You can listen to the podcast and read the show notes here.
Michaela 0:01
Welcome back to the show today we're going to be looking at G ad general anxiety disorder and I am here with Jeffrey Kunkel rhymes with Uncle and we're going to look at why this matters to all cold fusion developers. You may be surprised by how many people this kind of thing effects and we'll talk about anxiety fo mo imposter syndrome. analysis paralysis, being overwhelmed. OCD,
perfectionism. And is anxiety all bad if you're a CF developer. And we'll also look at some solutions. But dealing with this, particularly if you're going to conferences this year, because it's a lot of cold fusion events happening. And that can bring out the worst in the anxiety. So welcome, Jeffrey.
Unknown 0:46
Oh,
Michaela 0:48
hey. And if you don't know him, he's a co founder and developer. He's been one for quite a few years now. And he's just getting more active in the coffee here. community. And this is the first time he's speaking. Yep. Publicly at a conference. So probably your little anxious about the whole talk thing that you're giving on anxiety? It's a bit of a
self referential Yep, they're
Jeffrey Kunkel 1:13
living the experience I'm talking about. Absolutely.
Michaela 1:17
All right. And if you're anything like me, getting on a podcast is quite anxiety producing, too. So.
So let's just come back to that question. Why does this matter to all cold fusion developers,
Jeffrey Kunkel 1:31
it's as I've been going to these cultures and conferences, there isn't anyone that I've spoken to, that hasn't experienced at least some part of anxiety in their life. A lot of it is just
fo mo fear of missing out, you hear this brand new thing.
My my go to example is I started as a graphic designer. So when I went to my first conference, I had no idea about version control at all. I wasn't taught it college, and everyone spoke about get in version control. Like it was everyone obviously, you know this already. And that definitely spiked some anxiety for me if you know, but it also caused me to go look it up. Like, if it's something that everyone speaking about as though duh, you know, it, it's probably worth at Google like, and, but with talking to people confiding in other friends I've made at conferences being like, Hey, I actually don't know what this is,
I've come to a point where, you know, it's part of my everyday life now, like, it probably should have been a few years ago.
Michaela 2:57
That's a great point. I mean, cuz, you know, if you're at a developer, you're always learning new technologies, new methods, and often there are projects we work on where we're under a lot of time pressure to get stuff delivered,
or you've got a bug. That's like stopping the whole application running and you've got to fix fix it.
Yeah, a lot of reasons to be anxious. So why does it matter? People, if it's coefficient developers get anxious to you know, it's not just natural. It's the problem with it.
Jeffrey Kunkel 3:32
It absolutely is. And I can speak from experience that I experienced something called analysis paralysis, which isn't just a tongue twister, it's when I have several ways to solve a problem.
My I will sometimes lock up and choose nothing like I've found before I got better at managing it. I could lose half hour an hour just staring at my screen and kind of spinning like the screensaver and turned on like it, it got to a point where it was pretty detrimental to productivity. Um, and, but they're also less, less dire circumstances to just with your anxiety level up, your stress level tends to go up and that just in general has stresses no fun. You can and it can, it can go home with you like having a stressful day will affect your whole life. Whether or not it's work or home. It's it's kind of getting to a feedback loop, you get stressed at work because of anxiety. You go home you're grumpy. Get add more stress to your life because maybe your grumpiness is received well at home, then you come into work more stressed out, it's it? Is it something that everyone can benefit from learning to identify and kind of step back?
Michaela 5:08
Yeah. And I guess, you know, if you get that feedback loop really going bad. And it can lead to depression. Yes.
Unknown 5:16
And really
Michaela 5:18
just not feeling good. And not wanting to take care of your health, not getting on well with your family. And, you know,
ultimately, if it gets too bad, it can lead to suicidal thoughts or actual, you know,. So, yes, I did an episode with Jorge, recently on CF. And I'll link to that in the show notes. But, you know, this is a serious thing. Yeah, it's just anxieties. The first step on a slippery slope that ends pretty nasty.
Jeffrey Kunkel 5:50
Exactly. I have one of my first slides in the presentation is I'm not a doctor, if you're experiencing some of the more extreme parts of this, I recommend it talk to not only your friends and family, but there, there's phone numbers, you can call and it's it is it's very serious.
