If you're a programmer, you're a knowledge worker. You take raw materials like API documents and a twist of domain knowledge, run that through your brain and you produce real software that does real things.
With a job like that you should be concerned about how well your brain is functioning. Your ability to think and create is pretty much everything you bring to the table. You're not bringing connections, a strong back or winning personality if you're anything like most of the programmers I know.
So how do you maximize your brain? I've been interested in that topic lately. My most recent read is the book Brain Rules. John Medina goes through 12 high-level insights that aid in our understanding of how the brain works.
I really suggest reading the book so I'm not going to take all of his thunder. There are some big points that I think are worth sharing though.
Rule #1 - Exercise Exercise gives you a more efficient system to feed and remove waste from your brain. Exercise increases chemicals that pretty much function as Miracle-Gro for your brain.
He recommends daily motion punctuated by 2-3 sessions of harsh activity. Adding strength training would be even better.
Rule #7 - Sleep 30% of people aren't comfortable with the normal 9-5 work day. It's in your best interest as a company to account for these differences.
Our brain is very active during sleep. A good analogy is that during sleep your brain gathers all the post-it notes you have accumulated throughout the day and has added those concepts to the relational database in your brain. Drawing correlations and categorizing data.
He describes a study where students were shown a circuitous solution to a problem. It was set up such that there was a better method of solving the problem that required some creativity to discover.
Expose subjects to the problem and let them go away for 12 hours. If those 12 hours did not include sleep 20% of the people figure out the better solution. If the 12 hours did include sleep then 60% of the people figure out the solution. As intuitive as this already should be to us, this amazed me.
You need to use sleep as a tool when solving difficult problems. Another thing I like about the book is he ends each chapter with ways you might use the information presented. The author gives an example of a company should have a meeting later in the day, expose people to the problem and don't conclude the brainstorming until the next morning when everyone has slept on it.
I won't go into any more specific rules. Some of the others are particularly helpful in the context of giving presentations. I have another talk coming up and I have refactored my talk with a lot of the authors suggestions. We'll see how it goes.