SEVEN bad habits of typical techies! This should be the next title of a bestseller. Unfortunately every software engineer who has a full-time job in India is caught in a cobweb of work-home-work-promotion-work. In the process, he cultivates some vices or habits that are anything but healthy.

Vices is technically not our department. So we shall head towards health. If you are a techie, you already know what we are saying. You probably have already started counting a few things that go wrong every day of your life. Time to face it dude!

Here’s a checklist of your bad habits that are wreaking havoc on your health, and you don’t even know it.

No breakfast mornings: How many of your mornings are ‘plain tea mornings’ or ‘black coffee mornings’? If their number is more than three a week, you are already in trouble. Breakfast, as most experts will tell you, is the most important meal of the day. It’s even okay to miss your dinner sometimes, but almost NEVER okay to skip breakfast. In the morning, your metabolism needs re-fuelling. If this doesn’t happen, it gives birth to acidity followed by headache. While tea or caffeine can prevent that headache temporarily, you are paving way for cardiovascular diseases in the times to come. Resolve today. Start eating breakfast. Go for a full glass of milk or a big jug of juice, if you are in a hurry. Add that by munching an easy-to-cook bread toast. Eat something in the morning. Your body needs it.

Unscheduled eating: Monday’s dinner is usually late, isn’t it? How late? Past 9? Bad. Do you lunch every day at the same time or does it vary? If yes, time to change that too. The reason why we are pushing for regular meal times is because it keeps the metabolic rate up. As a result, you don’t suffer from gas and acidity – something which is often the effect of keeping an empty stomach for a long time.

Dehydrated? : If there’s one golden health rule for a techie, it is this: drink as much water as possible. Why? It keeps you hydrated and keeps up the body fluid as you are having a sedentary routine. If you don’t drink enough water, it becomes a leading cause of indigestion, constipation, gas, increased hunger pangs, dehydration. And female techies, lack of water makes your skin look very dull. Visit the water cooler often. Avoid very cold water, as it does not quench thirst. And do not substitute water with a coke, it’s equally unhealthy.

Compensation on weekends: Of course you can hog once in a while but every weekend especially when you have had a very erratic meal times during the week can be very dangerous. All this accompanied by smoking and hard drinks add to the damage you are doing to your body. In fact, keep the weekends for sweet salads, juices, ice creams and home made less-calorie cakes instead of oily food and alcohol.

Two Cs: Coke and Coffee in access amounts are yet another typical of a techie. Long working hours sometimes make it almost impossible to survive without some vice. Since alcohol is not allowed in offices, people quickly turn to these two unhealthy drinks. These are leading agents of acidity, gas and lack of appetite. These can be very easily replaced with fresh fruit juices that are readily available in office canteens.

Easier said than done? Well then choose between doing and dying.