Managing Anxiety and Stress - Insights and Strategies for Daily Life

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer podcast, where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season of Building Better Habits. We are Building Better Developers. We are developing our podcast, matter of fact. So if that's what you're looking for, you came to the right place. I am Rob Brighead. I'm one of the founders of Developineur and I happen to also be a founder of RB Consulting. We're the guys that you come to, the guys, the gals, the peeps that you come to when you have got technology issues. You've got that technology sprawl. You don't really know how to handle what's out there and how does that apply to you and your organization? That's what we do is we maybe build your team, enhance your team, but also to focus on products and services that are out there that you can embrace and do so in a way that allows you to leverage technology to do your job better, to make your company better, more profitable, and all of those things that we want to have so that technology works for you instead of that thing that you cuss at as soon as it turns its back on you. Good things, bad things. I have a lot of these lately, but the good and the bad, I guess it's the bad thing is I went to a show, a musical this weekend, and I'm not going to say what it is, but if you ever see it, you'll know it sucked. I'm just going to like cut to the chase. That is a bad thing. The good thing is, is that we got to the intermission. My wife looked over and was like, I would be more than happy if we walked out right now. And I was like, that's why I married you. Actually, there's other reasons, but that was a good thing. We talked about it. We hemmed and hawed a little bit. We were like, do we really want to? I don't know. And we made the right decision. As we were walking out, she was listening to the opening song for the next act, and she's like, yeah, we made the right decision. So that was a good thing is we didn't waste another hour and a half of our time with the show that we really didn't need to hear, and we had better things to do. As far as challenges The love the pomodoro. I'm just going to keep like beating that drum because doing just a couple of those has been really effective. I do want to go into the, I want to also say that the do the thing you like is really one of those things. It's been a great way to start the year with all of the changes and resolutions and all the stuff that comes with it. I have, I have done very good at 15 minutes a day. I've got my little thing that I do that's like, this is really, it has value. It's a side hustle kind of thing. But it is, it is really for fun. It is the kind of thing that like really, you know, energizes me. And it has been a great way to start my day because I normally do it during the day. I think I had one day I missed. So I was so happy the next day that I took 30 minutes and did two days worth of it basically and caught up as we would say. So I highly recommend find something that you enjoy doing and work that into your day, particularly if it's something you haven't, you're just too busy to do on a normal basis. Even a few minutes a day, you'd be amazed at what the difference is. I'm not going to give him a whole 15 minutes, but a shorter period of time because you guys would just have too much fun listening to him and let Mike introduce himself. Hey everyone. My name is Mike Malosh. I'm one of the co-founders of developer NUR, building better developers. I'm also the founder of Envision QA where we essentially bring test-driven development to software development and businesses. We help small to mid-sized businesses, clinicians, nurses, essentially look at the software that you're working with and help you identify problems with your software or your processes around your software. Because sometimes the cookie cutter software you buy off the shelf does not work for you. And sometimes you find that you are spending more time working for your software than having your software work for you. And that's where we come in. We help you analyze that and we help you come up with a solution to make your lives better and make the software work for you, not the other way around. Good and bad. Good. Finally, we got snow. I love snow. That's the good part. Bad part. I got cabin fever. Really bad. Couldn't get out of the house for a few days and actually could barely get out with the dogs and let them run around. Even though Leila, our blue healer, loves to play in the snow, it froze overnight. And then the next day she's trying to step and crunch and play with the snow and it's solid ice. So that was kind of the bad thing. So we had to keep her kind of calm for the next day or two so her hip would kind of heal. Habits. So this has actually been kind of an interesting week for me. So one of the projects I've been working on, we've kind of been dumped into a new project set with one of the projects I'm working on. And we're dealing with a legacy application that a couple of different teams are working on it, but no one has really stood this thing up in a long time. And the directions are kind of all over the place. So we've been spending probably a couple weeks reading through