A lot of people say that anything that is “too much” is bad. Apparently, blogging is no exception to this especially when it comes to the health of its users.Most blogging health risks are caused by too much stress due to over-working, some are from spending too much time in front of computer. Whatever the causes are, we could clearly see that in our effort to do more, we unknowingly risk ourselves to dangers that may affect our future in Blogging.So what are these health hazards that bloggers should be aware of? Here are some of them arranged from the least serious to the more fatal ones:

Tension Headache

Who doesn’t hate headaches? Not only does it hurt like hell, it also hampers one’s concentration making it much harder to finish a task.

Description: Tension headaches, are sometimes called “stress” headaches. The pain can radiate from the neck, back, eyes, or other muscle groups in the body. (source)

Caused by environmental or internal stress. The most common sources of Tension headaches are caused by the stresses of too much work and thinking.

Treatment: Pain relievers such as Aspirin and Ibuprofen could help in treating tension headaches. A therapy on stress-management may also help to help reduce or prevent it.

Physical and Mental Fatigue

A lot of us tend to overexert ourselves working ourselves to a pulp just for the sake of getting more money through our blogs. We work until we couldn’t even move a finger.

Description: Physical fatigue is a direct term for the inability to exert force with one’s muscles to the degree that would be expected given the individual’s general physical fitness. In addition to physical, fatigue also includes mental fatigue, that not necessarily includes any muscle fatigue but can manifest itself both as somnolence (decreased wakefulness) or just as a general decrease of attention. (source)

Caused by stress from too much work. Other causes are jet lag or active recreation, depression, boredom, disease and lack of sleep.

What to do: If possible, try to reduce the amount of workload that you do everyday, this is possible through the use of effective time and productivity management. Also, get enough sleep and eat energy-giving foods.

Other reads: Zen Habits – A blog about productivity. Highly recommended!

Back Pain

Ever notice that as you concentrate more on the task that you are doing in front of your computer, you involuntarily slouch slowly towards your monitor? Then after straightening out, you feel a pain at your lower back? That’s a back pain.

Description: Back pain is not a diagnosis — it’s a symptom of an underlying condition. Common back pain causes include nerve problems, disc problems, osteoarthritis, and muscular problems. (source)

Caused by poor sitting posture and incorrect positions of chair and monitor.

What to do: Observe proper sitting posture at all times. Make sure that the position of your chair from your monitor is not too far enough to avoid having to slouch.

Other Reads: How To Avoid Leaning Into Your Computer From Your Chair, Proper Seating Posture

Eye Strain

Blogging requires our eyes to be fixated on our monitor at all times. We use it to read, to write, to see our stats, and even our Adsense earnings. From this, we could see that the eye is the most important body part to a blogger. However, nobody seems to care if they wear out.

Description: Eye strain is an ophthalmological condition that manifests itself through nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue, red eyes, pain in or around the eyes, blurred vision, headache and occasional double vision. (source)

Caused by staring at the monitor for a very long time.

What to do: Take frequent breaks and let your eyes focus on other things for a couple of minutes. You could also try resting your eyes by closing it. Oh, and don’t forget to blink a lot while staring at the monitor. It helps lubricate the eye making it more relaxed.

Insomnia

Sometimes the hours during the day are not enough in order for us to finish our blogging activities, this is why most of us tend to work over time until midnight disrupting our regular sleeping pattern causing Insomnia.

Description: Insomnia is a condition in which you have trouble falling or staying asleep. Some people with insomnia may fall asleep easily but wake up too soon. Other people may have the opposite problem, or they have trouble with both falling asleep and staying asleep. The end result is poor-quality sleep that doesn’t leave you feeling refreshed when you wake up. (source)

Caused by major or long-lasting stress and emotional upset. Other cases are caused by disrupted sleep routine because of work schedules or activities.

What to do: Follow a healthy sleeping routine and stick with it.

Deep Vein Thrombosis

Bloggers are known to spend hours sitting in front of computers, sometimes without moving at all except for the fingers and eyes. Aside from flattening of buttocks, one more thing that bloggers should be concerned of is the Deep Vein Thrombosis.

Description: Deep Vein Thrombosis is blood clotting in the veins of the inner thigh or leg. Also known as the “economy-class syndrome”, a common condition when in air travel (source)

Caused by sitting in front of the computer for hours.

What to do: Take a couple of breaks between tasks and regulate your blood flow by doing some leg stretching exercises or simply by standing or walking around.

News Clipping: A 32-year-old New Zealand man, who spent up to 12 hours every day on his computer, almost died after developing a serious case of deep vein thrombosis. (source)

RSI: Repetitive Strain Injury

Typing and mouse use are two movements that bloggers repeat over and over throughout a blogging activity. Beware, this repetitive movements may cause Repetitive Strain Injury.

Description: A condition resulting from overuse of a tool, eg. computer, guitar, knife, etc. or other activity that requires repeated movements. It is a syndrome that affects muscles, tendons and nerves in the hands, arms and upper back. (source)

Caused by poor posture and repetitive motions of body parts (In a blogger’s case: the wrist and hands).

What to do: Make sure that you give your hands and wrists some exercises between breaks.

Other Reads: Hand/Wrist exercises

Heart Attack

Yes, it happens! (See news clipping below) So even if you are not yet old, you may want to be more wary of a heart attack. Yeah, more reasons to cut on that smoking and eating fatty foods.

Description: A heart attack is the death of a heart muscle from the sudden blockage of a coronary artery by a blood clot. (source)

Caused by lots of different factors. Stress is just one of them. Bloggers who are frequent smokers, of old age, obese, people who have diabetes and high blood pressure have a higher risk of a heart attack.

What to do: Have a healthy diet and lifestyle. For more tips on how to avoid heart attacks, go here and here.

News clipping: Om Malik, the famous blogger behind GigaOM, had suffered a heart-attack last December 28, 2007. It was believed that the reason for his heart attack was because of the overwhelming stress of the management of his blogs.

Like in any other line of work, our health must always come first.

Hope this helps. Happy blogging!

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