Michaela 6:13
Yeah. So it can get in the way of productivity buddy, and health
IT IS YOU MENTIONED foam. Oh, is that a really common among developers? Do you think? Well, it's,
Jeffrey Kunkel 6:27
it might not it foam O is kind of the buzz worthy term for it. I think it's more just worrying that you're going to miss something which, and not like because it's, it's not just, Oh, I didn't get invited to Susan's keg or it's, you know, just the, the, oh, containers. What on earth are containers
everyone else knows about Andy? I don't either falling behind. And I one. One thing that really helps me with that is to, you know, one, take a deep breath, and maybe five minutes of mindfulness. That is one of learning to step back. And breathe is one of the biggest helpers I've had in this whole process. But reach out to your contacts your coworkers like do Do you know what Docker is? Do you know why you would use it? And I found that all of all of my advice
is good. But there isn't quite anything quite as good as a community. Like just having people to reach out to and just be like, have you experienced this that has been one of the biggest helps and why I will never stop going to these conferences like it. It opened a whole world of just like minds. To me. It's been a giant help.
Michaela 8:01
Yeah, just knowing you're not alone in feeling anxious at work. Yeah, I think is a good start. And we'll talk more about how what you do for stress management to reduce your anxiety and the mindsets later, you mentioned that when you went to a conference, you you felt a bit of an imposter because everyone else seemed to know what get was. And yeah, like, what, I don't use that yet. Yeah. So tell us a bit about that imposter syndrome. Because I think quite a few people have that.
Jeffrey Kunkel 8:33
Yeah, um, it of course, as part of what imposter syndrome is, I felt like,
it seems silly, even looking back on it right away. But I felt like I was the only one who had it. And it's, again, part of the anxiety. But I've almost everyone I've talked to, has experienced it in some way. And it's not even in just our industry I've talked to,
we have customer service representatives here, because we're ecommerce and they, they will experience it also, like, it's it, just the feeling that you're going to get caught, like your gut that someone some day, someone's going to, like, slam their hand down on your desk can be like, I know that you don't know what you're supposed to. It took, it took probably two to three years to realize that it was just that not just in my head. But it was something that I was kind of self perpetuating. But one thing I've kind of used as a mantra since then, is fake it till you make it, which is not that one's not mine. Now, that one, uh, has kind of existed out there for a while. But with, particularly with the get it was, well, I'm gonna try, just start that is something that is so important in the fear of missing out. And imposter syndrome is to, like, well, I've decided that this is something I should know, just start doing it. And it it you'll be amazed at how fast things will fall in, like just getting get installed on my machine and just running commands really, it
Unknown 10:25
you will,
Jeffrey Kunkel 10:27
you won't be you you won't be an imposter anymore. Because you're doing it. Like I like to remind myself that like my key skills as a developer, our
problem solving and Google like, it's just the the ability to realize you don't know something, and it's okay to look it up, like, and then, you know, retaining it at a certain point. But if there were like, I honestly, we should probably start cutting checks to Stack Overflow, where I work like it, it's always open. Like, it's all he never know, because we're a relatively small team. And we don't have
I believe, our oldest developer is that about 10 years development. So we don't know everything and just being okay, with not knowing everything is a really it's, it helps fight the imposter syndrome. When you know that nobody knows everything, you just have to be okay, you need to let yourself not know things.
Michaela 11:32
Yeah, and I think given the state of modern web development, it's pretty much impossible to know everything about everything, you know, how could you know everything about cold fusion, and, and the database and the front end and deployment strategies and testing and everything else? You know, it's just impossible to know, maybe, maybe 20 years ago, you could know everything about web development. But that's no longer the case. Yeah,
Jeffrey Kunkel 11:59
especially with the the full stack developer trend where you are,
you're expected to know a lot more than you were, but it's, it's better to be capable of finding out rather than just to have it nuts, like in your head, just be capable of learning and know where to look
Michaela 12:26
or know where to look like you saying Stack Overflow using Google,
maybe the CF Slack channel, you know, yes, the way people solve problems
Jeffrey Kunkel 12:38
owners and people we've met through, yeah,
Michaela 12:41
conferences now, happy logs, maybe even a podcast.
So, um, and I think, you know, being okay to admit you don't know, something is, is a key part of that, because I know I used to struggle with that. So now,
Jeffrey Kunkel 13:01
I don't know it's there. There's a big fear of if you say, you don't know, you'll get in trouble. Or they'll they'll find you out that you that you don't know. But you have to realize that, you know, while some people like people who have been in in the in the field longer will have more things just at the ready, everyone doesn't know things from time to time. And they it's, it's fine to ask it's it or even just a
if you finding you have this a lot just getting like asking how they will find out like, I know,
like Stack Overflow or Google like, just get where do you go to when you have an issue like just that that communication chain is so important.
