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DevStretch: The Antiburnout Protocol for Devs Who Forgot They Have Bodies

Thea on March 01, 2026

The Community Let’s be honest: most of us treat our physical bodies like a deprecated legacy dependency. It’s still running, it’s techni...
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david duymelinck

but it hasn't had an update in years

I would say it has years of technical debt. Too much to fix without restarting the project.

It looks like a fun project and I love the use of the API's.

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highflyer910 profile image
Thea

Lol, exactly! I’m trying to avoid a full “hardware refresh” for as long as possible. Incremental spine refactoring is much cheaper 😄
And thank you 😊

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MaxxMini

The naming convention alone is worth installing this — "Refactor Your Spine" and git commit --water genuinely made me laugh.

Technical question about the Wake Lock API: have you noticed any difference in battery drain between keeping the screen active vs. just using background notifications? I've been curious whether the Wake Lock + Service Worker combo causes noticeable power consumption on older Android devices.

The notification debugging struggle is painfully relatable. I hit the same wall with registration.showNotification() — the gap between "permission granted" and "notification actually visible" is one of those browser API trust issues that documentation barely covers. Have you considered falling back to a vibration pattern (navigator.vibrate()) as a secondary signal for mobile users when notifications get swallowed?

Also love the zero-dependency approach. Vanilla JS for a PWA this polished proves you don't need a framework to ship something genuinely useful.

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Thea

Thank you! I really appreciate that 😊
Tbh, I haven’t done detailed testing on older Android devices yet, but since a full session is about 18 minutes, the battery impact has been very small in real use. Without Wake Lock, the screen dims during the workout, which is an annoying UX:)

And the vibration fallback is a great idea! It would feel much more natural on mobile, so I’ll definitely experiment with that next...

Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback!

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Carolyn Boyle

This is fantastic! Thank you.

The crisis sensor in my chair chose to activate while I was in the middle of this weekend sprint challenge, and now I can't adjust the height and my back is killing me.

I know include neck rolls as a part of every git push.

Much needed.

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highflyer910 profile image
Thea

I feel this🙈
I actually had my own chair crisis recently, and that’s part of what pushed me to build this, and I’ve been trying to work standing more often now, and it really makes a difference...
Neck rolls after every git push is a solid rule, though:)
Hope your back feels better soon!

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Alexander van Rossum

Absolutely love the spirit and intent behind this.

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Thea

Thank you 😊 Small habits > long-term damage

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Arend-Jan Van Drongelen

I really like this. Great style, and fun stuff! The green countdown timer gets me:) Favorite: git commit--water.

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Thea

Thank you! And yes, git commit --water might be the most important command in the whole project :)

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Jon Retting

Thank you for this!

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Thea

You are welcome! That means a lot 😊

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Igor Ferreira Magalhães Silva

guys, we all need to make an work out. I recommend Jiu jitsu, everyone of us need to knows a martial art, BJJ (brazilian jiu jitsu) is perfect for our body, and mindset, Try it someday.