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I appreciated this. Lots of solid advice and positive and pragmatic thinking here about aging in the context of being a programmer, and more generally too. I'l

I appreciated this. Lots of solid advice and positive and pragmatic thinking here about aging in the context of being a programmer, and more generally too. I'll take this opportunity to make a related pitch regarding back pain in particular, which can become more of a problem if you are sedentary as so many programmers are: if you have chronic back issues you owe it to yourself to at least check out Stuart McGill's Back Mechanic (https://www.backfitpro.com/books/back-mechanic-the-mcgill-method-to-fix-back-pain/ https://www.backfitpro.com/books/back-mechanic-the-mcgill-me...). It's very much in line with this post; in particular the idea that you just have to deal with back pain as a fact of life is--for most people--not the case. Please take a look if you are struggling with back pain. The process he lays out takes work but it's based on solid research and experience and it has helped me tremendously.

kbbgl87 2y ago
Just got that book yesterday because I've been struggling with managing my back pain. Hopefully it'll help mitigate it.
cjbgkagh 2y ago
Programmers are much more likely than the general population to have hyper-mobility. I am so hypermobile that none of the traditional ergonomics techniques, including physical therapy, work well enough and I have resorted to using a reclining chair. The reclining chair has worked out great and I really wish I had tried it much sooner. I had not considered it earlier because all of the advice I had received was that it was damaging.
- dtdynasty 2y ago
  > Programmers are much more likely than the general population to have hyper-mobility. This does not seem intuitive to me. Why would this be the case?
  - cjbgkagh 2y ago
    I noticed it in general observationally and later found a generic explanation for it. I used to do behavioral analytics and noticed that programmers tend to have a distinct clustering of behaviors. I’m pretty sure it’s the TNXB gene, it’s been overlooked because it’s traditionally hard to sequence but modern sequencing 30x or long reads can find SNPs here. A colleague who has the same rare set of behaviors and interest as me and is also hyper-mobile had found that he has a TNXB SNP combination that should by random chance only occur in 1/10K people, I subsequently did a DNA test and found that I too had the same SNPs. I have since collected more samples from friends and colleagues who are world class in their fields and so far 5 of 5 have had the same TNXB SNPs. It also appears that in reality this combination is much more common than random chance due to sexual selection which should underscore how behaviorally impactful it is. Hyper mobility is considered a spectrum and a theory that I’m yet to prove is that the spectrum is almost entirely down to the number and type of TNXB SNPs. And it appears that people on this spectrum are more likely to be programmers. Consider the over representation of transgenderism in programming. That same over representation exists in hyper-mobility and I would suggest this is due to a common cause.
    - lupire 2y ago
      These conditions (hypermobilty, transgenderism, programming) are all part of the autism cluster.
      - seanw444 2y ago
        Programmers might be one of the most autistic cliques I've seen, so this checks out. That's both a good and bad thing.
      - cjbgkagh 2y ago
        That is true, I tend to use transgenderism instead of autism because the data is cleaner and that more than makes up for the smaller sample sizes. At least for the things I am interested in. But for internet discussions I should have used the autism cluster instead.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- mikestew 2y ago
  Programmers are much more likely than the general population to have hyper-mobility Boy, that one comes with a whole lot of [citation needed].
  - solumunus 2y ago
    I strongly doubt. Why would this be the case?
    - Jtsummers 2y ago
      Do you mean why would it be the case that a strong claim needs citation? Because it's a strong claim with no evidence (they provided some in another comment, sample size of 5...). If you mean the claim itself, the person you responded to did not make it.
      - cjbgkagh 2y ago
        The sample is biased and intentionally so, the prior probabilities are pulled from general population statistics. Consider the likelihood of an event that should only occur 1/10K times happening 5 times in a row due to random chance, it is incredibly small.
  - volkl48 2y ago
    Not really an expert in the topic, and so I can't comment much on the mechanisms why, but AFAIK there's a decent body of evidence that hypermobility is significantly more common in the ADHD + Autism populations than the general public....and I don't think there's much debate that those populations are more likely to be programmers than the general public. Haven't reviewed in depth, but here's an example to support that claim that looks reasonably credible from a quick review - for some types of hypermobility at least, 5x more likely for Adult ADHD, we're not necessarily talking some kind of small/statistical noise level difference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34560594/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34560594/
