Today in the NYT there’s a piece about bloggers blogging til they drop and the impact of blogging on health. I’ve been asked numerous times since the article came out for comment and I’ve had a few random thoughts. Let me post them as a stream of consciousness type post:

• For starters I think people in all occupations can get stressed and suffer from ill health. I’ve had friends pass away from and survive heart attacks who work in numerous fields - including blogging. I’m a little skeptical that blogging is any more stressful than other professions - yes it can be a pressure cooker of a job - but I wonder if it’s more about the person, the way they deal with pressure, the choices that they make and the boundaries that they put around themselves etc than the occupation itself.
• Having said that - I’ve had my own little health scare of late with diagnosis of high blood pressure which my doctor thinks could partly be a stress related thing and perhaps related to work. It’s too early to tell and tests go on but it’s becoming clear that I need to make a few more changes in my life in addition to my own increased attempts to eat healthy and exercise more (something I’ve done since late last year). Tomorrow I’m wearing a blood pressure monitor for 24 hours - I’ll be interested to see if it rises or falls when I’m blogging!
• I can see how bloggers might suffer from the impact of a lack of exercise and poor diet. Blogging can be highly addictive and the temptation to blog through meal breaks, skip opportunities to exercise and to eat poorly is no doubt there for most of us. I know until late last year my exercise routines all went completely out the window and I began to put on weight.
• Lack of sleep is another common thing that many of us as bloggers fall into the trap of. I know of quite a few others who suffer from insomnia as a result of blogging right up until bed time and then not being able to ’switch off’.
• Another health related aspect of blogging is that I’ve come across a large number of bloggers lately who suffer from the effects of sitting on poor chairs all day every day. I know for the first few years of my own blogging ‘career’ that I had this problem from sitting on a kitchen chair and then a poor office chair all day. More recently with an investment in a ergonomic chair my back’s been a lot better.

Further Reading:

Let me leave you with three posts on ‘healthy blogging’ - all from Lea Woodward.

• How to be a Happier, Healthier Blogger?
• 7 Unhealthy Eating Habits of Unproductive Bloggers
• How Stressful do You Find Blogging?

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