published on in HowTo
tags: book health pomodoro programming workspace

3 ways to be a Healthy Programmer

Are you healthy? Stand up! Leave your keyboard for a moment!

Few days ago I started to read a book. My best quote from this book was a short but really intense sentence and I started to think again. Think about my past and my current life.

We aren’t born unhealthy — we become unhealthy through a combination of bad habits and environmental pressures

The Healthy Programmer: Get Fit, Feel Better, and Keep Coding by Joe Kutner

It’s true. When I was young, innocent boy, then I tried to do something new, something interesting. I sat at my Commodore C64 and read books about programming. I loved that, but sometimes I left this desk and I went out to the garden and the park.

Now I grew up (a little bit) and I have not forgotten this. Sometimes I stand up and go to the nearest park, walk up and down, sit on a bench and sometimes I run just for fun. It’s ok. I love that way but how?

Time To Rest - Pomodoro

If you can’t leave your desk because you dug too deep in your code then use tools to manage your time. I tried a lot of methods but the first one that really works for me is The Pomodoro Technique®. Pomodoro users use this technique to manage their working time. I use this to manage my free time. It’s cool to manage my work but I don’t have problem with my focusing, but I can’t leave my desk if I’m working. I set up 25 minutes to work and 5 minutes to pause and after 4 period I got extra 10 minutes. No it’s not for me. I tried again with larger numbers. Oh yeah :) This is my recipe.

  1. 1 hour work
  2. 10 minutes pause
  3. 1 hour work
  4. 10 minutes pause
  5. 1 hour work
  6. 10 minutes pause
  7. 1 hour work
  8. 30 minutes pause

And so on. I do it twice a day. This is 8 hours work-time with 2 hours pause. So this is 10 hours. Why is this cool? Because my eyes are not numb and after my rest time I can focus to my work again with clean brain.

Workspace Upgrade

My first and best choice was a ball. A Fit-Ball. I love that awesome chair replacement. I sit on a big, really big ball: 75cm (~29.53 inches). It’s bigger than I need to sit but I don’t want to sit always. So now I can sit on the top of the ball and my legs can’t reach the floor. Or I can semi-stand at my desk. In the first few days it was uncomfortable, but after it was hard to sit in one place for a long time for me.

Why is this cool? Because my back doesn’t ache and my legs and my back are working all the times but lower intensity.

Don’t be shy, just run

I use a simple method to run. Running is sucks, but what if you need to run away from Zombies? This is the point. I use Zombies, Run! and this awesome app is available on Google Play, the App Store and Windows Phone. What is it? It’s a simple running application. You are the Runner 5 and you have a lot of missions. For instance, you need to run to save a lost child. Or need to run to warn the nearest city about an expected zombie attack. You can see how simple. But it’s a good game for your health.