A computer programmer from Hucknall is highlighting the importance of mental health when it comes to home working.

Lawrence Turton, who still lives in Hucknall, has recently relaunched Avelx his own web and graphic design company that he started at secondary school. After working for a few Blue chip companies, he has now decided to run his own business from home. Alongside this, he makes short Youtube videos to encourage, inform and begin conversations with members of the programming and computing community.

One of his recent videos focused on top tips to help with mental health when working from home. This is something he now finds himself doing on a permanent basis and while he relishes the freedom homeworking provides he feels it's important for people to take regular breaks and find a work life balance.

Speaking exclusively to Nub News he said: "All the roles that I want now are going to be based from home, that flexibility is amazing, and I think that that can tie into mental health, where you can set allocated spaces if you've got a house that's big enough. Or you can just allocate yourself some space, do some potential exercises, dumbbells don't take up much space, or if you want a yoga mat, or a chill zone or an Xbox zone where you can go and play some games.

"I'd always go with working from home even though people sometimes find that difficult, the amount of time that you save is ridiculous. The flexibility in which you can work is crazy, especially if you've got a family, you can go on walks with each other to the park, you can do all sorts of things that you just couldn't do at a desk job."

He highlights the importance of doing anything that breaks up long periods of staring at the screen. This can be in the form of leaving the room you were working in completely and making a drink or just doing something as simple as stretching in your seat.

"Stretching is so important, my posture was terrible. The one thing that you don't notice is you'll stare at your screen and then the back of your neck will go and it'll be sore. You'll realise your posture has been that bad because you've been sat in that one position. It can be bad for your blood flow, it can be bad for stress related things so you can get stressed out on issues, and if you're not prepared to take that little breather or take a step away then there's a whole lot of problems that come with that as well. Swivelling around on the chair, doing something silly, just to stop yourself getting wound up is a really great technique too if you've got enough space."

Mr Turton has been interested in computing from a very young age so his career path has come as no surprise to those who know him well.

"I always had a passion for technology and software development. Basically that's where it all started from, when I was a teenager just coding in my bedroom. My whole career has been computer focused."

He also has a range of courses that teach people how to programme, these range from courses for absolute beginners to more complicated courses for those looking to sharpen their skills. These have proved very popular and regularly receive good feedback.

"Programming 101 that is a course that I wish I'd have had when I started out programming. I recorded it years ago and it's still one of my top courses. Everyone who's done it has said I've learnt all these other things about programming languages based off this course because everything was confusing to them, things didn't make sense to them, how the computer actually works, people think there's no real intrinsic value in that but there's a huge value in that.

"I not only want to show you the fundamentals I actually want you to understand the fundamentals so you can build off a better foundation.

"The more you learn the more you earn that's what we say in the industry. If you're prepared to learn more and more. Now that everything's remote working it's opened up that fresh opportunity, there's so much competition out there there's no shortage of jobs you're a kid in the candy store if you've got the right skills."

If you want to find out more about Avelx or one of the courses they offer then visit their website by clicking here .

To view Lawrence's Youtube video on mental health, please see here .