Michaela 13:56
Yeah, and I think there are ways of asking you is probably to ask him one of these, you know,
the Slack channel or Stack Overflow and ask in a way that's helpful. So you give all the information so people know, what you've tried, and why it's not working. And you're you also you try, you help other people who, you know, who knew compared to you. So, yeah, you know, always just taking and taking and giving back. And at the very least, what, what you can do is, if you if you've asked a question, and a lot of people have, you know, given stuff, you can report back and say, Okay, this is what worked. Yeah, or this is a summary of the whole discussion. You know, there's ways to provide value, even if you're, you know, new thing. Yes,
Jeffrey Kunkel 14:43
yeah, the, the dialogue is very important.
Michaela 14:48
Now, if people get rid of their imposter syndrome, isn't there a danger that their ego is gonna like mushroom
Unknown 14:56
there? There is there is a,
Jeffrey Kunkel 15:01
it's a little bit is healthy, I think, just maintaining that, that humility in
remembering, remembering when you didn't know the thing like, as you get further on, just and your
and as more of it just comes to the top of your memory to remember where you came from. It's I have, I've been very fortunate. And I have not experienced a lot of ego
in the one on one interactions I've had, but it is definitely it's, it's a danger if you let it get out of control.
But to
remember the people that helped you when you're going through it.
Michaela 15:51
Yeah, that's great advice. And I think it's harder to control the ego online than it is in person. That's why you see the flame wars happen.
Unknown 16:02
Absolutely.
Michaela 16:06
So it's much easier not to do that when you're in front of someone.
Unknown 16:12
Yeah, yeah.
Unknown 16:14
So
Michaela 16:17
what about overwhelm with just too many things to do and multitasking and
just feeling you're always behind is that part of this, or that is
Jeffrey Kunkel 16:29
absolutely part of it. And one of the things that would cause me to kind of lock up and lose time,
I personally found that
taking a longer amount of time to prep for project would make it overall go faster. And this, this is something that's personally worked for me, I know there's to do is to is what I currently use. But there's tons of lists, apps and web browser apps and whatnot, or just, you know, a good old fashioned notebook where you can write down your steps. And I find, the more I do it, the better I am at, at doing it at sitting down. And knowing what I need to do what I need to pull it out, because when I first started doing it, it'd be like, a whole project would be like, three bullet points. And it wasn't super helpful. But now, I think my most reason recent project is it's maybe a week long project, and it had like, 50 bullet points in it. Like, it's very, like, even the smallest steps because there's there is it also kind of plays into the, the domain like hitting that little checkmark. Like, it's like, yeah, I finished something like it can help you
doing doing 50 tiny things feels great. As opposed to, you get, like doing three big things. It's, it's the same amount of have work in the long run, but just during one you get, you know, and it's like an hour before you're clocking out and you're hungry. And you're just like getting two, three more things done, rather than just like putting a pen and something you're going to finish in two days. It really helped me
Michaela 18:21
Yeah, I think that's a great point. Because then at the end of the day, instead of feeling like you just have this whirlwind of activity, you can say, Oh, well, I actually got three things done the room? Yeah, on this project, or whatever. The thing is, oh, I think that does feed into it. Have you have you do you use for getting things done? method is that party you said you used to do list, which is kind of related to that book, getting things done by David Allen, I actually will have to add that to my reading list. I have not that
well, he basically, I mean, it's, it's basically a book about how get things done more efficiently, and not getting anxious about it. And the key is what you said earlier, you write down what you're going to do. So policy, you can plan it out. But policy, you can get it out of your mind. Because, you know, the human brain can only hold so many things. I think it's like seven items where we can hold in our, in our brain in the conscious part of it.
Unknown 19:20
Yeah, make sense?
