In the four software organizations I’ve worked for over the years, I’ve found that very few programmers ever take breaks. Some reasons to explain this:

   - Programmers don’t feel the need to take breaks
   - Managers don’t encourage breaks
   - Limited number of suitable break areas
   - Not taking breaks is socially normative amongst programmers

Why take a break? The most obvious reason is to rest one’s eyes and one’s mind. A deeper reason is to get recalibrated with what matte...