What do you do when stressed?

This was originally a spam thread, but the topic might be interesting to idly chat about, so I'm hijacking it.

Stress is borderline inevitable as a programmer. The causes are myriad: documentation turning out to be lies, obscure bugs worming their way through the abstraction, coworkers insisting that their filesystem code is perfectly free of race conditions.

What do you do to relieve stress?

-Albatross

4444 posts, and counting.
I chant my mantra.
"It all pays the same".
This calms me down for the 'nonsense' that comes with any job. Then I just work through it as best as I can. Our company is a fan of fake deadlines "we NEEED that by next month sos we can check a checkbox for UPPER MANAGEMENT on a REPORT" that naturally get missed. If I let that bother me, I would already have had a heart attack...
I look at the BBC News. The current state of UK politics is such that you don't know whether to laugh or cry.
The things that I get stressed about tend to be things that are in my control. Mostly real deadlines and things that I could be doing earlier (e.g. filling out some report/evaluation), but I procrastinate and my mind leaves this nagging dread in me.

While ignoring this nagging mental pain, I like to swim and I have begun trying to get good at drawing.

As far as dealing with stupid bugs: I'll get obscure bugs in my code and documentation. I'll often make a completely separate mini-program for myself as a minimal example that demonstrates the issue, and then work with that. I've done this a few times to deal with misleading MSDN documentation.

If I get stressed while working on my own personal projects, I'll take a break from it and watch youtube, play a game, or program something unrelated.
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I'm currently in my junior year of college. To alleviate some stress, I just play games, watch anime, or try to learn some more programming. I'm currently waiting on my book on how to crack coding interviews. This is my first year applying for internships, and I think I am dealing with some minor impostor syndrome despite meeting the minimum qualifications of most of the internships I've applied to. It's stressing me out a pretty good deal, but recently a lot of YouTubers that already have jobs in software engineering have been making some motivational videos. I find myself watching a lot of them to try to relax me a bit, and it usually works.
eh, off topic but don't sweat it. Interns where I work are given trivial tasks, and we are more interested in how you handle it when you can't do something than whether you can do it. If we only wanted people to do the stuff they already knew how to do from college, we would not pay programmers very much :) Instead, its how you handle taking on something you know nothing about that gets you an offer (or not). And you can tell so much about people with so little... just being worried about it is an excellent start, it means you take it seriously (some just do this to get it on the resume and don't really try to do anything right).
Since I am merely a programming hobbyist, not one paid to mash code, the only stress I get programming related is from my brain overheating trying to understand some new feature of C++. I relieve that type of stress by stepping away from my IDE and opening up a computer game or watching an old TV show or a movie on DVD/streaming.

IOWs, RELAX!

I get stressed from being physically disabled on a day-to-day basis. That gets handled in similar manner as above, but with an adult beverage to help ease the pain.
What do you do when stressed?

I come here and squash spammer insects.

Been splatting more than a few the last couple of days.
Killing spam is, surprisingly, ridiculously easy using a phone...
Killing spam is, surprisingly, ridiculously easy using a phone...

Not wanting to use a shoe, eh? :Þ
Albatross wrote:
Stress is borderline inevitable as a programmer [...] What do you do to relieve stress?
Resolved root cause, fixed bug, completed task, are the best relief for any work-related stress. No web surfing, wine, or vacation will be relaxing until the job is done. If this ever changes, it's time to change jobs.
Furry Guy wrote:
Not wanting to use a shoe, eh?

Nah, physical spam is delicious.
I just cuddle my with my girlfriend. She's always there for me, night and day. If I'm in a bad mood, she's in bed waiting to comfort me. She never talks, but I know what she's saying. She's full of pillow stuffing, but I know she loves me. Never complains, never says the wrong thing, never judges me.


EDIT: I accidentally killed her. My only option is to murder in high stress situations now.
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Exercise works wonders for stress.
Cleaning stuff is relaxing.
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