documentation, trying to figure this thing out. And we finally figured out how to make it work. So I've been spending a lot of time improving my coding skills, figuring out how to break things down. So I've taken a lot of the different habits that we've talked about for these things and really kind of just spending a lot of time ramping up skills on things that I haven't touched in forever. And there's something new technologies. Well, I don't want to say new, but technologies that are new to me, but have actually been sunset it since 2013 that this application still uses. But I it's like, okay, you're using Hornet queue, I'm used to active MQ. It's like, okay, some are message queuing, but I'm dealing with a product that is basically end of life. And they're basically all you have are message boards, there's no support. So it's been fun. So that's the kind of week I've been having. Well, that's actually a good little segue into our topic this time. It's not around we want to want to settle back a little bit, get our notebook and our pencil or notepad and hang out on the couch and talk about anxiety and stress. Now, if you if you spend any time in the the world of like the self help books and how to get ahead and all of these kinds of things and podcasts and all that. One of the things you've heard about a lot is imposter syndrome is people to get into this get into a situation they're just like I don't I don't belong here. I didn't earn this or something like that. This is not where we're where we're going this time around because there's like a there are your fears and stuff like that. And then there's your less defined anxiety type fears. It's the kinds of stuff that you know, when somebody says don't worry and you worry, that's more that kind of thing. It's like, or worry less. You're like, I can't worry less because now I'm worried that I'm going to worry less. And as developers, this is a this is a real challenge. And it's I think part of it is there's a machismo or whatever you want to do, however you want to talk about it with developers where it's like, you know, I didn't sleep for six days, and I wrote 4 billion lines of code and, you know, dealing with the my boss said this, but we managed to get it across the finish line and all that anyways. But there's still I think we brush it off sometimes. I think it's very helpful for us becoming better developers is to figure out how to identify these things, how they affect us, how they impact us, and then how we can fight them because it is very much a devastating way to be productive. It devastates your productivity. It is just in the same lines as burnout. You can think of it as almost I'm going hand in hand to some extent too, is if you go too far and you burn out, you know, that's like you are totally unproductive. And usually burnout occurs at the worst possible time. It's like, you know, your boss is suddenly like said, you know, everybody's got to work 20 hours a day and no vacations, no holidays, no weekends for the next three years. And you're burned out at that point. It's like, well, I can't unburn out during this time anxiety and that kind of stress is the same way. And it really is. I think that's part of what we want to talk about is the differentiation between what is stress versus the anxiety, the, you know, the technical, not just it is stress, but the technical angst kind of thing, not the teen angst. And how we see it. And then we're going to talk about some habits to maybe address that, or to at least improve that with yourself. And I'm going to toss that to Michael first to sort of set the table for this one. Thanks, Rob. Yeah. So one of the things, and I'll be upfront about this, anxiety is something I personally deal with a lot over the years. It's, it comes and goes, and it's just one of those things that you may be feeling just fine. And the next thing, you know, the sky is falling and it's the weirdest thing, especially in our industry, and especially in specific industries as well. One of the things I've noticed a lot for developers, you know, yes, we get stressed. We have deadlines. It's like, oh, you know, I'm trying to get something done. I've got a bug, you know, I'm really stressing, trying to get done. That's not quite the anxiety we're focusing on here. The anxiety we're kind of focusing on here is the type where, yeah, you, you run across that you get across that line. But then once you get done with coding, you put it away. It's still in your mind. You're still thinking about it, or you're thinking about, oh, you know, I got that out there, but is that really going to work? You know, is that going to cause a problem? Or is the software you're working on unstable? So it's like, did you fix it enough to keep things running? Or are you now worried that, oh, it's going to fall down the mountain and, oh, I got to stay by my phone. You kind of get those weird anxiety twitches where you're constantly waiting for something bad to happen or thinking that the sky is falling when it's not. And in particular with software development, some of the key areas where this is really important and unfortunately kind of comes with the job is healthcare. You know, when you're dealing with healthcare software, especially with like hospitals