Health guide for software engineers*
A succinct set of 9 actionable points to help the future you, today.
*) this guide is for engineers, programmers, designers, hackers, virtually any office workers — everybody sitting and staring at things most of the day
I’m about to share with you my discoveries over the last few years in terms of living a healthier life while working as a software engineer — things I wish someone told me 10 years ago. Hopefully it will help you today take better care of yourself tomorrow.
“Take care of your health”
You have heard that before, from virtually anyone. Your parents, primary school teacher, that awkward neighbour, your partner. But what needs to happen for you to start taking it seriously ?
Well, for me, it was this MRI scan (notice that one dodgy disc):
Backstory (I know, bad pun)
Back in my days at uni, I used to be an apprentice — so I would spend half of the time at school and half of it at work. While that made it impossible for me to feel like a student and be as reckless as my mates, I had a recurring income, so I got that going for me.
I also run a little web/mobile boutique, in which I was making a much better money to time ratio by writing apps for external clients, but it had this little drawback of being an after-hours affair.
My typical day would look something like this: wake up the latest possible, skip breakfast, run to work to get there just before 9. Finish work at around 17:30, get back home, cook something, take a shower and get busy with more coding. I would typically work 19:00–24:00 most days, and then more on Saturdays. When I was at school I would have lessons 8:15–15:30 (as an apprentice you can’t skip stuff, or otherwise you’re not paid), and then I’d have to revise for exams, work on projects etc.
On the bright side, I was getting better at making things quickly, I was learning new technologies every month, and I got some savings and I could afford to do things like snowboarding. I was doing what I liked I was paid for that. Isn’t that lucky ?
I would average about 70–80 hours working every week. I now average less. But that’s irrelevant.
What’s relevant, is that I would spend 70–80 hours/week sitting in a chair.
The dreaded back pain
As a mix of I-don’t-give-a-f**k posture in the chair, and also the fact that all the chairs I’ve ever sat in were simply too small (I’m 6f8"), a little pain started crawling onto my back, in quite a literal sense.
Acting like a stereotypical man, it only took me 3 years to go and see a doctor.
And, as it often happens, I needed to see the plural form of “doctor”.
Side note: Doctors are not wizards
An epiphany I only had recently was that doctors are managing their levels of incompetence the same way we all are.
If a client is asking me to implement a supposedly magical function (“oh, I didn’t know it could move like jelly !”), I’m going to manage my level of incompetence in physics (by going to wikipedia), programming (“let’s search github for nice physics libraries which have a one liner installation guide”) and design (“whoa, who needs a designer when I can make UI jellies like this myself !”). And then I’m going to serve them the best I could do within the budget allocated to the particular bit of work.
Doctors are no different — they went to a medical school, they passed the difficult exams, and then they started doing a daily job. And their daily job isn’t to assume the most complex scenarios. It’s to yield reasonable results within a minimal budget.
So take what the doctor says as one of the multiple inputs. And get many inputs. Do not settle for “let’s wait for it to go away” — that’s rarely a solution.
Side note 2: Always ask for a copy of the data
Always. Otherwise, all you’ll get is someone spending 3 minutes telling you what they think is wrong. And they might very well be right, but it’s always good to see the data backing it up.
And with the raw data, you can go and get a second opinion.
Pro tip: I also setup this MRI scan as a wallpaper on my screens. Works like a charm, raises fewer eyebrows that you might think.
The core of the problem
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” — Albert Einstein
With the different, independent views, you are still going to be the one who decides what do believe and what to act on. Here’s my story.
My problem
What ultimately led to my back being broken was… bad habits:
- wrong posture while sitting most of the day
- weak internal core muscles
- bad technique for fetching items from the floor (I only learnt squatting correctly at the age of 26)
I was basically doing the opposite of what a good posture should be:
Watch it. And make your significant other watch it. And then look at each other when sitting in a normal way.
A mix of the above, with additional things we’ll look at in a moment, led me to a place I didn’t want to be. It was time to change things.
