No. Your love of creativity and knob twiddling is probably doing more to keep you alive, however, staring down a computer screen all day and half the evening does have some drawbacks.
According to WebMD.com, sitting at the computer too long can cause insomnia, obesity, back, arm and hand injuries and a thing called Computer Vision Syndrome or CVS which is basically, one or all of the following problems: eye strain, tired eyes, irritation, redness and blurry vision. Furthermore, sitting at your console too long can also burn out your ears. Many in the industry refer to this phenomenon as Ear Fatigue. It’s not a medical term but whatever you choose to call it, we’ve all felt the negative effects of it. It starts with an incremental increase in your monitor mix volume and ends with the early morning realization that all the levels on that music bed you’ve been working on all night are all wrong.
That’s why we’ve gathered a quick list of some simple things you can do to stay focused, stay productive and stay healthy while doing your radio gig. Here are some of the obvious ones.
• Take a break! (duh!) It may sound obvious or even ridiculous (especially when you’re in the middle of trying to get a last minute bit together) but believe it – breaks will save you in the long run. The Complete Guide to Public Speaking by Jeff Davidson, states that the average attention span is 7 minutes. Your attention span is probably better than that but odds are you are losing focus after a couple of hours already. Take 5, take a walk, bs with co-workers – anything to break the cycle.
• Brighten your screen (Not too much), choose a higher refresh rate. Your eyes are hurting and your head aches because screen’s refresh rate is set to low, and the flickering of the screen (even though you dont see the flickering) is causing the discomfort in your nugget.
• Place your speakers/monitors 30 degrees to the center line of your room or so that you only see the face and not the sides of your speakers. This will help reduce ear fatigue and give your ears the full spectrum of sound without having to increase the volume. Also, 40 or 50 bucks gets you a sound pressure level meter at Radio Shack http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103667. This thing will help you to mix and monitor and appropriate levels and help keep you from slowly increasing your levels as your ears fatigue.
• Change it up. Don’t spend all day on that same piece of imaging. Move on to another piece to break the monotony.
• Associatedcontent.com tells us to listen on a different system like a ghetto box or a car stereo. Incidentally this will also help you get out of your seat for a couple minutes (kind of a twofer thing)
• Get a mouse that doesn’t destroy your hand/arm, doesn’t break the bank and that doesn’t suck. Logitech has highly rated ones on CNET, particularly the MX1100 http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/mice/devices/4676&cl=us,en Or if you’re into track balls, there an inexpensive option called Track Man Wheel that also fetched good ratings on CNET http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/mice_pointers/trackballs/devices/166&cl=us,en
• Finally, get the sleep you need. The average Joe needs 7 to 8 hours per night. We know this isn’t always possible in this day and age but try to stick with it as much as possible. It will help increase your output. It will also prevent you from throwing carts at salespeople (nice classic reference).
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