or even police force or, you know, public service, if the software breaks, people's lives potentially could be impacted. And so it's kind of an extra layer of stress and anxiety because if the code goes in, everything works good, but it goes to production and then things go down. You just took a hospital down. That's, you know, that's not stress. That's you're beyond stress at that point. It's like, oh my God, you know, you've got to get it fixed. And it's hard sometimes to differentiate between what is stress and what is anxiety. And I can be stressed for a couple of days, a couple of weeks on a project trying to get things done. But when you get into that anxiety role and you really start to kind of feel bad, you start getting like repeating thoughts in your head about, oh, this is wrong. This is all the what ifs. And it's kind of a strange mindset that you end up in where it's like, everything is probably working fine around you. Like today, today's no different than yesterday, but in your mind, it's a dumpster fire. Everything's wrong, but yet nothing has changed. But in your mind, something's changed. So you've got this level of anxiety that you've got to get out of. And sometimes it can be a part of burnout, but sometimes it could just be you just have a bad day. You just, something triggered it and now you're stuck in this mindset. And that's kind of where my thoughts are when we start talking about anxiety. So with that, this is one of those things that there is that you can't, it's like a disease or something else to some extent where it's like, you can only do so much you're not going to be able to eliminate it. And so I think that's where, when we step into this habit, it's not one of these things where it's like, if you have a habit of grabbing a snack at noon every day that we're going to, maybe you can find an anti-habit to eliminate it. This is more about embracing it a little bit and finding ways through it and things like that. So it's one of those things that's like, instead of saying, all right, I've got to get rid of this. I've got to stop this. It's figuring out how to work through it a little bit more. And so that in itself should hopefully like alleviate, like alleviates one's anxiety about the anxiety is I think that's the hardest part is when you get in a situation where it's like, all right, I feel it even if you can identify it. But if you do that and then you start, as Michael said, if you start going down the paths of well, what could go wrong? Well, now you get to have a whole nother list of things that go wrong because you're in the middle of an anxiety attack or something along those lines that you know you're not at your best. And now you can, depending on what your level of this is, one of the best, one of my favorites that I've used a lot goes back to one of the Tim Ferriss ones is it's basically as you look at stuff and say, well, what's the worst that can happen? And really when you start thinking through that and you do it in a rational way, you're like, well, what's the worst that can happen? Then it can help draw you back a little bit and say, okay, and it helps with like risk and a lot of other stuff involved as well, because then you're like, all right, well, what's the worst going to happen? I could die. Well, okay, then if you die, then I guess the rest of the things don't matter that much. Well, okay, then you start ratcheting it back and the first 500 options are, and then you die. And so you're like, okay, well, then I don't have to worry about it because I'm dead. But then you start getting into the things where you survive. And now it's like, what is, what does that look like? And then starting to think about, well, is that, how likely is that? And then maybe part of that is like, okay, depending on the likelihood, then there are certain things you can do to, you know, to alleviate the bad side of whatever it is, is to sort of like mitigate your risk and things like that, which is what we do all the time. And I think that's why we are so susceptible to anxiety and just overthinking things, because that is our, that is our bread and butter is we sit in our heads a lot. We're, you know, we're working through these problems. We're writing this code and yeah, we're yelling at the computer and stuff like that. But it's, it's really us having arguments in our head. So what are some of the things, because you said that's something you've worked through for a while, that this has been something that's been a part of, you know, what you've, you've struggled with. So what are some of maybe the, the habits or some of the, you know, maybe some of the tools that you've used to, to knock this back a little bit and keep yourself effective? Yeah. So one of the biggest things is figuring out when you're kind of having an episode, because there's, like I said, there's stress and there's anxiety. They are kind of hand in hand, but one is a lot worse than the other. And what I find is if I start getting into those what ifs, like I'm constantly like, what if this or what if that I take a moment and I start writing them down. So first I make a list kind of like Rob said, you know, the Tim Ferriss model, you know, you figure out what's the worst that could happen. Well, you