Monday, July 05, 2010

Blogging and health: 8 Important Tips

After suffering from bad health from almost one year, I have been able to return to full time Blogging again. This long sickness and some other personal disaster have given me the scope to think and reflect a lot about Blogging and the matter of health problem. It seems that there should be a good balance between these two things. We should not get too much excited with Blogging success at the expense of destroying or neglecting our health. In the last two years, we have seen that some of the top Bloggers in the world suffered from Blogging hazards. So, the time has come for professional Bloggers to rethink our strategy about our career and health.
My story is very simple. I started professional Blogging in March 2006 and at that time, I used to work whole night and I did not take any rest. Day after day I continued this style for more than three years and I even skipped going to any kind of doctor for any kind of test. Last July, I needed to do some root canal to several of my teeth and after that I became very week and I could not do full time Blogging anymore until now. So, it is exactly one year and what happened is that I had to stop full time Blogging at the peak of my career. Yes, I felt that at that time I had the best knowledge and wisdom about Blogging success. I all the time felt that success was within my reach but I could not do regular work. In fact, last month, my main blog South Asia Blog got over half million page views. This is kind a blogging success from any point of view. I know that getting 1 million page views per month is not that difficult but I could not give my full efforts because of bad health.
I have learnt some valuable lessons and here, I am going to discuss some points about blogging and health problems.

Never Compromise with your Sleep
The first thing that you should remember is that you should never compromise with your sleeping time. Sleeping time has two aspects. First of all, you should try to sleep mainly at night not in days. What I did was that I used to work whole night as I felt that it was very good for my focus and concentration and as a result I became habituated to working at night and sleeping at day time. The second matter is of sleeping eight hours. Most experts believe that on an average each person should sleep around eight hours a day. However, when you are too much consumed with Blogging success then sleeping eight hours become a very difficult thing for you.

Visit a Doctor From Time to Time
If you are having problem with your health in anyway then you should have to visit a doctor. Disease is natural for everyone but what may happen is that you may get too much carried away with blogging and then you may not want to go to the doctor regularity and go under medication. When we are under medication or treatment then we have to follow certain rules in terms of eating and taking medicine. However, when you are planning to work 16 or 17 hours a day then you simple cannot afford to go clinics that often and you cannot afford to eat less too. For example, I got too much addicted to coffee and coca cola and these two things artificially helped me to keep me fresh and energetic.

Be Active or Suffer
The worst thing that blogging has done for me that it totally made me physically inactive. In the past, I was a person who liked to walk a lot in the street and all the time I was just running and running. Sometimes I became sick for too much of moving from one place to another place day after day. However, when I started blogging then even climbing stairs became a difficult matter for me as I totally stopped going out or walking. If you are a professional blogger then you should remember this matter. If you are not that much interested for going to walk then the best thing you can do is buy an exercise instrument such as a cycle and work with it in your room. Still do something and remain physically active. Remember that if you become physically inactive for a very long time then coming back to normal life becomes even more difficult. If you do not have a lot of physical motion or enough physical motion everyday then you will start to suffer problem from sleeping.

Run away from Coffee and Coke
As I told you earlier that I became too much addicted to coffee Coke. Here, by Coca Cola I just simple don’t mean Coke but Pepsi, Sprite, Seven Up etc. I forgot to mention Merinda and Fanta which I like a lot. Well, what happened is that at one stage, I used to drink four or five cups of Nescafe every day. This coffee has its own affect. So, I got totally depend on coffee and Coke for my strength and energy and when I understood that they are very bad then I tried to leave them on last October or nine months ago. The first and initial reaction was that I lost my energy totally. However, I am a very happy for my decision. I could totally leave Coke only two weeks ago and now I feel much better.

Tomorrow is another Day
One of the things that you should remember is that there is always another day in tomorrow. Sometimes, we get too much carried away with a breaking news or some important event and then we try to stay awake whole night. Once in a month or twice in a month we may need to do it and there is nothing wrong in it. As long as the day after or in the next day you take proper rest. For example, suppose today iPhone 5G is released and then you have to wake up whole night and work naturally many people will come to visit your blog and you need to give them as much information as possible. As a professional blogger, we all have to do this kind of thing from time to time. However, what many of us do not do is that we should take rest another one or two days. We should take complete rest for one day as soon as we can after such a big night. Secondly, even if you miss something today then you can always be sure that tomorrow or next week another big event will happen. In fact, this is life and in this world, everyday something important is happening. You don’t need to be worried.

Be kind with Your Hands and Fingers  
If you are a professional blogger then naturally you have to write a lot. By writing I am not just implying that you have to write an entry but it is more than that. You have to submit your content on social bookmarking sites. You have to email other people about your entry. You have to write comment in other blog. So, our hands and fingers suffer a lot of pressure everyday. So, it is too much needed that we learn to give our hand a break from time to time.
I just mentioned that we need to give our hand some break. We need to do it because if we do not do it then we will suffer disease and it will be very difficult for us to type after certain number of years. Now, you may wonder if you are a professional blogger then how it is possible to give regular rest to your hand. You have to do some certain things and if you do not do then you cannot become successful in blogging.
Well, you are 100% right but at the same time try to investigate it how you can save time and energy for your hand. For example, I have one very bad habit which I am trying to give up. I check the Sitemeter of my blogs almost every five minutes. So, I have to click on the mouse several times each hour only for this matter. If I just can stop this and just check the Sitemeter once an hour then it will bring some more comfort for my hands and for my fingers. I also will need to sit for less time in my PC.

Eyes are Important
When we are working with our computer or laptop then all the time we are keeping our eyes open and working in front of the monitor. The good thing is that these days almost everyone is trying to buy an LCD monitor and it is much more comfortable then the traditional CRT monitor. However, still, for many hours everyday we have to keep our eyes open. So, the best way is that you try to keep yours eyes closed at least for one minute in one hour. It does not seem a lot but it will help your eyes to get some comfort. Just remember to do it regularly and it will bring a lot of comfort for your eyes. From time to time go to the washroom and wash your face which will bring some freshness.

Are you ready for the Challenge?
My last advice for you is that if you find professional blogging too much challenging for your health then may be it is not the right job for you. After all, blogging really needs a lot of physical and mental challenge and pressure. Many people think that blogging is very easy. You just need to write anything you wish and then put some advertisement and earn money. However, we professional bloggers like me know that it is one of the most difficult and challenging jobs in the world. It is full of uncertainty and it creates a lot of pressure on nerve. Last year, I suffered too much in my nerves when the recession took place in USA. I do not live in USA but because I am dependent on Google Adsense and I saw my earning from Adsense fall too much in such a short time that I really became afraid and it created a lot of stress in my mind.
The last thing I want to say to you is that I am not a doctor or any kind of specialist. Here, I just gave you some tips from my own experience. If you like then think about them and if you need consult a doctor. I never claim that my blog and entry can be a good substitute or even a bad substitute for any kind of medical advice. Thanks a lot for reading. If you like the entry then put a comment and let us discuss about it even further. 

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