

How have you dealt with the stress? - Isaiah

I'm gearing up to get ready to start my own startup. It'll take a lot of coding and late nights, and probably more so then some as I'll probably have to go it alone.
I expect it and I'm ready to deal with it. How have many of you done to help relieve your stress while working on your dream so you hair doesn't fall out? And how much fear did you have when starting out?
On a side note, I love Paul Graham's essays and would like to see one on how he personally dealt with the stresses of his startup. How his family reacted and what he did with that.
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patio11
Go to gym regularly. Make time for family and friends. You can't put them in
github. If you stop making forward progress, stop for the day and go do
something more important.

Fear? Not so much. It is only a job. A quirky job, granted, but a job.

~~~
MikeMacMan
I can't upvote this simple advice enough. You need to unplug and find
productive ways (read: not involving drinking, eating crap) to de-stress. The
gym works for me, as does going for a long walk. Good luck.

~~~
tomwalker
Planning ahead to save time will really reduce your stress levels.

Order in lots of easy to cook but healthy food so you dont have to go to the
shops when a deadline is looming.

Cook a few meals at a time- a couple of tins of tomatoes, onions and garlic
cooked in a big pot then stored in tupperware will give you a sauce you can
quickly throw over tuna, chicken, veg etc.

Have an emergency stash of money.

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bugsy
I tried meditation, exercise, healthy eating, and music for years without much
results.

Finally I turned to alcohol.

Now I understand why studies show that those who drink live longer. It removes
stress.

Stress can really block you from getting things done. Alcohol can break
through that. Combine alcohol with socializing and you are doing well.

I'll advocate exercise and healthy eating as well, but by themselves neither
were as effective as the booze.

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grandalf
The times when I feel the most balanced are times when I'm doing the
following:

\- Exercising a lot

\- Eating right

\- Being somewhat sociable

\- Getting enough sleep

Things that lead to more stress:

\- Worrying about stupid things like paying household bills, letting paperwork
build up, etc.

\- Not enough sleep

\- Not enough exercise

\- Too much time spent holed up writing code.

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beej71
"Guns. Lots of guns."

I like to have some kind of exercise. Personally, I find the gym feels like
work, but running or biking outdoors doesn't.

Set a break timer for like 10 minutes. You don't have to break your train of
thought, but at least stand up, stretch, and sit back down.

Have a toy side project that you put a few hours into.

And get out of town regularly, like kingofspain says. Especially if your
startup is at home, the days seamlessly blend into months.

Quit work at a reasonable hour. If you're behind, you'll get a full day of
work in there, believe me. There will be sprints, of course, but keep the work
surgical and focused. Who are you doing a favor to if you burn out and your
productivity falls below nominal levels?

Of course, these are all suggestions only. What works for one doesn't
necessarily work for another.

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staunch
Physically: Eating non-junk food, exercising, and sleep are the only
requirement for sustaining a fast pace. Make your own simple healthy food,
ride a bike or run, sleep until your body is ready to wake up.

Mentally: Take one or two day breaks from work entirely: play Starcraft, watch
DVDs, take a road trip, or whatever. Constantly remind yourself that nothing
is as scary or great as it seems.

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kingofspain
I can only offer my personal experience - and I'm only a couple of months in,
but taking a day trip out once a week has made the world of difference. I
don't even go far - just try to find somewhere new and explore. I was in
danger of burning out/giving up with all the hours I was putting in but this
has totally refreshed me.

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photon_off
I'm not going to touch on the health aspects, as they are very thoroughly
covered. You need to keep yourself healthy, yes.

I will say that if you're _not_ getting pretty stressed out on a regular
basis, then you're doing something wrong. Your start-up should be consuming
your thoughts for _most of the time_. I find the stress caused by thinking
about my start-up less stressful than the stress caused by _not_ thinking
about my start-up. The stress is a signal that my start-up is something that
is important to me, and that I'm still passionate about it. I fear the day
where I no longer am stressed out about it.

On the other end of things, your start-up should not be your whole life. Don't
put yourself in a life or death situation, realize it is not a life or death
situation, and you should keep your hair.

------
mrtron
What stress?

Never worry about things outside of your direct control and you won't have any
stress/fear about starting up.

Also gauge success by your own measuring stick. How much progress did you
make? How much are you learning along the way? It isn't only about selling
your company for 100 million in 6 months.

I had a big failure of a product that I devoted over half a year to. However,
I had many successes over that period of time that have helped me develop my
skills and knowledge. I also met many interesting people. The best experiences
were going outside of my comfort zone and trying new things - like going to a
huge potential client site to discuss vapourware. Quite a learning experience.

------
waru
Meditating regularly improves my quality of life and ability to think clearly
by about 100%. Sometimes I stop doing it for awhile and forget how much better
it is, but then I get back into it and realize, "Woa, this just makes life
easier." So I've been meditating 20 minutes everyday for awhile now and highly
recommend it.

Good food, karaoke, and a social life are my only other cures for stress. For
me, when I feel the busiest and think I can't spare time for those things is
usually when I need to do them the most.

------
Isaiah
See I can't drink much because I start feeling sick pretty fast. If I want I
can drink a lot but it's fighting my stomach the whole time. Either I only
have one or two beers or I drink till I can't feel it anymore lol. And the
later will probably cause more problems. I like to meditate a lot but I'm not
very good at keeping it constant.

------
bmelton
I'm in much the same boat. Just starting my first 'real' startup, and am
coding my ever-living ass off on nights and weekends.

I'm not yet successful, so if you hear contradictory advice, weight mine less.

1) I take breaks. Lots of them. I get up, I pace, I walk around. I'm working
with a number of new technologies in my venture, that I have zero experience
with (Tornado, SQLAlchemy mostly) and they're a pain sometimes. Getting up and
walking around gives perspective (at least to me) when I'm stumped. I've had
many a Eureka moment while walking around talking to myself that invalidated
questions I'd just posted to StackOverflow.

2) Work on something else. I've got a very simple Tadalist of all the tasks
that I know of that I have to do. Some of them are critical, most of them
aren't. If I'm stumped on something, I just move to something else for a bit.
Something easier to tackle. Ideally, I try to do the grunt-work that's boring
(writing a terms of service, for example). The accomplishment lets me leave a
session feeling accomplished, even if I didn't get anything more than a simple
cookie-based login written.

3) Pay attention to your family. Your marriage / relationships are probably
worth taking the occasional night off and catching a dinner and movie. I
recently took a week off work and went out of town for a wedding. My wife was
able to consort with all her old friends, and I was able to get some quality
hacking time in. Win/win. For wedding festivities, we'd meet up at nights and
just enjoy ourselves. Though it may take some sacrifice, just be aware that
ideally, you'd like your success to be shared with your current family.

4) Aside from that, yeah, a startup is a big deal, and it takes a lot of
dedication, conviction, perseverance, yadda yadda. That doesn't mean that you
shouldn't enjoy the process. It's going to be stressful, but it should also be
fun.

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andrewtbham
i have mixed feelings about mentioning this... but prescription drugs can help
immensely, but they are hard to stop doing. i was on clonopin for a year and
my business thrived. however, it was hard to stop taking them.

------
andrewtbham
the single best stress reliever is have a mission.

