6 Ways to Look After your Mental Health as a Developer
Working in tech is awesome, especially as a software developer.
The opportunity to build amazing products, being paid to learn and working with very smart colleagues are just some of the reasons why this profession is so rewarding.
However, software engineering isn’t always a walk in the park. Tight deadlines, adjusting to remote work, fixing major outages and generally, the velocity of the tech industry are some factors that can cause you stress as a developer. Therefore, it’s important to look after yourself and create simple, daily rituals that support a healthy working routine.
Ahead of World Mental Health Day on October the 10th, we asked our software engineers on how they take care of their mental wellbeing.
Here’s what they said
1. Fresh air
Our interim VP of Engineering swears by fresh air and regular doses of sunshine; living in Hamburg means that biking to work or going for a lunchtime stroll around the Alster is easy to integrate into your daily routine.
2. Meditation
Some of us have trouble not thinking about things, so meditation can help you put things into perspective and arrive in the current moment rather than being swept away by thought.
3. The Pomodoro Technique
This technique focuses on working in 25 minute sessions throughout the day.
This can be helpful for focussing efficiently and it encourages you to take regular breaks so that you avoid sitting for hours and hours without moving, drinking water or looking away from your computer screen.
4. Connect with colleagues
At Taxdoo, we encourage everyone to set up or attend ‘Donuts’ (informal online meetings), regardless of department.
Catching up with a colleague over a random Donut or setting up a Developer Donut is a great way to get to know your colleagues and helps you to feel connected and part of a team.
5. Take a break
Coding is awesome and the feeling of completing a task is great, however rest is also important. Why not use your lunch break to talk a walk around the block? You might be surprised at how refreshed you feel.
6. Find a job you love
We all spend a lot of time at work, so it is important to feel comfortable and motivated by your tasks, colleagues and environment.
How do you look after your mental health as a developer?
More articles
- 16 May 2022
- Martin Vassilev
Move in the Right Direction: Top Tips for Tech Professionals on World Mental Health Day 2024
Mental health at work: it’s a topic we’re used to hearing about. But how can we actually make space in our working lives to promote our mental wellbeing? What risks are there? Let’s consider the risks posed by our jobs. Yes, as developers or tech professionals, there are inherent risks posed by our chosen trade! […]
- 16 May 2022
- Alexander Klein
Cypress Best Practices & Troubleshooting
We at Taxdoo use an array of testing techniques: unit tests, integration tests, end-2-end tests, contract testing, browser-based tests, tests against Docker environments as well as tests against real AWS environments, canaries, … and of course some manual testing when automating a test simply isn’t feasible. Looking at the possible techniques, browser-based testing often gets […]
- 16 May 2022
- Taxdoo Engineering
Taxdoo Tech Radar Goes Public
We’re happy to announce that the Tech Radar we have been using internally is now publicly accessible! It can be found here. So what is a Tech Radar? The concept was first popularised by the software consultancy Thoughtworks as a means to share knowledge between their teams working over a wide range of companies and […]