Workrave

The majority of Ghacks readers are geeks, or at least interested in software and technology in general.It is likely that you spend many hours a day in front of the computer, notebook or other electronic devices and seldom take a break to rest. The only pauses that seem to be fairly common are getting up to get another coffee - or tea if you favor that drink - and to visit the restroom. So, work is rather unhealthy.

Workrave is a freeware program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The program frequently alerts you to take micro-pauses, rest breaks and restricts you to your daily limit.

This is a excellent way to stay healthy even if you have to work on a computer for eight or more hours per day. Workrave is compatible to Windows, Linux and other nix operating systems.

Workrave comes with preferences that leave little to be desired. You can for instance customize the timers, including the interval before the program prompts you to break, and the actual pause duration. Next to that it is furthermore possible to disable the prompt that appears before the break, or the ability to postpone a break, to force breaks after a certain time, and to enable networking support.

You find those options for both micro-breaks and rest breaks, with options to disable one or the other. Micro breaks are set to occur every 3 minutes, and last for 30 seconds, which may be a too high frequency for most users. Even with options to postpone the micro-breaks, it is still more of a nuisance to take short breaks this often.

The basic idea of the program is to give users audio-visual reminders that they have to take breaks to rest their eyes, and move their body around. That, coupled with the option to force breaks, can be an ideal way have us geeks take our eyes away from the computer monitor for the time of the break.

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