Michaela 19:22
Yeah. I mean, it's sort of like, you know, a computer, it's only got so many, you know, bits of memory in the CPU, I forget registers, that's what they call them. And then it has to offload it off into ram or offer to the hard drive or whatever around so it doesn't get, you know, not it out. And same with humans. So
definitely good. Now, what how does perfectionism tie into this is that part of what makes developers anxious, or
Jeffrey Kunkel 19:55
it it can be, and I know, it was something that I have struggled with, and particularly some people I've known have struggled with, in that you, you want it to be perfect. And even he'd like you need to make sure like, something that will lose you a ton of time is you open up a legacy document and it's not tapped the way that you tab it. So you're going to need to, you're going to need to make sure it's all correct in like the 5000 lines on that document. And it's sometimes especially in crunch time, it's okay, just to do the the task you need to do and like book market for, hey, we've got a slow week I can go I will remember that one. I'll come back to that. Like it's okay to come back later. It doesn't have to all be
you don't have to address issues that are issues for just to you, or just
stylistic issues. I love granted like they're important. Like, I'm not trying to say it's fine, don't comment, don't you know, tab or anything but it's I know we work in a small team with e commerce and one something when the logistic department needs and it's something for FedEx shipping, it needs to be done yesterday, like every time so you need to
you need to allow yourself to put out something that is
perfect as far as the one thing that your client and in my case at the department needs but maybe not perfect in the web standards for like
Michaela 21:57
that. That makes sense. So kind of prior art icing things are not having to make everything thing Perfect. Now how does that tie into OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder
Jeffrey Kunkel 22:12
I have found the obsessive compulsive disorder is a relatively recent diagnosis for me. So I'm still finding
I'm still finding how it's applying to my day to day work life. But I know the the check marks that to do is that is that is a a possibly benefit from my obsessive compulsive disorder that I will drill everything down and get all my ducks in a row before I do something that is
that is something that helps me but one thing that is very much detriment is I will get my anxiety will spike if get interrupted. And with a three person team, you get interrupted, like all the time it happens, things break.
And that's something I've been very recently, you know, learning to, you know, if you need to take again, five minutes, go, breathe, go stand out in the Cool, cool air and just be like, Okay, I'm going to need to postpone what I was doing this this thing is, you know, figuratively on fire, we need to put it out we need to get it fixed. So that we can keep taking sales we can keep
keep getting lighting fixtures out to the world.
Unknown 23:41
It's
Unknown 23:43
It's
Jeffrey Kunkel 23:44
It's definitely like and cons to everything. But I'm finding that obsessing over your process can be great. But if you do it just a little too much. You can really stress yourself out.
Michaela 24:03
Yeah, and I think where it goes from being useful way, like double checking stuff or avoiding bugs. It's where you keep coming back to the same thing is already checked before you know is Yeah, and you can't leave it alone. So yes, absolutely. That's where it gets, I think to be a practical problem. And then obviously, if it's causing you anxiety and stress, then it's an it's an issue. Anyway, when you get interrupted you kind of save away the current state, you know, you kind of maybe write down where you were, or even make a to do item for where you were,
Jeffrey Kunkel 24:46
yeah, it's it's been very with the advent, I'm starting to use get using something like stash where you can make a little note of what exactly what you're doing. When you when you stack the files or the changes or to do list is a very good place, you can just because they have the tiered list, you can just drop a little checkmark and be like, this is what I was doing. This is what I need to start up again, with
Unknown 25:13
just
Jeffrey Kunkel 25:15
it's you can almost be anxiety inducing to think about like, I have to take notes on this and this is this this but when you think of it as
it's just like a structure to I am I'm personally very very scatterbrained if it isn't written down or make a note of on an app or something. It is gone. So it's something that I've learned to rely on. Pretty much it isn't an inconvenience, to break everything down to take make note of where I was because I've learned that I will lose significantly more time than it takes me to write it down. If I don't. Yeah, it's just gonna cools and you know, anxiety, and I'm wasted when you come back to it. And
Michaela 26:02
yeah, or, and or create box, you know, I get interrupted the middle of a complicated piece of code, it's easy to forget to do something.
Unknown 26:10
Yep.
Michaela 26:13
Now what what I here's something I've seen with a lot of developers, you know, we have a lot of screens, perhaps we have a lot of browser tabs going does that relate in some way to the anxiety or, um, I can to like, I all have the tabs open and whatnot. But I will have like what I'm currently working on
Jeffrey Kunkel 26:40
alone, it tends to right now it's email
sublime, and then whatever page I'm working on. And as an I do not keep my speakers on on my computer. Because like chatting, notifications, things like that will just throw me off. Like, if I see a little blinking icon, that's enough for me, like I might might not answer in the first five minutes. But I'll get I'll get to it. And just realizing you know, communication is important things like that. But the the ever blinking and beeping in the sirens going off of just our connected world is can really, really slow things down. So I use it if I were to have everything up instantly accessible that I have running at any given point,
I would get overwhelmed. So I tend to like it's there. It's minimized, like I don't need so I can have access to it pretty quickly. But it needs to be hidden. Basically, when I'm in when I'm in the zone. When I'm working.
Michaela 27:57
You use music to help you focus better reduce your anxiety. Oh,
Jeffrey Kunkel 28:03
that is we are currently in an open air office
setup. So headphones are like tool number one for me right now. Because just keeping again other people beeping and whatnot, and
sometimes fluff to tap me on the shoulder before that they I realized there there. But that's something that I'm fine with. And they realize I'm not being rude, I'm just, it helps me zona. I will often listen to music or sometimes podcasts. I I know some people have expressed having trouble listening to a podcast and coding at the same time that sometimes I need to hit that that back 15 button the handful of times because I missed something. But it hasn't slowed me down too much. In my personal experience.
