Coding Isn’t the Cure for Anxiety
More code doesn’t make me feel better.
Yet I’ve been fed the same lie we have all been told (again and again) in tech. That if I just do more, I’ll feel better, do better and everything will be better.
It’s not true. It was never true. We’re just facilitating everyone else’s agenda.
More Isn’t More
Each day we’re told that instead of coping with anxiety we are better placed to work. To move those tickets to the right, cleaning the backlog. You might even be able to clear the backlog,
I’ve done all of that so many times. It doesn’t work.
Coding is an avoidance strategy disguised as productivity. When anxiety kicks in, coding feels productive. Safe. Controlled. Deterministic.
The compiler doesn’t judge you. The ticket has an acceptance criterion. The problem fits on a screen and never comes at you.
Life doesn’t.
Pointless productivity is still pointless
Rather than leaning into working harder, faster and late into the night we should tackle the uncomfortable stuff.
Because when coding becomes a way to avoid thinking
So we lean into work. Harder. Faster. Later into the night.
We tell ourselves we’re being professional. Or dedicated. Or worse — resilient.
But a lot of the time, we’re just avoiding the uncomfortable stuff.
Coding becomes a way to not think, and that works for a while. Yet after a while the things you’ve been avoiding come back to hit you.
At the same time we should recognize that tech productivity can look impressive while achieving nothing. That means we might be:
Refactoring code that didn’t need refactoring
Optimizing paths no user will ever hit
Chasing “clean” instead of “done”
Doing one more thing because stopping feels worse than continuing
It feels good in the moment. You’re busy. You’re moving.
Yet we should all remember that being busy isn’t the same as effective.
And effective still isn’t the same as healthy.
You can ship code all day and still feel awful.
I’ve worked through the night to finish a feature for an artificial deadline (that didn’t matter to anyone). Nobody cared. I’ve pushed rollouts forwards to impress engineering managers. I’ve worked as hard as I can to get things done and perform well. It has never really got me anywhere, and doesn’t seem like it will get me anywhere anytime soon. But I digress.
The quiet rewarding of poor behavior
Tech culture loves anxious over-workers, as they produce the best results (for the company).
They don’t complain.
They don’t log off.
They don’t ask difficult questions.
They just keep pushing. We’ve wrapped this up in words like ownership and impact, but what it often means is “Thanks for ignoring yourself”.
Now of course we have to recognize that there is a burnout issue. People leave positions because their work is untenable and frankly isn’t worth selling their lives for, but typically this takes a number of years to take hold. We should recognize that companies get the most value from employees during the first few years of their employment in any case, and those with 5+ year frequently become more demanding and “require” increases of salary, opportunities and expenditure. All things that companies do not want to give, all things considered.
The uncomfortable truth
This article is making me anxious. That’s because this is all about anxiety all things considered. Which isn’t a productivity problem in the end, it’s a signal.
Yet the things it signals are real underlying problems.
Exhaustion
Failure to believe in the mission
A poor environment
Crazy expectations
The fact that you can’t, ever, stop
All of which don’t simply go away with another commit. The fact is acting in an anxious way often makes things worse, because it depletes your reserves. Over time you get both anxious and more exhausted. It never stops, and keeps on winding you up like a coiled spring.
What helped
I think that I should actually have got help for these things. But it’s not always that easy to do so (finding the time to do so would be another thing). I’m not going to discourage you from getting real help, in fact I think you should do just that.
But if you want to go down the route of marginal improvements, perhaps you should do just that.
I mean we should all allow ourselves to do things that are going to make our lives demonstrably better.
That can include:
Stopping work before it feels completely done
Leaving something unfinished on purpose
Accepting that “enough” is enough
Admitting that productivity isn’t the same as worth
Recognizing that anxiety isn’t a bug to squash, and is a facet of our personality that can be treasured like any other
SO although I’m not in therapy (but should be), I’ve stopped pretending that code is a proxy for it. So although I’m still coding I don’t think that it’s a solution for every problem that might come my way.
Final thought
If coding was the answer to anxiety, the most burned-out industry on Earth would also be the calmest.
It isn’t.
Sometimes the bravest thing you can do isn’t shipping more.
It’s closing the laptop.
It’s saying no.
It’s leaving this rubbish for tomorrow.
About The Author
Professional Software Developer “The Secret Developer” can be found on Twitter @TheSDeveloper and regularly publishes articles through Medium.com
The Secret Developer has never had formal training provided by an employer. This might explain their coping strategies or lack thereof.