The solution
In my case, the second (and third and fourth) opinion is that my herniated disc will unlikely ever get back to the right shape, but I should be able to live with it, IF I change my lifestyle.
OK, cool. I’ll just change my lifestyle… Simple, right ?
WTF does it even mean ?
“Improve your lifestyle” is basically as good as saying “live healthier” or “try to not get sick” — completely not actionable.
So — since my alternative was the possibility of not being able to move altogether in my fourties — I got busy researching, asking specialists, reading books and laying my hands on anything that could contribute to my better being.
And that’s how this piece started — to structure my thoughts, save them for later, and share with others, who might make use of it.
Please note — this is still a work in progress, and I’ll gladly incorporate your feedback. So let’s go.
9 Actionable Steps To Improve Your Health*
*Dealing with opposing views
When you start googling around, you will notice quickly enough, that one can easily find two sources saying the exact opposites with equal conviction and energy.
It’s going to be your call to take the bits which work best for you and leave out the ones which don’t. But since that can be said about pretty much any life decision, I’ll just leave it here.
All right. With the asterisks out of the way, let’s get to it.
1. Moving around
One of the (relatively few) really good pieces of advice I received from a practitioner was the following:
Walk, stand, lie, just for [redacted] sake, don’t sit !
It’s so obvious, that… I hadn’t applied it for the previous X years.
If you were to only take away one thing from this essay, please take this.
Take a walk. Stand up, walk around. Get off the tube one stop earlier. Start doing something. Walk your dog. Or your significant other.
Don’t say “yeah” and scroll. Get off your chair and move, now !
It’s a marathon, not a sprint
What does it mean ? It means that even if you apply all the principles and do super well for a month or two, but lack the long term commitment you can as well not start at all. Do the 80% of effort, but over 100% of your life. That should do just fine.
Let the compound effect take care of your return over time.
If you’re more into motion pictures, here is a relevant video for you:
2. Assessing, not guessing
All the good advice is great when it eventually becomes automatic. But in order to stay motivated and see your progress, you will need to keep track of your indicators in a more scientific fashion. Here’s how.
- Do the initial checkup
- check your weight, calculate BMI
- go to a fitness assessment (most gyms will do that for free to try to sell you a membership (which you should take anyway, but that’s a different topic)), or google one of the tests and do them at home
- measure your fat, muscle and bone mass — you can do it at one of these fancy scales at the gym (to get a reasonable feeling, you will need at least a couple of data points from different times of the day, different amount of water consumed, different body temperature, etc)
This should give you a very basic image of your current state, and is indispensable to detect any improvement. You might be surprised to see where you fit on the scale (I was!).
2. Get a fitness tracker
It’s a gadget that’s sitting there, counting steps, monitoring heart rate and cheering you up. There is a plethora of different devices available, ranging from relatively cheap, very simple steps counters to more sophisticated things which cost significantly more.
For all the things fitness, one good source of thorough reviews is the blog of DC RainMaker, which I recommend wholeheartedly.
I personally went for a Fitbit Charge HR device, mainly because it ticked all the boxes and I got it off Amazon for less than 70 quid.
The main reasons it’s working for me:
- I can track things (calories burnt, amount of sleep, steps taken, workouts) effortlessly
- all the data is available in one place and I can compare it in different time windows, plot it and stare at it (it’s pretty too)
- I got into a habit of thinking “oh, I’ll just walk from here, I’ll add some more steps”
- and yes, my health insurance gives me free cinema tickets for steps every week, which IS nice
Here’s a sneak peak of what stats I’m talking about:
3. Keep a diary, take photos
The third element which helps me stay motivated is an old-fashioned notebook, in which I write things down at least weekly, and a folder with smartphone-taken photos. Just looking at these photos helps to see that there is hope !
The 3 points together will give you all the data, graphs, numbers and progress tracking you are going to need to keep yourself motivated.
Bookmark this page, go set it up now. Really.
3. Chair and desk setting
Until not so long ago, I’d look at all these fancy office chairs with all the bells and whistles and think “whoa, another way to squeeze some money off the companies”.