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- OJFord 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermobility_(joints) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermobility_(joints) I think everyone doubting, saying counter-intuitive etc. is making a spot interpretation of what the term means ('very active sporty person' or something).
  - NotSammyHagar 2y ago
    just say double jointed - I had to look it up too.
PaulHoule 2y ago
See also https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539720/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539720/ McKenzie's ideas helped me greatly with back pain but did not help with my neck pain I got later. After some years I discovered I had trouble in my jaw which caused referred pain to my neck and shoulders. My dentist recommended a bite guard for my tooth grinding, at which point the pain quickly localized in my jaw and slowly got better -- maybe it hurts a bit one or two days a month now. The simplified version of McKenzie is that you have back pain because you don't have enough flexibility to be comfortable in a neutral position and your muscles are pushing against each other, it's like the pain you'd have if you used one hand to squish the fingers on your other hand. Exercises that stretch backwards like https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/how-to-do-cobra-pose https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/how-to-do-cobra-pose really help, although my favorite is Lowen's "Bioenergetic arch" which is terribly obscure (can't find it online except for a comment about it that I wrote on Reddit years ago!) like most of Lowen's work https://www.amazon.com/Bioenergetics-Revolutionary-Therapy-Language-Problems/dp/0140194711 https://www.amazon.com/Bioenergetics-Revolutionary-Therapy-L... and not "destined to become widely influential" which is too bad. You stand with your feet together and put your arms straight up and then stretch backward guided by the visualization that your whole body is bending along a circle. You can do it in a standing position whenever the pain reminds you you have a problem and not have to get down on the floor. ---- Another "life hack" was that once I had tendinitis in my hands that was severe enough I thought I had to quit programming. I started doing plain ordinary push ups and the problem cleared up in two weeks and has stayed away ever since. Might not work for you but you can't lose trying it. My wife was resentful the other day about having to lift a heavy treadmill up the stairs for a person who probably won't make a habit of it. My trainer at the gym told me that the treadmill was the most popular equipment at the gym but also the worst. My trainer introduced me to TRX and kettlebells and I felt pretty stupid because I thought kettlebells were something girls used to look like a dancer in a Kardi B video -- they are that, but they were also one of the Soviet Union's secret weapons when they were crushing everybody in the Olympics. I told my wife that our friend would be better off with something like that and she said "she has back pain" and in my mind the answer to that is that she needs to get stronger, needs the kettlebells more than I do, just she has to start with lighter weights.
- 2y ago
z0r 2y ago
Endorsing Back Mechanic as a great book for fixing back issues, at least for my own experience. Referenced a copy after I first threw out my back. Took months of regular McGill exercises to get back to normal (could barely even walk for a week). It was extremely comforting to know that my back pain problems were fixable, and regressions could be solved with more careful adherence to the exercise regime. I am as active as I have ever been 7 years later, and now I understand the warning signs when I have been mistreating my back. Edit: For the past few years I've also been sitting in a https://qor360.com/ https://qor360.com/ chair when I'm working. I've found I've had fewer warning niggles of incipient back pain during the periods where I regularly sit in this kind of active chair. I could only tolerate it for brief periods at first but the adjustment period was worth working through.
- deivid 2y ago
  Have you compared it to sitting on a yoga ball?
  - z0r 2y ago
    I've tried a yoga ball a few times before and found them to be too unstable / uncomfortable. I haven't compared since starting to use the Ariel 2.0 (for almost 3 years now), but I will say that I enjoy the postures that I can adopt while sitting on what is essentially a fancy stool. A yoga ball wouldn't have the same height or allow me to rest my feet with my legs at the same angle. It's probably important to note that the active sitting chair requires a desk with an adjustable height so you can bring the desk up to the correct level for the chair.

