# Mental Health in Software Engineering - Host: [vadimkravcenko.com](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/hosts/vadimkravcenko.com/) - Saved: April 21, 2024 (2024-04-21T16:28:52Z) - Record: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/765cd248b9b7/ - JSON: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/765cd248b9b7.json ## What Jamie wrote Many disciplines have a lot of stress in their roles in companies. And leading those areas adds another level to that. I know the world of technology the best and the unique anxiety that can come with it. I also think that aspect of technology is not acknowledged inside our outside our practice much. I suspect the stereotypical combination of technologists not being as comfortable communicating about such things is a contributor. I know that at Minnebar there have been sessions over the years on burnout and stress and they always draw large attendance. And the facts are clear that many people drop out of technology careers when they have many working years left. So when I saw Kravcenko's article on mental health it drew me in. > This kind of situation isn't rare. You're always on edge, thinking the whole company's fate rests on your next move. It's like being in a constant state of alert, where slowing down feels like you're letting everyone down. As a CTO or any other tech leadership position, you're making calls that could either make or break the whole operation. And yeah, it's thrilling, but it's also a breeding ground for anxiety. I could relate to nearly everything in this article, particularly the startup phases with customer commitments that will require herculean efforts and have a ton of risk. By the way, once you are no longer in startup and have thousands of customers that anxiety doesn't go away but instead shifts into the challenge of keeping services running continuously, every minute of every day. > For me, it was about noticing when I started to dread work I usually enjoyed and the random sense of apocalyptic doom or when my sleep went sideways. I mean, I don't think anyone can miss those signs, but it took me half a year to recognize them and go to a psychotherapist. I thought I had the winter blues. Go figure… In 2018 I started a daily meditation practice. The reason for that was directly the kind of stress and anxiety introduced from the accountability this article describes. I had done an assessment and concluded that I was losing the battle with stress and anxiety. I didn’t feel on a steep decline, but the trend line was going the wrong way. I found meditation to provide a relief. An opportunity to apply perspective to those thoughts and change that trend line. Given the need for talented technologists we need to find ways to bring this topic into the open and discuss it, and from that hopefully find ways to reduce the sources and increase the ways to compensate and manage. ## Facts - Kind: [Page](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/kinds/page/) ## Appears in - [WT285: Weekly Thing 285 / Voyager, ActivityPub, Trackers](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/285/), Featured ## Saved the same week - [Why the Short-Lived Calvin and Hobbes Is Still One of the Most Beloved & Influential Comic Strips | Open Culture](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/173647bc7c33/) (openculture.com, April 18, 2024) - [VASA-1 - Microsoft Research](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/4ab1097888b0/) (microsoft.com, April 21, 2024) - [My 25-Year Engineering Career Retrospective](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/78611ff56238/) (hybridhacker.email, April 21, 2024) - [US Air Force says AI-controlled F-16 has fought humans • The Register](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/d2d6b1db7047/) (theregister.com, April 21, 2024) - [Valkey is Rapidly Overtaking Redis - DevOps.com](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/963eb9802598/) (devops.com, April 21, 2024) ## Elsewhere - Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://vadimkravcenko.com/shorts/mental-health-in-software-engineering/