Today, I only think that about a part of them. Get yourself a proper chair. If you work for a company, make them get you a proper chair. It’s a must.
A proper chair is crucial. My definition of a “proper chair” includes:
- the right size — too big or too small will eventually lead to a customisation range bad for you
- the height of the seat customisable
- the support for the lower back customisable (either a pump — that’s what my chair has and I love it — or changing the breaking angle)
- arm rests customisable both in height and in distance between them
The positioning of a the screen is also crucial. If you’re working on a laptop with no extra screens and you spend most of the day looking down, you are going to develop a neck pain.
Many resources have been written on how to set things up properly, here’s one I used and found pretty thorough:
Also, I liked this blog post from Buffer people:
4. Standing desk
The standing desk has been a subject of conversations with all my colleagues ever since I got it. Some people may laugh, and let them laugh. They will stop laughing when they go see their chiropractors.
No longer considered “hipster”, standing (or more accurately “adjustable height”) desks are slowly becoming part of the corporate landscape.
There are generally two types. Either the actual desktop moves, or you have a typical desk and you put a moving component on top of it (as a little bit of an afterthought).
I have been using Varidesk pro plus 36 for 18+ months now. It looks like this, and can be had for under 300 quid from Amazon.
Here’s my review in 5 bullet points:
- feels relatively sturdy and well built
- easy adjustments, but only in “steps” — it’s not gradual, you can’t put it at the exact height you would like to; I also had to get my desk even risen, because the desk’s top position was still too low for me
- handles easily two 27" screens horizontally on the upper deck and a macbook pro 15" on the lower deck
- it takes most of my actual desk space below and offers little storage on the decks — an odd book or two are fine, but a notebook doesn’t fit comfortably anywhere
- I wasn’t a particularly big fan of the rounded shape, because it takes away from the real estate even more, but I got used to it
Overall it’s good, but if I was to pick one now, I’d go for a desk with a moving desktop.
The problem with the standing desk, at least at the beginning, is that it’s awkward and simply tiring. If you’re having a busy day, you might feel like that’s just another obstacle from getting your stuff done.
It’s also a little bit awkward to type quickly, because your entire frame is less stable, as you’re gently rocking in your hips.
This is how it felt over the first year:
5. Pilates and other core exercises
When my colleagues first heard about me going to a pilates session, they laughed. And when I got there for the first time, and was one of the two guys (the other one being definitely more than 30 years older), I was uneasy.
But looking back, it really helped me a lot. It works out parts of your body that you didn’t even know existed, and, frankly, is hard.
I don’t feel pro enough to give any practical advice in this department, apart from one:
Go for one session, regardless of what you think. See it yourself.
6. Yoga matt and lying in the corridor
Now, stay with me. One of the things that really helped me was a 6 quid investment I made in a yoga matt.
During the first couple of weeks of the worst pain in my back, I was taking a 2 minute break every hour or two to lie down on the floor.
And it helped me twofold.
Firstly, I could relax all the tension in my back, and that helped tremendously. Later on I also added a few back stretches.
Secondly, I rather quickly stopped giving a f**k about what people thought about me lying on a yoga matt in a corridor, which is nice.
7. Food
Another epiphany I had years too late was the realisation that what I eat does make for what I feel and look like. And even though it’s not directly related to my back problem, I thought I’d include it here.
When I finished uni and started working usual hours, I gained 20 kilos in 6 months, coming from below 100kg to about 116kg at the worst moment.
Apart from the extra weight making you look and feel bad, it does affect all of your joints, including your spine.
For me, the biggest change for me came from the actual thinking about what I eat. I did use MyFitnessPal to track the calories for two weeks at the beginning, but frankly, I don’t think anyone would be able to do that for an extended time period (it’s such a pain). After I got a grasp of what things are made of (fat, carbs, protein) I started being more selective and started changing.
I got back to 98kg weight in less than 6 months.
