I, like many humans, am a creature of habit, and tend to settle right in to routine and the daily tick, tick, tick that consistency creates.

In 2013, one of my favourite habits that I fell into was my Saturday morning productivity storm.

Saturday mornings were mine alone. My fiancé would sleep in, and I would be up early with the dogs. I would sit on our sectional, feet in fuzzy slippers, with my daschund to my left and my boston terrier to my right, sipping coffee and answering email, writing and scheduling posts, working on SEO.

As a result, my blogs thrived, my dogs got their much-needed “mom” time, and I started my day in a productive but not overly stressful way.

I became super enthusiastic about starting and growing websites. After starting Suburban Finance, and seeing the statistics climb and the readership grow, I began starting more websites, and my time on my laptop on Saturday mornings grew to early Saturday afternoons, and also Saturday evenings when I happened to be staying home.

My back began to get sore after hours hunched in front of my laptop. Since I work in front of a computer as well for my day job, I wasn’t surprised. I began going to massage therapy weekly to deal with the cricks in my neck.

My social life began to wane, and in response, I began scheduling social events left, right and centre to make up for it, all the while maintaining my websites with the same vigour as before.

Then, one weekend in December, as I cut shortbread cookies into festive shapes, and my fiancé pried the dough off the counter with a flipper to bake in the oven, I lost partial vision in my left eye. I sat down for a moment, thinking I was just getting a dizzy spell at a particularly hormonal time of the month. After about an hour, my vision came back and I got back to baking with my fiancé.

As I went to put our last batch in the oven, my fingers on my left hand began to tingle, followed by the left side of my mouth – bottom lip particularly.

Then, BAM. My head began to pulse and a dull, aching pain crept behind my right eye and made itself comfortable. With my eyes closed, I pictured tiny men with big hammers knocking on my skull. A migraine.

I’d never had a migraine before, though I was prone to serious headaches, so this threw me for a loop. I was camped out on my couch, blanket up over my head, lights dimmed, earplugs in. No amount of temple massage will make a migraine go away, try as I might.

My fiancé was left to do the Sunday weekend wrap up by himself. Loads of laundry in the washing machine, dryer, folded, put away. Groceries bought, dinner made, kitchen cleaned. Sheets steamed, on the bed, bed made. Dogs walked, fed, watered, played with. Floor swept, washed, ready for the week ahead.

Encouraged by my mother, I ended up at a local walk in clinic, and, after having waited an hour, spoke to the doctor for five short minutes. “Migraine,” he said, barely glancing up at me. “What were you doing before it came on? Are you under a lot of stress? Were you straining your eyes?”. “Well,” I started, thinking back to the morning before. “I wrote ~4,000 words and then played around with my websites for a little while”. “What is a “little while?” An hour?”. I did a quick calculation based on when I woke up and when my fiancé got up. “More like four or five”.

There you have it.

Apparently spending 4-5 hours per day, on top of your computer based day job, as well as using your phone, television, and Kindle – all day, ever day – is bad for your health. Or at least is an obvious migraine starter.

Who knew?

Have you ever tried to cut down on technology?