kbbgl87 2y ago

Just got that book yesterday because I've been struggling with managing my back pain. Hopefully it'll help mitigate it.

cjbgkagh 2y ago

Programmers are much more likely than the general population to have hyper-mobility. I am so hypermobile that none of the traditional ergonomics techniques, including physical therapy, work well enough and I have resorted to using a reclining chair. The reclining chair has worked out great and I really wish I had tried it much sooner. I had not considered it earlier because all of the advice I had received was that it was damaging.

dtdynasty 2y ago
> Programmers are much more likely than the general population to have hyper-mobility. This does not seem intuitive to me. Why would this be the case?
- cjbgkagh 2y ago
  I noticed it in general observationally and later found a generic explanation for it. I used to do behavioral analytics and noticed that programmers tend to have a distinct clustering of behaviors. I’m pretty sure it’s the TNXB gene, it’s been overlooked because it’s traditionally hard to sequence but modern sequencing 30x or long reads can find SNPs here. A colleague who has the same rare set of behaviors and interest as me and is also hyper-mobile had found that he has a TNXB SNP combination that should by random chance only occur in 1/10K people, I subsequently did a DNA test and found that I too had the same SNPs. I have since collected more samples from friends and colleagues who are world class in their fields and so far 5 of 5 have had the same TNXB SNPs. It also appears that in reality this combination is much more common than random chance due to sexual selection which should underscore how behaviorally impactful it is. Hyper mobility is considered a spectrum and a theory that I’m yet to prove is that the spectrum is almost entirely down to the number and type of TNXB SNPs. And it appears that people on this spectrum are more likely to be programmers. Consider the over representation of transgenderism in programming. That same over representation exists in hyper-mobility and I would suggest this is due to a common cause.
  - lupire 2y ago
    These conditions (hypermobilty, transgenderism, programming) are all part of the autism cluster.
    - seanw444 2y ago
      Programmers might be one of the most autistic cliques I've seen, so this checks out. That's both a good and bad thing.
    - cjbgkagh 2y ago
      That is true, I tend to use transgenderism instead of autism because the data is cleaner and that more than makes up for the smaller sample sizes. At least for the things I am interested in. But for internet discussions I should have used the autism cluster instead.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
mikestew 2y ago
Programmers are much more likely than the general population to have hyper-mobility Boy, that one comes with a whole lot of [citation needed].
- solumunus 2y ago
  I strongly doubt. Why would this be the case?
  - Jtsummers 2y ago
    Do you mean why would it be the case that a strong claim needs citation? Because it's a strong claim with no evidence (they provided some in another comment, sample size of 5...). If you mean the claim itself, the person you responded to did not make it.
    - cjbgkagh 2y ago
      The sample is biased and intentionally so, the prior probabilities are pulled from general population statistics. Consider the likelihood of an event that should only occur 1/10K times happening 5 times in a row due to random chance, it is incredibly small.
- volkl48 2y ago
  Not really an expert in the topic, and so I can't comment much on the mechanisms why, but AFAIK there's a decent body of evidence that hypermobility is significantly more common in the ADHD + Autism populations than the general public....and I don't think there's much debate that those populations are more likely to be programmers than the general public. Haven't reviewed in depth, but here's an example to support that claim that looks reasonably credible from a quick review - for some types of hypermobility at least, 5x more likely for Adult ADHD, we're not necessarily talking some kind of small/statistical noise level difference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34560594/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34560594/
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
OJFord 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermobility_(joints) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermobility_(joints) I think everyone doubting, saying counter-intuitive etc. is making a spot interpretation of what the term means ('very active sporty person' or something).
- NotSammyHagar 2y ago
  just say double jointed - I had to look it up too.

PaulHoule 2y ago

See also https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539720/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK539720/ McKenzie's ideas helped me greatly with back pain but did not help with my neck pain I got later. After some years I discovered I had trouble in my jaw which caused referred pain to my neck and shoulders. My dentist recommended a bite guard for my tooth grinding, at which point the pain quickly localized in my jaw and slowly got better -- maybe it hurts a bit one or two days a month now. The simplified version of McKenzie is that you have back pain because you don't have enough flexibility to be comfortable in a neutral position and your muscles are pushing against each other, it's like the pain you'd have if you used one hand to squish the fingers on your other hand. Exercises that stretch backwards like https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/how-to-do-cobra-pose https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/how-to-do-cobra-pose really help, although my favorite is Lowen's "Bioenergetic arch" which is terribly obscure (can't find it online except for a comment about it that I wrote on Reddit years ago!) like most of Lowen's work https://www.amazon.com/Bioenergetics-Revolutionary-Therapy-Language-Problems/dp/0140194711 https://www.amazon.com/Bioenergetics-Revolutionary-Therapy-L... and not "destined to become widely influential" which is too bad. You stand with your feet together and put your arms straight up and then stretch backward guided by the visualization that your whole body is bending along a circle. You can do it in a standing position whenever the pain reminds you you have a problem and not have to get down on the floor. ---- Another "life hack" was that once I had tendinitis in my hands that was severe enough I thought I had to quit programming. I started doing plain ordinary push ups and the problem cleared up in two weeks and has stayed away ever since. Might not work for you but you can't lose trying it. My wife was resentful the other day about having to lift a heavy treadmill up the stairs for a person who probably won't make a habit of it. My trainer at the gym told me that the treadmill was the most popular equipment at the gym but also the worst. My trainer introduced me to TRX and kettlebells and I felt pretty stupid because I thought kettlebells were something girls used to look like a dancer in a Kardi B video -- they are that, but they were also one of the Soviet Union's secret weapons when they were crushing everybody in the Olympics. I told my wife that our friend would be better off with something like that and she said "she has back pain" and in my mind the answer to that is that she needs to get stronger, needs the kettlebells more than I do, just she has to start with lighter weights.

2y ago

z0r 2y ago

Endorsing Back Mechanic as a great book for fixing back issues, at least for my own experience. Referenced a copy after I first threw out my back. Took months of regular McGill exercises to get back to normal (could barely even walk for a week). It was extremely comforting to know that my back pain problems were fixable, and regressions could be solved with more careful adherence to the exercise regime. I am as active as I have ever been 7 years later, and now I understand the warning signs when I have been mistreating my back. Edit: For the past few years I've also been sitting in a https://qor360.com/ https://qor360.com/ chair when I'm working. I've found I've had fewer warning niggles of incipient back pain during the periods where I regularly sit in this kind of active chair. I could only tolerate it for brief periods at first but the adjustment period was worth working through.

deivid 2y ago
Have you compared it to sitting on a yoga ball?
- z0r 2y ago
  I've tried a yoga ball a few times before and found them to be too unstable / uncomfortable. I haven't compared since starting to use the Ariel 2.0 (for almost 3 years now), but I will say that I enjoy the postures that I can adopt while sitting on what is essentially a fancy stool. A yoga ball wouldn't have the same height or allow me to rest my feet with my legs at the same angle. It's probably important to note that the active sitting chair requires a desk with an adjustable height so you can bring the desk up to the correct level for the chair.