Again, I am not a nutritional expert, so I can only encourage you to think about that:
- assess what your usual diet is actually made of (use an app)
- use one of the online calculators to see how many calories you need for your basal body consumption
- use your fitness tracker to see how many calories on top of your basal body consumption you’re typically spending
- start paying attention to what you eat, and it will become a habit; aim for basal body + average spent < consumed from food
One cool gadget to have is a connected bathroom scale. It lets you see things like this (this is over 500 data points — between August 2014 and June 2016):
I think you can easily see where I started paying attention to what I eat and going to the gym…
8. Gym
The gym is a society apart. It has its rules, laws and it takes some time to adjust to that.
As a total newbie, when I first started going to the gym, I didn’t know any of that. Following the crowd, I just started running on the treadmill.
After a couple of months I saw a weight drop, I could run for longer and longer and it made me feel better about myself. It was yielding results, but not exactly what you’d call spectacular. And I wasn’t getting stronger.
So started trying the 1000 different machines available. And I got confused.
I wanted to assess the progress, but, apart from the weight, I didn’t really know how. I tested most of the top 10 fitness apps on Android, and they were all either badly written, overloaded with ads, or way too complicated (yes, I’m thinking about you, Jefit).
What worked for me was a simple set of 5 exercises, including: bench press, leg press, pull-ups, incline bench press and planks. It takes me 40 minutes, 3 times a week. I got my technique from http://stronglifts.com/exercises/ and I am also using their app to track my weights (even though I don’t do some of the exercises, like deadlift, yet).
Later on I also found this article on working out with a herniated disc, I found it very good: http://www.builtlean.com/2016/04/25/herniated-disc-weight-lifting/
Whatever works for you is fine, but again, the main takeaways are:
- go to the gym, regardless of whether you think you need it or not
- it doesn’t take as much time as you think
- include weights, but do them intelligently
- try different things and see what works for you
- track your progress to stay motivated
9. Eye exercises
Apart from the actual eye problems you’re born with, the most common complaints believed to be directly connected to starting at things close to you are eye dryness and shortsightedness. While most people take it as a fact (“oh, doctor said I had that, here are my new glasses”), the list of reasons you might be experiencing it for is long. Check the official NHS list here.
The causality I choose to believe here is that if I spend 80% of my time awake staring at things up to 50cm away from me, and wink less because I’m so into it, the eyes will get dry and will also adapt to looking at things close to me.
I like to think of my eyes now as one just of the tools I use every day (granted, a rather handy one). It’s like a car — if I take care of it, service it and I don’t do silly things, I should be in for a long and comfortable ride.
Call me a rebel, but when I first noticed that I can’t read things in the distance, I went for a checkup (yeah, I skipped there a probably 2–3 years wait in between — just, you know, for a better reading experience)— but didn’t buy the prescribed glassed.
Instead, I googled some exercises. There is plenty of them on the web, and you should try some of them too (this one has fun illustrations).
And, while my eye sight didn’t drastically improve — it definitely stopped getting worse.
Here’s what I’m doing:
- at least every half an hour I’m looking at things at the distant end of the corridor for at least 10 seconds
- every time I take a break to walk (which I’m trying to do every hour, but it isn’t always possible), I pass by a window and I stare at a building far away (close enough to see the details and focus on them, but far away to change the focus of your eye — mine is about 300m away)
- I’m making a concerted effort to wink more ;-)
Bonus: Gymnastics ball as a chair
This is something I was advised to do by some, and then discouraged to do by others. I’m still looking at it, and I will probably try it at home first, for my “laptop hours”, and if it works, I’ll get one to use at work. I’ll post an update when that materializes.
Other ideas I would like to form an informed opinion on include:
- treadmill desks,
- sleeping capsules,
- noise-cancelling headphones,
- hammocks at work,
- anything boosting your wellbeing and productivity at the same time
If you have experience (and most preferably some hard data), I’l LOVE some feedback in the comments. Thanks !
Found it helpful ?
I hope you did, and I hope you can take some of it away, and fix your health before it’s broken.
I do my best to answer all the questions in comments.
