Overworking Yourself As A Developer | Mental & Physical Health

[Music] hey what's going on guys so in this video i want to talk a little bit about overworking yourself as a developer i think that a lot of us tend to do this developers are really passionate about what they do so they work long hours and have extra side projects and so on and i think it's something important to address and i don't mean for this to be like a negative type video i know there's a lot of motivational videos out there and you know uh you know hustle and strive for success and that's great i make those videos myself but i also think it's important to address the the the negative parts of it and so that you can prevent things from happening or or learn tips to deal with or just just things to keep an eye on because i really overworked myself i had like four or five years where i worked from basically from when i woke up to when i went to bed and you know i'm grateful for for what i have and i'm proud of what i've done and what i've built but there were some some consequences along the way that i just want to kind of talk about and hopefully some of the younger people some of the the newer people can um learn from my mistakes and prevent some of this stuff from happening and for those of you that have dealt with severe burnout and overworking yourself causing stress you know harming your mental health your physical health hopefully you can kind of relate to this and maybe just keep an eye on it as well so there's basically four things that i want to talk about there's mental health physical health relationships and then hobbies and doing things outside of coding i think that those four things you should really keep an eye on so as far as mental health goes uh i think that it's it's even more complicated for someone that already has like depression and anxiety like myself or even if you have other things like bipolar adhd and in i don't know if this is is actually true or not in fact i kind of want to look this up but it seems like a lot of people that are that are drawn to this industry already have like depression and anxiety or adhd and that's just me saying you know just speaking from anecdotal experience i don't know if that's true or not but it just seems like that and i think that the reason why just overworking yourself and coding day and night can can harm your mental health really two things one it's it's really isolating a lot of us freelance or even just work remotely especially now with covid and even if you do go into an office and you you have a team and you have you know co-workers a lot of times you do communicate with them you'll have meetings but then you kind of go off and do your own thing anyway so it's pretty isolating relative to other jobs and i think that that can can really do harm when you're just by yourself all the time i know for me i get really just wrapped up in in negative thoughts and how i feel i have some physical ailments that i tend to focus on a lot when i'm by myself there's really nobody around to kind of bring me out of that funk that mental funk so i would just i would just you know encourage you to keep an eye on that and try to get out a little more especially when you're not if you don't have to work you know if you're not working for a job or for a client you're just messing around maybe just take an hour away and go for a walk or something like that and we'll talk a little bit more about physical stuff in a minute but i think the other reason why it can kind of be hard on your mental health is because it just takes so much mental energy you know when you're coding at least for me i have to put a hundred percent of my brain power into it and if i'm doing that for 8 10 12 hours a day it's just exhausting it's it's mentally draining and people that don't write code they don't understand that they think it's just a nice cushy job but it's mentally draining if you have a significant other and you you code for 10 hours straight you're not going to want to have deep conversations with them and it's going to harm your relationships you know um and and just harm your mental health in general because you're just so drained you don't have any energy left for anything and i know that some of you are probably like 20 years old and you're like what the hell's he talking about i can code all night and i'm fine but as you get older it catches up with you you know i'm not an old man but i'm going to be friggin 40 this year which is crazy but i've noticed that i get tired mentally drained and physically drained much much easier than i did you know when i was 30. so just just keep an eye on it that's all i'm saying as far as relationships go like i said it can it can be draining so you have you can have problems in your relationships for me when i was overworking myself i was stressed out and i'd snap and and just kind of be angry and cause arguments with my wife and also just miss a lot of time that's another thing if you have kids that work life balance is really really important because your kids need more from you than just just for you to be a provider they need a father or mother so it's important to to take time for them and not just be so so wrapped up in your work that you're ignoring them and you're not building any memories with them or relationships or bonds with them so really important if you're a parent so if you i know a lot of developers that i talk to don't you know they don't have families um they're some of them are younger even then it's important to just have connections with friends with your with your family like your brothers sisters parents whatever it's just important to have some kind of connection with other human beings i know a lot of us don't like that i mean i like being by myself that's where i'm the most comfortable but it's not healthy it's not good for me just because i enjoy it doesn't mean that it's it's it's healthy so you should try and connect with other people regardless of you know even if you feel like you don't want to so relationships and then also physical health obviously people that aren't developers don't really understand how taxing it is because they think it's again a cushy job but you know if you're a construction worker you do have a risk of getting hurt hurting your back or something but other than that it's it's healthy it's you're moving around you're exercising your body is is in motion we just you know sit all day so i mean that's the worst thing you can do for your body is just be sedentary all day so i would definitely recommend like a sit stand desk and use it don't just don't just sit and don't just stand you want to switch off every whatever hour and a half two hours just make sure that your body is moving take breaks every however long everyone's different i don't like the the pomodoro thing every 25 minutes i like to do like an hour and a half because i feel like 25 minutes isn't enough for me to get in the zone and start to um you know get into whatever it is i'm doing so i need a little longer than that but then i'll take a really long break in the middle of the day to go to the gym walk on the treadmill get some exercise which is another really important thing since you're you're in the same position all day it's important to really get get out and get some exercise go for a walk go to the gym you know if gyms are open wherever you are and and you feel safe there obviously but that's really important as well and then having hobbies is is more important than a lot of people think because for me i worked you know programming and i also it was also my hobby i mean it was it was what i like to do and what i felt most comfortable doing and i know a lot of people feel the same way but again just because you like it doesn't mean it's really good for you so you should try to find things that you like outside of coding outside of a screen really i know a lot of us like gaming i like it myself you're still just sitting there staring at a screen you know so for me i like music i like djing um when i had my my little crash last year because i was overworking myself i did a little bit of photography and going out more and like in nature that can really be beneficial and be kind of therapeutic so um just anything gardening sports uh if you if you're doing something where you're moving around that's even better you're kind of killing two birds with one stone there but um yeah so i think just having hobbies outside of coding is important you know and and i don't mean i hope this video doesn't come off as like you know cut your work in half or whatever it's just it's just to have you keep these things in mind you know whether you're younger and you don't have these issues yet or you're a little older you've been doing this for a while and you know exactly what i'm talking about just keep an eye on it you know so that's really all i wanted to talk about it's something that's been on my mind lately i feel like i'm kind of creeping up to that you know that level where i need to maybe i don't take a couple days off and go do something else so i wanted to make a video on that and that's it hopefully you guys enjoyed it and i'll see you next time

Channel: Traversy Media

Views: 63,465

Rating: 4.9883909 out of 5

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Id: BKQVqzhnP8I

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 28 2021