Michaela 28:59
And I I think it depends on how intense the coding is, you know, if it's just
cleaning up the formatting of the code. That's one thing if you're trying to solve some difficult problem,
Jeffrey Kunkel 29:12
yeah, said that there is a there are definitely moments in the day where the headphones gets set down. And it sounded like for your brow and really look at this.
Michaela 29:22
I mean, I found I use brain FM, which is a website that puts out music of different kinds and without, doesn't have any words and they have a focus music that I think they call this by oral beats, where it has a slightly different sounding each year, and it does something to your brain. I couldn't quite explain scientifically what it does. But I will play it helps me focus. Yeah, so
Jeffrey Kunkel 29:47
that, yeah, I there was a point in time where I was really into just random noise, just, you know, throw on sound of a thunderstorm. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah, they're definitely like, different and whatever works for you best if you, you know, if, if a podcast works best, if, you know, heavy lyric music works best. But I find that definitely for focus for like, it is time to really solve something. Something without lyrics or just like a white noise. Help. Help.
Michaela 30:23
Yeah. All right. And it kind of puts you in that zone. And you kind of you almost don't hear the music you just like, really focused on the code.
Unknown 30:29
Yeah,
Unknown 30:31
so
Jeffrey Kunkel 30:33
I do I am a culprit of getting very jumpy at that point, though, if someone will, like, if someone will tap me on the shoulder that I will definitely.
And though the people have learned that I I'm not, I'm not mad, it's fine. I was just kind of in it,
Michaela 30:54
maybe almost need a sign up, you know, on your desk saying, you know, intense, but debugging during, yeah, come back
Jeffrey Kunkel 31:00
in 30 minutes. There. There is a I'm sorry, for what I said while debugging mug that lives in the web department.
Michaela 31:11
Now, you mentioned in some ways that you deal with anxiety and stress taking a break, do you find, I mean, I find that works for me, I find if I if I try and do stuff for more than like, I, I can easily do half an hour of focused work, I can stretch it to an A. But once it gets beyond that, my kind of productivity, I actually introduce more bugs, then I took a break for, you know,
Jeffrey Kunkel 31:38
yeah, there's as it's kind of
unrelated yet absolutely related thing due to stress eating, I ended up with type two diabetes about a year back and I got one of those trackers for my wrist. And it like, taps me every hour, it's like, stand up, you know, make sure your bloods flowing, it's been wonderful, like the it was, it wasn't something I was focusing on, in my kind of, like, getting through anxiety was the amount of time between breaks. But now that through the fitness part of my life, I'm trying to improve as absolutely improved my anxiety. Also, it's just stand up, make sure that you prevent a blood clot. And, you know, just like your brain rest. Also,
Unknown 32:42
I'm hearing you, unfortunately,
Unknown 32:46
oh,
Michaela 32:48
sorry, this fusing food for self medicating. And, you know, like the the midnight 20 Twinkie or pizza in order, get the coding done, you know, really solve the issue of the anxiety in development. Or
Jeffrey Kunkel 33:05
it was it would make things it go away would like it would like your brain up with the Christmas lights of. I mean, but it again, it led to unhealthy parts of the rest of my life. I know, I went from
when, from my first like, sit down desk job, I probably put on 30 pounds in a year it and it was something I've struggled with ever since. Just not being up and around moving. Like when you worked
at work, retail, you're walking around talking to customers, things like that. And it's, it's incredible. How much being active and what you eat affects your anxiety levels. And things like that. Just they we're talking to, it's all feedback loops. It's all you get stressed. You eat some an entire pizza that will make you not feel so good, then you get a little more stressed because you're not feeling great. And a it's really
I've had to kind of curb most of my bad habits all at once. Like and just I let it get to a point where it was a bit dire. But it's something that if you can get out ahead of that and just, you know, because
bad food junk food is great. It's amazing. A little bit here and there. moderation it's the best but you know, don't don't let it get to a point where not allowed to eat it anymore. Take a word from word for me.
Michaela 34:55
Yeah, you don't want to be you don't want to be at the corner with the pizza push, you know, giving you Yes, it Pete's says. You know, now you met we mentioned food there. But people use a lot of other things to self medicate the probably the primary one is alcohol. But you know, other trucks
even using TV or or all kinds of shopping? Yeah, all kinds of things. So what's the problem with with using alcohol, just take the edge off your anxiety. It's
Unknown 35:30
again,
Jeffrey Kunkel 35:33
I personally find that
I'm not as sharp and I you know, I've known people that will swear up and down on the on their, you know, on their favorite dogs grave that they work better with one beer. And, um, but that hasn't been my experience. I tend to
again, you end up with more bugs later.
