Episode 25 - Treat Yourself: Junior Dev Self Care (Part 1)

In this episode we be talking about developing good habits to reduce the health strains of a sedentary career.

“Sharpening the Tools”

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Erin:

We’ve been learning more about New Relic at work. New Relic is the leading Software as a Service (SAAS) provider of Application Performance Management and Monitoring Tools. If your application is running slowly or throwing a lot of errors, New Relic can catch a lot of that and help you know where you need to make improvements. We’re deep diving and learning more about it and we’ll be beginning to train the feature teams on how to use it in the next week or so.

Dave:

Continuing my exploration of game development from the last episode, I found some tutorials about building a clone of old NES type games that I’ve been nerding out about. One in particular showed taking a popular character, and adapting it into creating 16-bit artwork and how to implement them as sprite sheets.

“Opening the Toolbox”

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Today we’re talking about taking time for self care when you’re in a tech field. Constant digital connection and complex problem solving – largely in a sedentary environment – can present some unique strains on us as individuals. It’s important to take care of ourselves both at work and at home, mentally and physically, to keep our performance at an optimal level and to avoid burnout.

Follow up on healthy working setup?

We‘ve touched on some of these ideas before. But personally, this has been important to me as I’ve experienced some issues, just being in my thirties and having a sedentary job …

* Health

* General sedentary issues

* Standing desks/desk top converters

* Posture – keyboards and mice

* Take frequent walks

* Exercise

* Creating good habits? Related to goal setting

* Schedule time to exercise

* Find an activity you enjoy (yoga, hiking, biking, walking your dog, etc.); you’ll be more likely to want to go exercise

* Sleep

* Not everyone needs the same amount but you generally know how much you need to function normally the next day.

* Naps are the best

* Coffee power naps?

* Eating Healthy

* Meal Planning

* Meal delivery services (Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, Sun Basket, Home Chef, etc.)

* It’s a mindset/lifestyle shift

* Eye Care

* Night Shift, F.lux, blue light filtering glasses (Felix Gray or you can get them custom made with your prescription through an eye doctor)

* 20/20 rule – every twenty minutes, focus your eyes on something 20+ feet away for 20 seconds.

Disclaimer: I want to note that none of this discussion should take the place of real advice from health care professionals.

References

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Selfcare.tech

github.com/jwithington/100-days-of-healthing

osmihelp.org

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