Managing stress as a coder

Introduction

Hello Devs, the work we do can be very stressful and it can easily burn us out. But with a well-planned life as a developer and best practices put in place coding can be a very fulfilling job to do. As a psychologist and a self-taught full-stack developer, I will love to share the best ways of helping you out if you have such an issue.

Stress is the body's natural way of responding to difficult situations. This stressful reaction comes with physiological changes like increased heartbeat, tension, increased sweats, racing thoughts, sleepless night amongst other factors. Too much stress is not good for your health either. A sound mind plays a key role in your well-being.

 Although it is normal to experience stress, when it interferes with your daily activities like meeting a client's deadline and your concentration during working hours, then it becomes an issue. Sometimes stress can make you easily irritated which is not good for the team or company you may be working with.

Causes of stress from developers' point with solutions

Bugs in codes or systems

One cause of stress that every developer may have probably gone through before is having to deal with errors in codes😂. As funny as this may sound, some errors in codes have caused some developers to abandon a particular project they were working on. This can be very heartbreaking for any developer and I would not want any developer to go through this situation. There has been a case in that I had to spend about one month resolving an error in my PHP mailer script on the live server. I know you would have your personal experiences as well.

In resolving a bug or error in code, the first thing to do is to look out for what the error code is saying. Interpreters and compilers of all computer programming languages generate error messages to easily help a coder to find the line of code with the error. Always look out for them and when you find them, you can copy and paste the error message into Google search input. You are more likely to find a solution to the error. A popular website like Stack Overflow is the home to solutions to most errors you could ever encounter. The platform has senior developers with years of experience who are willing to assist you. Also, in this era of artificial intelligence where we have chatbots like ChatGPT around, finding the solution to your error depends on the quality of your queries.

Needing a suitable logic or algorithm

Sometimes our source of stress comes when we need to develop a certain unique feature for a system or an application. When you are out of ideas and you possibly wonder how to get the feature done. You do not want to disappoint your boss and make them think less of you. During such situations, it is always good to consult your colleague developers for assistance. Sometimes these unique features are not unique at all. Some developers somewhere have probably developed what you want to do. It is not always the case that you must re-invent the wheel when a system or plugin or framework or library has been developed to help you with what you need. Save yourself years of work when you can use an hour of configuration to integrate a third-party service that is equally good in your case.

But if ideally what you want to develop is very novel, I urge you to do your research and spend the time you may need to develop it. The world cannot wait to see your brilliant creation. Always believe you can do it. Not trying at all will give you worries and stress in your old age because you may later regret not even starting it at all.

Being lonely

One of the things I realized changed my life was coding, keeping me away from friends and family. If you allow yourself, the joy and pressures that come from developing projects can cause you to become very lonely without realizing it. Having someone to talk with helps you to psychologically lay off some burden. Just having a chat with someone is a therapy on its own.

Coders who work in teams may break down some boredom. But it is ok to try to keep bonds with children, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers and friends. It is good to have talks with these people because it is unlikely for you guys to talk about codes and work stuff. Talking with family and friends may free you a bit of talking about coding stuff and give you a relief of mind.

Demands from workplace

Task and workloads from places of work are contributing factors to stress. As a developer working for two different e-commerce companies, I understand being under pressure. Having to work on new features, perform system maintenance, working on both front-end and back-end development. This matter could be very delicate, as a low-productive developer may stand the chance of being fired, and over-stressing yourself could also lead to burnout and possible mental health issues. 

I would suggest you always give your best at work. Make use of break times at work to relax and also do well to eat during these breaks to have the energy to continue work. Make sure not to pile up unfinished tasks on yourself, since they will mount up to become heavy loads on you.

Also, make sure to use best practices when developing a project to avoid later bugs that may become stressful for you and your team later on. You can begin by assigning comments to the necessary lines of code and avoid using a deprecative syntax which would bring about unnecessary issues later on.

It is also ok to ask for help at work, if you happen to run into a problem you can ask a senior or fellow coder to help you out, rather than spending stressful hours when you could easily ask for help and move on.

Work within your capability, if it is front-end you are great at, let your task fall within that, if it is back-end database you are great at, work within your space and know your strength and weakness. They will guide you as you work.

Be real and transparent

If you get the opportunity to declare a deadline for a project you must submit, make sure to be realistic as you can be. In cases, you may not have the opportunity to decide the submission time for a project, do well to speak with your superiors and let the time be at a manageable and flexible point. 

Stress from studying

For coders and software engineers who are still studying. I would recommend that you study smartly. Submit project works on time by starting them early. Do well to spend more time practicing what the lecturer teaches in class. Because if you do not understand the basics of computer programming you would face stress when developing a real project for a company. In case you do not understand a concept in class ask questions and seek assistance form colleagues who can help you.

Do well to have enough rest and eat healthy foods, exercise regularly and have a healthy circle of friends around you.

Conclusion

As a developer, you must understand that coding is just an aspect of your life, you have a social life to build, a financial life to build, a family to build, a good mental and physical health to keep. When there is a balance among these aspects of life, the stress becomes manageable.

HaPpY Coding.