Michaela 36:02
Well, and this is I think it's hard to stop at the one beer, you know, maybe maybe one Ba, perhaps you do code a little bit better. Perhaps though, I like I agree with you. It probably does make it harder to solve difficult problems. But then, yeah, once you've had one beer, it could be hard to not have a second beer.
Jeffrey Kunkel 36:24
Yeah, it's, it's compounding that it's easier to justify the next to the more you've had absolutely. I mean, it's,
Michaela 36:34
and I've seen this an issue at cold fusion conference is, you know, that people get anxious, just being around a whole bunch of people, or they're afraid they're not as good as the other people. And then
Jeffrey Kunkel 36:46
or they just don't, you know, they're not they feel anxious talking to strangers. And so the answer is more alcohol. It is a it's like, I, I recognize alcohol. Like, I have alcoholism, and my family. I'm very careful with my intake. I, I do drink socially, now and again, but it's, it's I tried very, very hard not to use that to solve anything. It's it is
it is an additive at best. In my experience, it shouldn't be your solution to something and it's like, I know, it's easy it is. It's it can be easier to talk to people when you've had a few in you. But also what what you're talking about can be rough sometimes. Depending on how you get that is definitely something I've been a culprit of in my in my life.
Unknown 37:48
Yeah,
Unknown 37:49
me too.
Michaela 37:52
I gave it up about nine years ago. So I awesome. I just. Yeah, it was just getting in my way. So yeah, and I find I can go to a party now. And
I'm fine on the anxiety and if I get anxious, I'll just drop you know, pop out for five or 10 minutes. Or, you know, I don't have to stay there if it's not doing it for me. Yeah.
Unknown 38:15
Um,
Michaela 38:16
two other things that I've seen people used to help his exercise and sleep I don't know if those are things you do
Jeffrey Kunkel 38:23
to help Yes, sleep is still the one I'm its kind of the thing that the thing I get the least of that I really ought to. I'm averaging around six hours right now, I really ought to find those extra two.
But it's, it's one of those I I get up two hours early exercise. So it's like do I lose the exercise or the extra hours asleep and they're obviously things that I could give in but uh, right now I've kind of budget myself tight with I also am in this is a big de stressor for me is like, I like to get like three, four solid hours of family time. I have an eight year old daughter and
a partner who I love very much. And I like to make sure we have family time every day. And it's it's kind of one of those
I know, I need to sleep more. But it's like, do you give up the exercise or the family time or the work time it's it. There's got to be given take with everything. But since I've started exercising and I didn't use to sleep like three to four hours a night before I was really managing things better. And those extra like going from three hours or six hours is night and night and day. But
but it Yes. Sleep exercise has really helped. And one thing I found as I would exercise more I seem to get more out of my sleep. Like as my body was in better shape. I was feeling more rested with the slightly less amount of sleep. But the the no exercise and no sleep was a very bad combo
Michaela 40:24
and, and all the junk food. Yep. Yeah. And
Unknown 40:30
there was a bit of a spiral that you can get caught in pretty easily because they all feed into each other. Yeah,
Michaela 40:39
yeah. I mean, I I find more sleep does help me solve problems faster. I actually more efficient at work. I'm better with my friends and family.
Unknown 40:50
Yeah.
Michaela 40:51
And that's something you know, I mean, so, you know, we all have to make our own trade offs sessions. But it is possible your daughter might actually have a better experience with you. If you had a little bit more sleep. Just.
Unknown 41:05
Yeah,
Unknown 41:07
it's maybe half an hour less exercise. I don't know. Yeah.
