Keeping fit when doing IT is not an easy thing. Though IT industry is challenging and fascinating, there are still a number of factors that can hamper you health there. We in Rubyroid Labs are actively fighting these issues back. Learn below, how to keep healthy even if you are working in the office in front of a computer all day long.
Tip 1. Don’t turn your display into an enemy
IT people tend to spend too much time together with displays, which can be bad for your eyesight. Follow these simple rules to decrease the negative effect.
1. Consider your lighting
First and foremost, one should consider the lightning of your working place. Daylight is not the best variant since it changes it’s strength during the day and gives flares. That’s why it is better not to put your display next to a window. The best solution is a spacious room with artificial lighting.
It is highly not recommended to work at night with lights turned off. It goes too heavy on eye muscles because of the enormous contrast of blinking screen on the dark background.
Life hack: Use special utilities for automatic changing of display brightness. For example, you can go for f.lux app.
2. Make a break every 30-40 minutes
It is good to give your eyes a 3-minute break every half an hour. Have a look in the window, drink a cup of coffee, make a call or have a walk. Your eyes will be grateful to you. Besides, it is much easier to concentrate after a break. There are plenty reminder apps for that, which would help you to keep track of the breaks.
Life hack: Use special apps that remind you to make exercises for your eye muscles. EyeLeo app is one of them and works simply great.
3. Make special eye exercises
Looking at a display for a long time tenses some eye muscles and relaxes others. As a result focal distance doesn’t match retina distance, which hampers the eyesight. Eye exercises help to relax the tensed muscles and train the relaxed ones. If you are a little bit short eye-sighted, exercises will help you to bring your health back to normal.
You will easily find exercise sets, but it is most important to do them regularly. Specialists advise to do them 2-4 times a day but don’t go too heavy to avoid overwork.
Lifehack: Put posters with eye exercises around the office not to forget about the routine. Here are some posters we have at Rubyroid Labs office.
Tip 2. Keep moving
Working in IT implies sedentary lifestyle, which can’t but be bad for your health.
1. Tunnel syndrome
This is a neurology disease that brings about long-term pains and fingers numbing. To avoid it simply use comfortable keyboard and mouse as well as let your arms rest a bit.
2. Scoliosis
Even if you already have scoliosis, make sure you don’t make the situation worse. Keep your back straight. It is not only a comfortable chair that helps with that but also amount of free space on the table. Make sure you have enough free space for your hands to lie freely. To help your spinal muscles not get too tense, elbows should be lying on the table, which decreases the pressure.
If you still have troubles with your back, you might consider wearing a special spinal assistant, especially in winter, when there are fewer problems with it.
Also make sure your display is located in a good position so that you don’t have to bend or lean your head. It is better to work on a monitor with a high stand than on a laptop.
3. Other diseases
The body of an IT specialist gets used to low exercise load, muscles get weaker, blood vessels lose their compliance, metabolic processes are broken. Oxygen deficit leads to a number of chronic diseases, which include cardiovascular diseases, atherosclerosis, obesity and others.
In order to avoid it all, one has to do sports regularly and make breaks every half an hour during which stand from your desk and move. It is a good idea not only to do morning exercise but also to have another one in the middle of the day. Find a sport you love and the results wouldn’t take long.
Life hack: In Rubyroid Labs, every hour all volunteers do plank hold and stand on balance boards
Tip 3. Reduce smoking
A lot of people love a cup of coffee with a cigarette. It is a popular alternative to exercise not only among IT people. Such combination leads to narrowing of blood vessels, which gives you an energy boost. But! Inevitably leads to high blood pressure and increases the risk of hypertension.
Tip 4. Don’t stress out
Tight deadlines, pressure, non-standard working hours, lack of sleep quickly lead to chronic fatigue, insomnia, low stress resistance and as a result nervous breakdown.
If you sleep less than 5 hours a day, you are inevitably heading to chronic diseases, especially hypertension.
Life hack: If our developers had a hard day, they don’t forget to give themselves a break!
Tip 5. Get rid of dust
How often do you do you do dusting at your working place? And how about the system unit? Or the other side of the display? We have supplied ourselves with special tissues and do it regularly. Dust is gathered even in the cleanest and most ventilated rooms.
If you don’t do dusting, you are doomed to have chronic allergic rhinitis. People, who already have an allergy, might have complications.
As you see, health issues are an important topic for IT industry. But in fact, it is not that hard to prevent the majority of them. Just make the first step, think about yourself in a couple years and rush towards a healthier future.
And what do you do to keep fit? Share with us in the comments!