just start writing out, you know, the what ifs, I just write down what's in my head. And then the first thing I do is I kind of do a brain dump and I walk away. If I can leave it on the paper. And if I walk away in about 20 minutes later, I'm not as hyper focused on what's triggering my anxiety. Great. I'm doing well. That works. Sometimes, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it still sticks with you. So then the other thing you do that I've typically tried next is like, I'll pick up a book, I'll try to read, or I'll listen to some music or an audio book. I don't really try to watch TV because TV is visual and it's too easy for me to get fidgety and start picking up my iPad and doing other things. But if you're listening or you're focused on a book, you're kind of focused. You have to either really listen or you have to pay attention to what you're looking at. TV again, yes you can, but it's just too easy to get distracted with the TV. Sometimes with those, I go about 20 minutes to 30 minutes, maybe an hour, and I focus on that. And then sometimes that works. Like I'll be fine. But then there's other times where I just go through episodes where I'm stuck like for hours trying to get through this. And all I can do during those times is just think about, okay, is the situation I'm in today any different than the situation I was in yesterday? I started doing daily compares and it's like, okay, nothing has changed. The only thing that's really changed is something triggered my thoughts down this path. You know, something triggered the anxiety. For instance, I got a piece of news last week through one of the companies I worked for. We got basically told something that none of us were happy about. It was basically, we kind of knew it was coming, but they didn't tell us. It came through the news outlets and now they're scrambling to try and basically we got a lot of bad news, no clear direction on where the company's going with it. How does that impact us? But the potential impact, and this is where the trigger happens, is right now we have some information, but we don't have the whole picture. And the problem is without having the whole picture, there's this gap of what can really impact me and change what's going on. And if you think about a lot of situations, that's really the trigger. You have something that you are either following or something you're doing, but there's an unknown between where you're at and where you're trying to get to. And that unknown is what triggers this anxiety. It kind of sets you off. So like I was going with this example is, so within this situation, like Rob said, like the Tim Ferriss model, what are the worst things that could happen? Well, in this particular situation, unfortunately, that sent me down the wrong path. I actually found that I was better off going back to where the trigger was and going back to the day before. Because really what happened was, yes, I was given some information. The problem is that information, while scary, really has no direction yet. Basically, it's like, here, we're going to drop a bomb on you, but yet we're not going to tell you anything about what's going on. So really, why the hell tell me? Why the hell tell, why share this information? There's no real transparency with it. There was no real benefit to sharing this at this time, other than to scare the hell out of a lot of people and give them anxiety. So it took probably a day or two of walking back a little bit and looking at, okay, has anything really changed? No. That's kind of the first thing to look at. Has anything really changed in the situation? Secondly, is there anything that triggered the anxiety that is really impacting your quality of life? Is there anything that is impacting your life right now? Is there anything dangerous coming at you? No. Okay. Step back again. Is there any impact to my family, to my environment? If not, okay, again, walk it back. Okay. No. So essentially, you kind of get back to kind of the rule of thumb. What do you need to live? You need food, water, clothing, roof over your head. If you got those four things and you can kind of walk it back to that, where do I have what I need to live? Then typically, if you can get back to that point, you're probably fine. You probably have walked back the path of the anxiety. But if you run into situations where you can't, that's when you go seek professional help. You go talk to a doctor and you get help. But a lot of times in our situations, it really is just changing the mindset, change the narrative in your mind, and that will set you back on the right path. I'm no doctor, but I've been dealing with this for over 30 years and it comes and goes. It's not something I live with daily, but it's something that could come at me out of the blue and I could lose a day or two just being stuck. Now, early on in my career, in my life, when that happened, it was very dysfunctional. Like I kind of shut down. But if you work through it, and these are some of the challenges I think we can talk through for better habits, is as you work your way through this, you'll set challenges up, you'll set habits up that will get you in a place where you won't shut down. You'll be able to work your way through it. It may not