Why Mental & Physical Health is Important for Developers?

Why Mental & Physical Health is Important for Developers?

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4 min read

Hello ๐Ÿ‘‹ guys, today I'm discussing life lessons that I learned from my life and share my experiences with life that teaches me lots of invaluable things.

Everyone is talking about fancy technologies, programming contents & tech trends but no one talking about mental and physical health. Why it's important for software engineers & why you should care about mental and physical fitness? Let's dive in!

Zero of all ๐Ÿ˜ (programmers always start with 0!) I'm working as a full-time remote developer in a SaaS product company. The biggest challenge I face nowadays is loneliness, lack of support, mentoring & motivation, you always have to find your solutions on your own no one can help during remote work. Many of you guys also face this same situation while working remotely. And that's the way you learn on your own.

This causes unusual stress in the mind, leads to negative thoughts, you feel less energetic. And don't forget to add Imposter Syndrome (it's trying to become the best friend of programmers). If such a person faces this situation for a long time eventually they fall into depression or feel depressed during most of the time of the day.

Programmers can do lots of logical work and it consumes lots of mental energy, sometimes we have to put 100% of our brainpower to do such tasks. If such a person works 8 hrs a day, they put lots of brainpower into programming after that they don't have any energy left to do such normal tasks. They feel tired not physically but mentally and normal people can't understand your situation. Normal people always think that you do a very cool job, working from home, having the latest & fancy gadgets for work, flexible work hours etc.

But they don't understand how much energy you put to do that job, always do mentally challenged task to solve real-world problems and many of us do that because we like to solve complex problems & that's why we become a developer. But if you don't get enough support from friends, family, colleagues you feel stressed sometimes.

So how to avoid this stressful routine? You have to become physically active, do some exercises, go for a walk after finishing work. Hit the gym if you like to do some heavy workouts or Cardio. By doing exercises we feel better our mind get refreshed, you have to meet some like-minded peoples at Gym. At least you have some social interaction and that's important too. Because we are a human being and we can not live whole life alone. By the way, most of the programmer (and I) don't like more social interaction.

You can spend time with your friends, family or with loved ones so that you can't feel alone. Do some activities you like with your friends such as play games, go for a ride etc. By doing this you feel refreshed, your mind feels energetic and you are ready for the next day.

If you living alone then that's hard to find such person or friends you like to spend time with or if you don't find like-minded people, you can do such activities that you like out of programming. Such as listening to music, play games, learn new things like art or musical instruments, by doing that you can not only learn new things but also it helps to refresh your mind, you feel positive about something, don't have a negative thought in mind.

It's important to maintain mental and physical fitness for developers. It plays a crucial role in developers life, without that we can not do work easily or with full energy. If you have to work & live life efficiently then go and find some mentor or accountability partner who helps you whenever you stuck in your life or coding journey(whatever it is). Find that person whom you can trust on.

Don't hesitate to get help from them, they help you to get things done in a proper way and guide you throughout the way. Because they already passed through most of these situations you face right now. Having an accountability partner is important in life but finding such a person isn't as easy as it looks like. If you found one then you are lucky! Keep one thing in mind that your accountability partner should not necessarily be a technical person, he or she can be anyone who likes to help you throughout your journey.

That's it for today, there are lots of things to discuss on this topic. You also share your thoughts on this and what do you think about this let me know in the comments below.

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