Programming is so awesome! You can sit at home in your pajamas, while doing intellectual work. Just a fairy tale!
However, any fairy tale has a downside. Today I would like to tell you about the pain of programmers, or rather the most common "professional" illnesses, some of which I have encountered myself.
This article will be useful not only for already established programmers, but also for your children, because digitalization is ubiquitous and many parents from early childhood try to take their children to some kind of programming circles, and in general, children in our world encounter quite early with technology.
So, I've been in programming for a long time, now it's already my seventh year, if we talk about when I work officially. Before that, there was still work on freelance, just small projects and, in fact, the training itself, which affects health no less than a full-time job.
Let's start with the most common problem - eyes
9 out of 10 of my programmer friends are wearers of fashionable glasses, or have had an operation. Myopia, dry eye syndrome, redness and gritty eyes are your loyal friend and eternal companion. This is due to constant looking at the monitor, which is at close range, working in the dark, or with insufficient quality lighting, as well as the typical clogging of eye exercises, which, of course, everyone knows about, but never practices. Just like tests.
There are several types of prevention of this problem, but I will not tell you about the importance of the same charging and timing of sitting in front of the monitor. In addition, as a rule, in adults, vision at some point freezes at a certain point and stops deteriorating. So it is rather important for children, their eye muscles are just developing, respectively, such primitive methods can stop or prevent visual degradation. In addition, there are various procedures and devices that relieve stress and can also improve vision for a short period, in order to find out what you specifically need - just go to a good optometrist.
From myself, I would say only one thing: wearing glasses is not so bad, now it is even fashionable. Set aside a budget and buy glasses that you really like with good lenses and you will be happy.
Do not neglect glasses, I made this mistake, because when I needed them, there were still stereotypes about “bespectacled”, “bespectacled” and so on. As a result, my vision dropped until I began to wear glasses. It should be borne in mind that the more minus or plus you have, and even if all this is sprinkled on top with astigmatism, like mine, the fewer frames will suit you. This is due to the thickness and complexity of manufacturing such lenses. And if wearing glasses is completely unacceptable for you, invest in an operation. However, here I would advise you to go to different doctors and look at the ophthalmologists - most of them are still wearing glasses. After all, beauty is not worth any risks and complications for such an important organ as the eyes.
An even more interesting and unpleasant topic, the so-called "tunnel" syndrome or inflammation of the wrist joints
And again, “your faithful servant” snatched the jackpot here. By the way, every second patient who comes to my rheumatologist is a programmer. Guess who's in the second category? Surely, those who faced a similar problem guessed, as they managed to sit in queues. And yes, these are grannies :(
The cause of the tunnel syndrome is the compression of the median nerve between the bones, the transverse carpal ligament and the tendons of the wrist muscles. This leads to constant aching pain, in the most difficult cases, patients lose finger activity, which can only be treated by traumatic surgery with long recovery. There are special vertical mice that help avoid this disease or alleviate its symptoms, but this can only help in the initial stage, and even that is not a fact.
Vertical mouse
I got a more common problem - inflammation of the wrist joints, and on two hands at once: on the left in a less active form, on the right in a stronger one. I'll tell you, this is a very unpleasant thing. Constant aching pain, which after an active working day does not even allow sleep. It got to the point that I started taking painkillers every day.
It is rather difficult and time consuming to treat inflammation of the joints. As my doctor said: inflammation can manifest itself at any age and the cause can also be any.
Probably, many people know that if the lower back gets cold at least once, then a little wind blows - and it will again make itself felt. The joints are the same. This is for life, chronic stuck. Do you think you've cured them? The next day they will remind of themselves. Those who suffer from similar relatives should be especially attentive to this. But where really there, we start worrying about such things only when the fire is shot.
If the inflammation is not treated, it can turn into more terrible diseases, such as arthritis, and destruction of the joint can begin.
I did a lot. I started with ointments, lotions, then therapy, it came to injections, during work I constantly wear a bandage, if I stop wearing it, the pains return with renewed vigor.
There is one more thing I tried and it kind of helped me. Now there will be a very funny life hack.
I bought a skein of German Shepherd wool and wrapped it around my wrist. And it helped. The wrist doesn't hurt. This is due to the constant heating property of the dog's hair. Maybe this advice will help someone. I initially did not take it into account, but after trying everything I can, I wish I did it in the beginning. By the way, for the sake of experiment, I first tied wool only on my right hand. She stopped hurting, and the left one still ached. So now I know it's not about fairy healing.
Let's move on, spinal osteochondrosis and scoliosis
Hurray, here I finally fly by. From this, I think, the music school saved me, where they beat us on the back with pointers if we slouched over while sitting at the piano. But this thing is also very unpleasant. The saddest thing about this disease is that when it develops, you do not experience much pain. It will start to get you much later, when it will be extremely difficult to fix something. The smallest thing that can be recommended here, given that I have not encountered this problem personally, is wearing corsets and regularly strengthening the muscles of the body.
Well, the last thing I wanted to talk about was dyssomnia or just sleep disturbance.
I don’t know how it happened, but most programmers, at least in my environment and even myself, find it difficult to get up in the morning and go to bed late at night. Who would have thought. These two points are dependent on each other. And there was a time that I lay for hours, just looked at the ceiling, although it was already two nights on the clock and could not sleep. They solve this problem in different ways, someone meditates, someone stupidly drinks pills, which is very bad, they often develop addictions of varying degrees, someone lies in the bathroom before going to bed or goes out for a walk.
Most often, this problem was due to the fact that before going to bed, already covered with a warm blanket, I was scrolling through the tasks in my mind. I got this thing back in school, then someone told me that if you think about some task for the night, or repeat the rhymes before bedtime, then the solution will be found by the morning by itself, and the rhyme will be learned. And I'll tell you - this is complete garbage! Analyzing this situation now, I understand that in order for sleep to be healthy, and to have no problems with falling asleep, before going to bed you need to think about sleep!
Throwing over tasks, songs, rhymes, algorithms, whatever, you drive your brain into stress, because it wants to sleep, and you poke it with a stick and say - well, think! As a result, obsessive thoughts can fill your entire consciousness, and now you have been lying for the third hour with your eyes closed, but do not sleep, and at the same time experiencing wild torment - after all, you want to sleep.
Here I have listed the most common problems that the average programmer may encounter and which seem relevant to me.
By the way, while I was preparing the materials, I noticed that ulcers, obesity, acne and, sorry, hemorrhoids are also referred to as “programmer” diseases. I think the data is a bit out of date. Most of my friends, and myself, regularly go to the gym or just try to play sports, monitor the diet and glue masks with a panda's face on their face.
In the end, I would like to ask you to stress less (aha, advice of the year) and in general just look at any situations with more calmness. And also take care of your body, it is with us to the end.
Subscribe to my @paradisecurity channel on telegram. Recently I was engaged in aggregating data on vitamins and, perhaps, I will soon download a bot that will be able to calculate which vitamins are needed for you.
If you have anything to add about your pain, then go ahead, in the comments :)