Being a software developer takes a huge toll on your brain. Every day you put your brain to work really hard for hours. As a result, it can lead to mental fatigue if you don’t take care of yourself.
With the current shift to remote work due to COVID-19, I feel that it is a good time to talk about 5 ways to help prevent mental fatigue.
1. Get a Good Night of Rest
Getting a good night of sleep is important because your brain depends on it. When you are well-rested, you’ll be able to think more clearly, which goes a long way when that’s what you do most of the day. Besides having a clearer mind, you’ll also have a higher level of energy throughout the day. If you’re interested in other benefits sleep can provide you, I have a post dedicated to the subject.
2. Take Breaks
Taking breaks can be difficult when you think you’re almost at a breakthrough to the problem you’re trying to solve. How that usually goes is one thing lead to another then another then an hour has passed since you thought you were almost at a breakthrough. Next thing you know, you ended up not taking any breaks and feel exhausted.
Not taking breaks is really strenuous on your brain and it can decrease your cognitive capacity while you work and you might not even realize it. Your brain needs to recharge from time-to-time and a good way to let your brain recharge is by taking breaks. The breaks don’t need to be long; A five-minute break can work wonders.
If you’re struggling to take breaks, you can incorporate the Pomodoro technique, which has small breaks in between a session. If you’re working from home, you can purposely keep water away so that you need to get up and walk to get some. Sounds strange, I know, but when you’re working from home you wouldn’t have to move much from your seat besides going to the bathroom. When you’re in the office, you’ll at least be making trips to the water cooler and the restroom probably wouldn’t be a few steps away.
3. Keep Yourself Hydrated
Dehydration can harm your brain function. Specifically, it can negatively impact your cognitive function such as memory, focus, and critical thinking. Now, what do we depend on as a software developer? It is our memory, focus, and critical thinking.
4. Stop Working So Much
There is a limit to how much cognitive load your brain can handle in a day. It will vary from person to person, but there is a limit. Once you reach that limit your productivity drops tremendously and you might not even be aware of it. I don’t know what is the best way to tell you have reached that point. However, for myself, I know I am at my limit when just thinking about something simple takes a lot out of me all of a sudden.
5. Exercise
I have an entire post dedicated to the benefits of exercise for a software developer, so I won’t dive into a lot of details here. In short, exercise helps keep your brain healthy and in optimal functioning order. Exercise benefits you by:
- Preventing cognitive decline
- Regulate brain health
- Help brain rejuvenation
- Improve brain functions
From my experience, when I started my first programming job after college I was sitting 8 to 9 hours a day for 5 days a week. After about 2 months I was feeling tired and had a tough time thinking about any problem I was working on and I had no idea why. It took a bit of time, but I realized that I wasn’t getting exercise anymore because during college I was biking to get around. Now, I was driving to work and sit for 8 to 9 hours a day and get home to sit some more. I decided to start exercising for 10 to 15 minutes a day and within a week I was more energetic and can think more clearly. Now, I made it a habit to get at least a short exercise session every day.
I hope this post was helpful to you. If you found this post helpful, share it with others so they can benefit too.
For related contents around the topics of burnout, work-life balance, and mental health you can check out the following posts:
- Tips to Maintain Your Mental Health as a Software Developer
- 8 Ways to Prevent Burnout as a Software Developer
- 4 Ways to Stop Burnout as a Software Developer
- 6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Be Working More Than 5 Hours a Day as a Software Developer
- 4 Reasons Why You Need Work-Life Balance as a Software Developer
To get in touch, follow me on Twitter, leave a comment, or send me an email at steven@brightdevelopers.com.