Jeffrey Kunkel 41:12
And that's something that you with, with the obsessive compulsive disorder diagnosis, I found that I need to look into my habits because I will get into something. It's like, I spent this many hours doing this. I spent so many hours doing this. And that's something that I'm learning to break out of. Like, it's like it's okay to sleep a little more today. Or like see if you get by on a half hour of exercise instead of a full hour and that's my personal area of growth right now is breaking out of my habits that I tend to form
Michaela 41:51
Yeah, I mean, I must say a for me, I find it easier to add sleep on the front end than the back end. In other words, it's easier for me to make sure I go to bed earlier then trying to deal with it. You know, when I'm waking up
Jeffrey Kunkel 42:05
that is where I ended up finding my my hours of sleep it getting to bed at 930 10 o'clock as opposed to midnight to one was a right big change for me. And I know I know when I feel rested. I've had solutions to a problem pop into my head in the shower but it's never one you're like
two hours of sleep barely coherent, that like the solution to something pops into your head. It's always after like a good night's sleep that I've personally found that that happens to me. Now we haven't mentioned the C word here caffeine because that often relates to anxiety and it related that lack of sleep or did for me Yes, I
Michaela 42:51
would get not get enough sleep. And then I'd be drinking two three cups of coffee. Just be awake. Yeah,
Jeffrey Kunkel 42:58
yeah, absolutely. I I my my first job was at a dunkin donuts. I spent seven years there. Caffeine has been a part of my life for the better half of it. At this point. I am in recent years I've cut down to like perhaps energy drink two cups of black coffee. Like I was at a point of 10 cups of coffee in the morning. It was very it got medically concerning at one point I had medical ramifications from that. But
Unknown 43:34
that was something that when the doctor when you're 25 and you are
Unknown 43:41
having a prostate looked at it's a at a point. Really. Okay, maybe it's alright to drink less coffee.
Michaela 43:49
Yeah, I mean, I gave up coffee in 2001 and tea as well. So more power to you. That's me. Yeah. And I and I'll get tired. You know, I used to use caffeine in the afternoon when I was tired now just take a nap or go for a walk or drink more water or you know being tired is a signal from my body that I need to do something different right for me. Caffeine was just covering that up so I wasn't hearing the signals.
Unknown 44:17
Yeah, it is it's
Jeffrey Kunkel 44:20
again, it doesn't so much fix the issue. It just makes it gets you it prolongs it. Yeah,
Michaela 44:27
the other thing I found a recent years has helped me as melatonin which is like a natural drug you can get at the supermarket that aids in sleep. And supposedly the older you get the less of this stuff not really produced in your brain. And it It helps me go to sleep. It also helps me stay asleep instead of waking up in the middle of the night. So
might be worth checking out for people listening. Yeah,
Unknown 44:53
absolutely. Yeah.
Michaela 44:55
Um, what what about women in developers anxiety because I think there's some statistics that say women tend to get anxious, more men. And so all the things we talked about the imposter syndrome, the anxiety, the OCD does that affect female CF has more than male or
Jeffrey Kunkel 45:14
a it's I would have to say yes, and fact that I know far less female CFS is a kind of it speaks to this, it's
it's tough to be the, the the minority in a in a pretty established group. I know I've been in the in the in confusion for about five years at this point. And I keep up with the CF State of the Union tweet to put out and it's even being in five years, like the vast majority of people that you're speaking to, at some of these conference have been doing it twice the amount of time quadruple, sometimes it's a it's amazing and I know I can take my personal experience and kind of extrapolate that on to because I am fortunate in the fact that I see a lot of similar faces when I head out into any tech conference. So I I I tried to personally reach out and have conversations with with women that these conferences just because
I haven't contacted talk to is what helps me and I know it's I can't know from personal experience. But I know from just kind of a sense, trying to use some empathy and sympathy that it's tough out there. And just trying to be a resource in any way is a it's kind of how I how I been attempting to, to add to the community in that way that that's great. I mean, I did some interviews the end of last year with some women developers, and this definitely, this is a things we talked about here are an issue there, so I'll link it I didn't do an episode with April graves who also Yeah, yeah, I'll link that into the show notes along with the episode that I did with Jorge.
