You Need to Calm Down
Tags: stressmanagement, coding, disciple, calmdown
Published: 2019-11-10 03:16:31

---
title: You Need to Calm Down
published: true
description: Ways in which to manage stress and breathe
tags: stress management, coding, disciple, calm down
---

**This is my first post on Dev.to! Hope you enjoy.**

Starting [Juno's](https://junocollege.com/bootcamp/) immersive web development bootcamp has got me beat. 

![Buddy boi stressed af](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/xgyw7a6ep98o1ev425a5.jpg)

It's no exaggeration when I say I've gotten much less sleep working on this program's projects in the past several weeks than I have throughout my 5 academic years at university. 

Once you are admitted into a coding bootcamp, you tend to find yourself immersed staring at your computer all day looking for inspiration, advice, (coding) packages, and / or answers on [Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/).  

Every once in a while, you start to have a mini freakout (or two) over something so small yet inconvenient, like trying to debug your code for example. Just recently, I had a tiny meltdown trying to wrap my head around [flexbox](https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/).This time you find yourself immersed in a spiral of stress and anxiety of not being good enough.

The cherry on top was receiving a call, while in class, notifying me that **MY APARTMENT FLOODED** ☺️☺️☺️. Imagine the stress of that? 

However, a startling new study (/s) says when life gives you lemons, don't be afraid to seek help from people who are around you. I cannot thank the friends I've made at Juno, as well as my awesome instructors, for all their support during an unpleasant week. Although, emotional support from others isn't enough when you aren't prioritizing yourself, as well. 

This form of self-care can come in many ways: Exercising, reading, watching a documentary on Netflix, so on and so forth! The limit does not exist, as long as it is a healthy release. 


![Alt Text](https://media.giphy.com/media/6u7IFDUu3jK3S/giphy.gif)


I've personally taken up running and calming breathing exercises. [Heather](https://twitter.com/heatherdevsweb), a very talented classmate of mine, made a [great website](https://heathergh.github.io/breathingExercise/) utilizing CSS animations to showcase an "breathing" circle guiding us with a breathing technique to take it easy.


No matter how long you've been a victim of any type of stress, you must have realized by now that there is no end to it, but only a new way to learn to take care of yourself. It's all about finding the balance, forcing yourself to take breaks (I recommend looking into the Pomodoro technique), and getting more sleep than you'd like to (_sleep is for the weak when there's much to code_). 

![Alt Text]
(https://project-management.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/What-is-Pomodoro-Technique-and-How-to-Utilize-it-to-Maximize-Productivity%EF%BB%BF-1024x538.jpg)


However, what about when you're in the middle of working and need something soothing to keep you going? I've personally been a fan of lo-fi study music for years now. Lo-fi stands for low fidelity, and is listened to by many people, especially students, who need to get in the zone of studying, reading, or even relaxing. It's just all around a wonderful and calming genre of music to tune into.
My recent favourites have been the [Poké and Chill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DVpys50LVE) and [Zelda and Chill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdzrrWA8e7A&t=2090s) playlists by [Mikel](https://twitter.com/Mikel_beats). They invoke many nostalgic feels and keep the Nintendo lover in me satisfied.


The more of those you do, the more rewarding working on your task feels, and the more adamant you become to being a better doer day-by-day.
Just find your sweet spot, and please remember to just calm down. You're doing great! It's only up from here, no matter how you look at it.