This is for us, programmers, coders, IT people (and start-upers). No is not for some other health magazine, please read and if something can help you take it.
Come on guys, there's even a study from Harvard stating that "health has been claimed to play an important role in human sexual selection, especially in terms of mate choice"(reference ˆ1), imagine if that's true, how important is health for have better coding and by consequence building better products and companies 🤷🏻♂️.
Here are some tips that had worked for me, and I hope that works for some of you, just remember: like meds, not everything works for everyone so check it and decide.
Stand Up!, even if you're not a comedian
Do you remember those days when Steve Jobs explained the best human part of every piece of technology on each keynote? Well, that is one of the things Apple has lost after Steve, the first (or second?) version of the Apple Watch already sent me haptic feedback to make me stand up at least one time every hour, but they did't tell me that that little action will improve my health a lot and the worst part is, because I didn't know that... for me that haptic touch every hour was so annoying that I usually ignore it, but then, after one or two year of electric shocks in my wrist... they TELL everybody why they did that and started to make sense, I started to stand up and walk for a few minutes every day every hour... major health improvement (on what I can feel, and on what I can't feel too), so, if your work is on a computer almost all day (or just sitted all day because why not?), please do yourself a favor and stand up, at least once every hour, it does a lot of good for your health (reference: ˆ2)
Eat well... it is (really) basic math
Long subject, short answer: vegan people are healthier than most of us that aren't, but I have a theory, they study what they going to eat every day, how much of this, or that, they are not counting calories every time they have a snack, they just prepare their week, do their super market and thats it, they have all they need to eat healthy every day, so, if you don't have time to research what to eat, find help, and follow the rules, you DON'T need to start with some strict diet, you just need you start (and continue) to eat healthier. From feb to august this year I gain 20 pounds, mid aug I started a diet (by a professional) and literally I could eat all the things the diet had (too much food for me on the diet and delicious btw), long story short: I lost 10 pounds in 5 weeks (and counting). In this year 2020 the year of COVID-19, staying healthy is the best defense we can have. Take action!
DON'T LISTEN to those guys... you need to sleep
For years, I was one of those guys that enjoyed long working hours (18-20 hours per day was the norm). I also had a chronic back-pain, in my case, I don't know why but believe me or not, once I achieve the discipline of sleep 6-8 hours every day (at night) suddenly, my back-pain disappeared, I never consulted with a doctor why did this happened but it just worked. Maybe it was because we all need to let our body to heal ourself by reaching between 30 min to 2 hours of deep sleep, I use an app on my phone and watch that automagically track my sleep and now I know that reaching those sleep phases really improves not only my alertness during the day but the brain activity is... just wow... so different (faster), but also your physical health, please, this is not a secondary step, is one of the first steps you need to do. (more on this link: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/what-happens-when-you-sleep)
Finally... be careful what you let inside in your mind
I literally change my twitter feed from endless and non productive politic debates with random people (even bots) to a bast majority of coders (beginners and high hierarchy roles in companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Quickbooks, etc), how I did it? unfollow or mute every person talking about politics and started to follow entrepreneurs and coders... it just make more sense right?. I started to pay attention to people like @naval
I have to confess that I am lucky, very lucky to find projects, jobs, knowledge, but to get rich without getting lucky, and understanding that money is not happiness but freedom to do things, to make things, to help others, and waking up, living the day and sleeping with that thinking, is a life changing way to live... please, be careful with what you let inside in your mind.
Excercise
If you can't run, do jogging, if not ready or can't: walk, if you can't walk, do something that pumps your heart to your anaerobic zone, exercise is very important (although what you eat is more important, for me at least). "If you are new to exercising, do not start with high-intensity anaerobic workouts. Instead, focus on lower-intensity aerobic exercise for at least 12 weeks, pushing yourself to no more than 60 or 70% of your MHR by week 12. Always check with your doctor before adding anaerobic exercise to any fitness program." (reference ˆ3)
And there's more...
Much more, but I have to maintain this post short because, like I said in my two previous post, I'm still learning english and I'm writing as my thoughts are streaming out of my mind, so, if you didn't understood something, just ask (or try to imagine what did I tried to said 😬).
Now the coding part of the post
This time I will not talk about directly of coding, but projects, I will invest up to $5,000 USD in AWS services to do a project that 1) make profit 2) help people that lost their jobs. Next year is going to be ugly (uglier for many people than 2020) so WE people that can do something have the opportunity to take action and do something. Obviously the project will have to do anything with technology and maybe the best lead I have right now is to make a product that can help people to make his own money making deals with stablished and unaffected businesses (like... produce?) or directly with consumers. Any ideas? Wanna join my project? Leave me a comment or send me a DM on twitter @amilcarcalles
ˆ1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5319324
ˆ2 https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20150430/2-minute-walk-every-hour-may-help-offset-effects-of-sitting#1
ˆ3 https://www.verywellfit.com/anaerobic-zone-3436576
SORRY IF I WROTE SOMETHING WRONG, THIS MORNING I DID PROMISE THIS POST FOR TODAY AND I HAD THE NEED TO FULFILL MY PROMISE, BUT IS LATE SO, NO MUCH TIME TO CHECK AND RECHECK WHAT I WROTE, need to sleep to wake up a 4:50 AM!!!!! 😴
BTW: Sorry sorry last line: if your health is better, you can code much better... you don't know how you feel about your health until you loose it (or part of it), every time I'm ill enough to be in bed I only want to be healty to return to do what I love the most: eat 🤤, spend time with my kids (right know helping all morning with #homeschooling, LEARN, create ideas for products and startups, and CODE.
Cheers, and love and success for everyone !
Here's my previous post:
https://dev.to/amilcarcalles/there-s-an-opportunity-in-every-action-take-action-19p5
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