Michaela 47:29
So anything else on general anxiety disorder, you want to share with the audience? Before we get to some other questions, it's,
Jeffrey Kunkel 47:39
it's okay, to feel anxious. It's, that's a all of it really boils down to that you're not weird. Some some people, it affects more than others. But odds are, if you reach out to someone in the field with concerns like this, they're going to understand and that's if I can, if I can get people to do one thing, it's talk, it's just if it sits in your head, it can feel a lot worse than it is, it's a talk to people, if it's your direct co workers, or if it's someone you met at a conference or just the CF slack. Just someone that people know what you're going through. That's kind of the the big, what I'd like to get through to people
Michaela 48:34
die is a great suggestion. So instead of hiding away from other people will self medicating, talk about what's going on and, and maybe you might be able to figure out how to reduce the anxiety, you know,
Unknown 48:51
see what's worked for other people. Yeah,
Michaela 48:55
so let's switch gears a little here. Why are you proud to use cold fusion? Jeffrey,
Unknown 49:02
uh, it's, it's something that
Jeffrey Kunkel 49:06
coming from a graphic design background,
I knew almost almost no, I had a little bit of PHP when I was hired. And I was the, the company that hired me was
I I'm incredibly gracious to the fact that they trained me in my, the entirety of my cold fusion knowledge. And the we use the tag based syntax and coming off of basically knowing just HTML and CSS, it really
it was, it was easier for me to learn as someone who's worked mostly in the visual medium before before then, and it was they, they sat me down with the CF 10 book and had me work through the, the exercises and it it all kind of flowed through or flowed well, and it's, it's something that I've definitely, like, I I still was actually finishing up my degree, when I was hired, I was doing it over the internet. And I from some of my final projects I would get, I believe it was Rialto at the time. It was just just before Lucy when I was just like, I'm going to spin one of these up for for my final project, because, rather than reteach myself PHP I I prefer it. It's just something I I it was, it was comfortable to learn and remains remains of very,
yeah, yeah, it's, it's just, it's, it's like a, it's like, a warm blanket now. Like, it's a very, and like, I definitely started to get at, you know, stick a foot out of the blanket and, like, learn things about node and whatnot. But the cold fusion
plays well, with a lot of that. And it's it I have at at no point been like, well, maybe I maybe I should jump ship like it is just everything I've learned has just made me feel more comfortable with it. And more, more affirmed in the, in the decision to really dive in headfirst. It was it was immersion therapy as far as a cold fusion was concerned. For me,
Michaela 51:37
that is great. So, you know, sometimes in the past, people have said, cold fusion is diet thing. And my belief is that it's alive. And it's capable to be used as a very modern language. Yes, one of the reasons I started the CFL Live podcast, right? I want to ask you what, what would it take to make cold fusion more alive this year?
Unknown 52:01
Oh, um,
Unknown 52:05
I think
Jeffrey Kunkel 52:08
what is kind of something that an observation I had made when I first started my very first tech conference was a j. s cons. And then I went to my second was a dev objective previously see if objective Vinci of objective again,
and I noticed the there was a difference in
there was a lot more soft talks at the JS conference. And that's kind of, it's one of the reasons I submitted this talk was, I, I want it to feel
as a I felt very welcomed as a young developer in cold fusion. But I want I think, just to have
Unknown 53:00
to, kind of, not not so much copy
Jeffrey Kunkel 53:06
other languages, but just to just to be open and like, there are things that people worry about as far as starting a new language and it's I want I want everyone to be able to experience what i have i've i've I have yet to meet a sour egg or rotten egg out of the bunch like I know statistically there's got to be somebody out there that I won't get along with but it's been really incredible and I I'd like to just
just kind of get have a talk that would attract someone who has been in it for a year or hasn't done confusion at all and because
it's those for some of the talks that attracted me what was the like obviously you need the hard talks where you're you're learning you're taking something you're taking up a some good notes for the the guy who paid for your ticket to get there but just some of the more open discussion community driven things really were what helped bring me in as a young developer and I would love to see to be part of more of those things to help bring people in
Michaela 54:22
that is great so you're going to be speaking into the box in Houston Texas in April What are you looking forward to this year's into the box
Jeffrey Kunkel 54:33
um. It's Well honestly one of my biggest things is seeing the people I've I've met before like there I've made some good friends at order solutions and Mira and it's just I'm not only am I going to go learn I'm going to go see friends which is incredible also I've never been to Houston so I'm excited for that
Michaela 55:03
all right well great city you know lots of things to see and do there I hope you drive a car because you're going to need one to get around unless you just take view but to from the airport to the conference hotel and stay there which is an option right so and it's I went last year into the box was amazing conference lots of great technical stuff very interesting people and lots of good you know networking opportunities just to be with a few few folks over lunch or you know
Jeffrey Kunkel 55:39
that kind of thing so cool so if people want to find you online what's the best one of the best ways to find you uh. Honestly right now i'm most active on Twitter I this is the the given talks is brand new to me and it's I'm it's probably going to you know, fake it till you make it probably going to have more places to point you in the near future. Just as people are looking to talk to me I'm going to need more places for them to find me but as of right now it's it's Twitter's probably the best place to get a hold of me
Michaela 56:17
and your hand. Liz
Jeffrey Kunkel 56:19
is it is my handle from high school and book Well, it was my AOL Instant Messenger handle from high school, but it is a nerd
Michaela 56:32
All right. Yeah, I'll say send that the for the show notes. It's probably easier. But yeah, well, we'll put that in the show notes together with all the things you mentioned. And the other episodes we we mentioned that related to this so well. Great. Well, thanks so much for being on the show. Jeffrey,
Unknown 56:53
thank you for having me.