be a quick fix. You may not like, oh, I'm really bad in an hour, it'll be fine. No, you work through it. It's not a quick fix. You just keep telling yourself, I'll be okay. Things will get better. And you know what? There is gold on the other side of the rainbow. That's a happy thought. I think that's where I want to go with this challenge. Is, and this actually has a lot of health benefits and mental health benefits and stuff like that. But I think it really is. It's a developing an appreciation habit and an attitude. And I think the best way to do this, and I've talked to a lot of people over the years that do these kinds, something similar to this, and they all are, it's life changing to them. I'm not a doctor or anything like that. So this is all anecdotal evidence, but it also is for you. It's just one of the things that it really does help. And that is start each day, put down a list, let's say three things that are going well or that make you happy or that have, you know, that, and usually you may struggle initially, but it shouldn't be too hard after a little bit of doing this day in and day out to do, to build a list of just three things that every morning start like, I'm happy that I have this or that I got to do that. Now, when I started out, I'm not going to lie, if you look back like every third day, because I would have breakfast and stuff like that, bacon was one of the things of my three every day, just about every other day, every third day, whatever it was. I was like, you know, I'm really happy that I had like a bacon and egg sandwich or something like that. There's going to be seasons of your life where it may be like, I was so happy to have a, you know, some wine and cheese last night or, you know, or that my team won. You know, there's just, sometimes it's very little things. It is the fact that maybe it is, it's like, that I have a hot cup of coffee in front of me in the morning when I start up and it's the coffee I like. And it's not some crappy coffee that I had to get down the road or something like that. I mean, there's like, there's so much that we have to be thankful for and happy about that I think just developing that attitude of gratitude, as they say, and getting that habit, I think will help you quite a bit because it does allow you to, when you have those challenges, it starts to give you sort of a track record of, yeah, I've had that challenge before, but it worked out okay. And so it helps maybe gives you a little bit more of a shift from when, you know, as Michael says, when they drop the bomb on you, but you don't know, there's no direction. So you could go, it could be really, really good or really, really bad. It'll maybe help your mind drift towards it, but it could be really, really good. I mean, it's the stuff like, you know, you get bad news at work. The bad news you could look at and say, I could lose my job and then lose my house and die. Okay. Granted, I'm going back to the end, you die, but I could lose my job and not die, which is possibly even worse. So I could lose my job, but that's the thing about like, I could lose my job and I don't have a paycheck for a long time. And you know, you can take that down that path, but maybe you look at it as I could lose my job. But now that you have that positive bench, you say, I could lose my job, but I could get a better job. I could be happier. I could get paid more and stuff like that. And it's not Pollyannish. It is just when you don't know stuff, when you have those unknowns, the best thing is to just not bother with them. But it's hard for us to do that. And so the second best thing is to try to take them in a way that is growing instead of draining you. Hopefully this has grown you, which would remind me, as you know, Mike did mention essentially that Maslow's hierarchy of needs where you need like food and water and clothing and protection. You also need this podcast. It's like been, it has been scientifically proven. There are, I don't know, millions of doctors that have signed a little thing that said, and one that disagreed that said that this podcast is something that will help you feel better and make your life a better place. I may be making that up. We'll find out some point. That being said, please give us feedback, info at developmentorder.com. You can check us out at developmentorder.com. You can leave us contents there or contact stuff there, comments, contact form X. You can leave us something there. You can follow us there. You can follow us on Facebook, all those kinds of places, wherever you find podcasts like this one, then you can jump in and leave some comments and feedback there. Also on YouTube, we're out on the development or channel. We've got this and lots and lots and lots of other content out there. We're coming up soon on another season. We would love to hear thoughts and suggestions and where you want to go with that. Starting to try to think through that and where we want to go. So we're always welcome to bring you guys in and sort of make that a community decision where we can. That being said, go out there and have yourself a great day, great week, and we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Noor Podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success.