save Your Future Self $$$s in Medical Bills
Being a developer is like having a superpower. It is also like having your very own army, completely under your control and ready to obey your every command. The problem is, it’s all too easy to get sucked into your work and forget that you need to take care of yourself too
Being a developer is like having a superpower. It is also like having your very own army, completely under your control and ready to obey your every command. That’s how awesome coding is. Boring and repetitive task? A normal person would probably bite their lips and keep doing it over and over for the rest of their lives. Geeky coders like us? “Hmm. Let me see, Yeah. Selenium should be able to handle it. Not more than 250 lines of code! Let me go grab a cup of coffee and convert that into some neat code”. There’s a high that comes from seeing your code execute flawlessly that is so addictive that we tend to want more and more of it.
That’s where some of us tend to forget that we live inside our body and that it has needs such as sleep and exercise too. It might start out as a small niggle here and some light pain there, but you can be sure that it will soon add up and lead to huge medical bills in the very near future. But fear not, for there are a few simple steps that you can take today that will get rid of these issues and help you lead a healthy life, without compromising on getting that wonderful coding high!
Breaks
I know what you’re thinking, Oh God, it’s that same old clichéd take a break thingy again! It is but I’m not going to be your mom and ask you to go take a walk when you’re so close to fixing that last bug. Nope, I’ll just suggest a cool app that will essentially be your mama and blank out the screen every once in a while to force you to take a break and walk around!
CareUEyes is one that I’ve been using for quite a while now. It’s such a pain in the you know where that I’ve contemplated uninstalling it several times but I’ve hung on. The result, I don’t really get those severe headaches anymore and that nagging feeling in my back has completely gone away! I keep a baseball on my desk and when this bloody app blocks off my screen and tells me to go take a break, I pick up the ball and go play till the app beeps and invites me back to my desk. Works great for me and I’m sure it will for you too!
Ergonomics
I see new and eager coders come in and join our office each day. Most of these young chaps think nothing of the company’s ergonomic workplace policy and go around the office working from a couch and even at the cafeteria! If only their 10-year future self saw them at it. I’m sure that angry 30-year-old future self would give them a tight slap and direct them back to their desk where everything has been set up according to the ergonomics guidelines. If you don’t have your set up based on these guidelines, do consider changing it. And while you’re at it, get yourself a nice, comfortable and ergonomic chair. Trust me, this will definitely save you hundreds if not thousands in medical bills in the very near future.
Yoga
Yoga isn’t only about wearing saffron clothes and heading to India. It is about being one with your body and understanding its needs. This is especially important for software professionals like us who are almost completely disconnected from our bodies. Making Yoga a daily routine can not only improve flexibility, prevent injuries and improve your overall well-being, it will also help you focus and concentrate better on your work and solve problems effectively. Yoga poses that concentrate on stretching and strengthening the spine and lower back muscles are best-suited for developers like us who sit for long periods of time. The cobra pose, the downward dog pose, and the plank pose are the three poses generally recommended for software professionals that you should definitely try out.
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Eye Exercises
I’ve been wearing glasses all my life and have special anti-glare coated ones at that too. In spite of this, I used to get these blinding headaches that would force me to abandon the code and head home early. My ophthalmologist simply suggested that I do a few eye exercises from time to time and voila, that did the trick! I now regularly do these exercises every couple of hours (during one of those goddamn CareUEyes forced breaks) and never have I had one of those headaches since.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on balancing between producing wonderful code and taking care of your body in the comments below. Feel free to reach out to me through the social media handles mentioned below. Cheers and happy coding!