Do not throw your health away while working on translation jobs!

Do you work to live or live to work? Either way, please do not throw your health away while working on translation jobs!

It is not easy to be a self-employed or freelance translator. You always have to work constantly to save enough reserve for the slow week or month, and pay on-time all your bills, among which the health insurance bill is the largest one in my case. As a single mid-aged man, my premium bill went up to $365.00 per month from this year. I knew some freelance translators decide to drop the health insurance all together. That is not a wise decision in my opinion. There are so many health insurance products, and you got to select one that is reasonable to your situation.

Through all these years by working in front of computers, just about all day and all night (occasionally) long, I developed some approaches to deal with the health issues associated with my life style.

NOTE WELL: I am not a doctor. Please seek medical professionals for help if you have anything happening to you or becoming bothersome to you.

1. Eat well: Be sure not to skip the breakfast, and be sure to have balanced meals. The coffee is good, but it cannot replace your breakfast. I skip my breakfast all the times for about ten years, and then delay my lunch. That is very unhealthy! My body took a heavy toll and developed stomach ulcer. I finally realized it was the time to change. To eat something and eat well is not really a hard thing to do. Sometime, when I know I will miss my breakfast or delay my lunch due to working away from home, I grab one or two bottles of Ensure, a milk-like, multi-nutritional elements packed drink that also offers Lactose Free type.

2. Be sure to sleep before or by 12:00AM. Lately I read that the body does its magic repair work to renew itself from 1AM-3AM while in deep sleeping. If you are wake and working, the body will postpone its scheduled session until the following day, or even later days when it gets the chance. If it missed again, the errors will be piled up, as if a computer has been constantly running and desperately needs to re-start or shut-down once while.

3. Neck pains: Being in a sitting position and staring at the monitor all day long, the stiff neck and neck pain are often experienced. The remedy I developed is to make a custom-made pillow that is designed for me only. This is how to make it. Get a shower towel. Fold at the center landscapewise, and roll it up tightly as you do to a sleeping beg. Put a rubber band at each end to secure it. Test it by lying down and make sure your neck (not head) is rested on this piston-like pillow. Be sure not to make it too thin or too fat. The thumb rule is that your head supporting point should be at the point where your neck touches the pillow. If it does not fit right, roll it open and re-fold it until it fits right, then stitch it up. This pillow is a replacement of your conventional pillow. You will experience the improvement in your neck problems almost instantly.

4. After typing on your keyboard for too long, your wrist, hand, elbow, shoulder can be painful. If the pain is not going away, and affecting your ability to perform the job, you need to see a doctor. There is a job-related disease called carpotunnel (or carpal tunnel) syndrome. If it is temporary, you can use a hot wet towel on the problem area for ten minutes, and while the pores are opening up, put one or two Chinese herbal patches on the skin where the problem is, and change every 24 hours. The best kind I like to use is “伤湿止痛膏”(just say “Shang Shi Zhi Tong Gao” to the shop owner of any Chinese herbal medicine store, they would bring it to you). It is inexpensive, too.

5. Another annoying problem I often have is mouth ulcer. It comes and goes. Very disturbing when it stays for weeks, because it is painful to eat food or drink water. Doctor says it is caused by stress, and of course, no cure. But I found some solutions with the help of my primary doctor (Many doctors do NOT know this! I am not sure if these medications are available everywhere in the world. But, I know they are prescription drugs in the North America.):

(1) When it is just about break, please wipe dry and apply “Betamethasone Dipropinate Lotion USA, 0.05%” (This is a prescription drug!) to the area once every few hours. It is a clear water-like lotion. It stings! But it should kill it before breaking up.

(2) If it did not work and developed into an open ulcer, please wipe dry and apply “Triamcinolone Acetonide Dentel Paste USP, 0.1%” (This is a prescription drug!) to the area once every few hours. It is a medicated gel. It works like a new layer of skin gluing onto the ulcer. Definitely apply it before having meals as well as before going to bed. It not just stops the sting sensations, but also speeds up the healing of new skin due to the medication in it.

(3) Stop consuming acid-forming food, and eat more alkaline-forming food. Here is a chart shows you these two food categories: http://www.liferesearchuniversal.com/acid.html

That’s all from me for now. If you have any good tips, please share with us. Let’s all help each other and live a better and joyful life. Translation is NOT everything we live for in this life after all. Our work is for making us to live better, not for ruining our living quality.