One of the major contributors of repetitive stress injuries in developers is having limited micro-break while programming. No, I am not talking about those long one hour break you take at work, but its while break for smaller duration (usually 5 minutes.) after say every 30 minutes of work. These frequent micro-breaks in your working habit gives proper time to heal from wear and tear because of contraction occurred through using keyboard and mouse. These breaks are very important to give adequate relaxation to muscles that involved in computing. There is no hard and fast rule for length of break one should take, as it varies depending from person to person. Usually 5 minutes break is enough for every 30 minutes but this figure can vary depending upon the nature of work he involved in. You can decrease or increase the micro-break duration based on your conformability and work load. But the bottom-line is that you should take proper and regular breaks at work.
Well, deciding on taking regular and consistent break and being firm of that are two different things; and I know it’s very difficult to stick on that and you do want someone who will remind you regularly to take these breaks. And this is where those break reminder utilities comes handy.
You can find lot of utilities readily available in internet (just google break reminder download) but I will recommend Workrave. Its free and its open source application.
Workrave is a program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit. Its available for both OS, Windows and Linux.
WorkRave URL: http://www.workrave.org
Download URL: workrave-win32-1.8.3-installer.exe
Still not convinced of having regular breaks? Here is the great single page leaflet from WorkRave with explanation of why one needs regular micro-break while working.
Thanks Rob Caelers for creating this nice utility.
ergonomic