# Mental Health and Avoiding Burnout in Your Crypto Gig by Hudson Jameson | Devcon Bogotá

- Speakers: Hudson Jameson
- Channel: [Devcon](https://streameth.org/devcon)
- Date: 2023-10-07
- Duration: 25:30
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-Hv8YksnnsZ0
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv8YksnnsZ0

## Description

Visit the https://archive.devcon.org/ to gain access to the entire library of Devcon talks with the ease of filtering, playlists, personalized suggestions, decentralized access on Swarm, IPFS and more.
https://archive.devcon.org/archive/watch/6/mental-health-and-avoiding-burnout-in-your-crypto-gig/

Ethereum culture is 24/7 and always on. This brings with it a lot of challenges for DAOs and crypto orgs who need to balance growth and fast paced crypto culture with mental health. Without the proper knowledge and steps in place burnout can run rampant in a team. This talk discusses some of the things to watch out for, how teammates can be accountable for each other, and how to strive for a work/life balance.

Speaker(s): Hudson Jameson
Skill level: Beginner
Track: Governance & Coordination
Keywords: burnout,mental,health,health

Follow us: https://twitter.com/efdevcon, https://twitter.com/ethereum
Learn more about devcon: https://www.devcon.org/
Learn more about ethereum: https://ethereum.org/ 

Devcon is the Ethereum conference for developers, researchers, thinkers, and makers. 
Devcon 6 was held in Bogotá, Colombia on Oct 11 - 14, 2022.
Devcon is organized and presented by the Ethereum Foundation, with the support of our sponsors. To find out more, please visit https://ethereum.foundation/

## Transcript

foreign [Music] okay our next talk is on mental health and avoiding burnout in your crypto gig and is going to be hosted by Hudson Jameson Hudson is a long time ethereum contributor having previously worked at ethereum Foundation For Five Years on numerous efforts including protocol development coordination specifications and co-running devcon's two three and four he co-founded the ethereum educational and coordination group ethereum cat herders he has three cats and five chickens and lives in Texas with his spouse please help me and welcome me Hudson to the stage [Applause] but hello thank you so much for the introduction all right so before we start I gotta apologize I kind of partied too hard last night at the element Lido thing so my voice is out however dead ass I was just at the coffee table and I had honey I just grabbed it and just like squirted a bunch of my throat so I should be okay all right so yeah today we're gonna be talking about mental health and avoiding burnout um next slide I also the clicker's not working I'm gonna have to be like click a lot because there's animations click all right so just a bit about me uh I've been in crypto since 2011. um I am have been in the ethereum community since 2015. mostly at the ethereum foundation doing stuff like the all core devs calls EIP management and Devcon um I left in 2021 and joined flashbots for a little bit and then I also co-founded Oaken Innovations and ethereum Cat herders if you've heard of them um I'm trying to get a hobby outside of crypto that's hard we'll come we'll come back to that later but uh I like ice cream whiskey and uh taking VHS tapes and they can put them on YouTube uh also can we start the timer okay so before we begin just a quick heads up presentation is going to be on some heavier topics around mental health uh maybe like mentioning self-harm completely relate to not being in a place to want to hear that you can just walk out at any time or you know turn off the video and if you're watching you know on the internet until you're more comfortable hearing it or never um I'm also not a doctor I'm not trained in mental health um this just draws from my real life experiences in mental health and should not be taken as medical or legal advice click all right so let's get to some mental health tips today I'm kind of like structuring this just not to like be like Webster's defines mental health as but just kind of doing things that I thought were like important to say to people that's it's not always talked about um next slide so tip number one adjust your perspective on Mental Health it should be treated as serious as a physical injury um so like if you broke your hand and you can't code anymore you're going to do everything you can to like heal that hand until you can code again um I it seems like there's like a stigma though especially in work some workplaces where it's like mental health things like severe anxiety depression other stuff like aren't taken as seriously in some parts of the world uh when really that's going to cognitively affect your work much more sometimes than a lot of physical injuries so it's a taboo subject but talking about it helps um there are many places around the world where like it's kind of like a suck it up uh you know just be stronger that kind of stuff I really don't believe in that I think that you know if you're not okay it's okay to be not okay you can talk about it you can reach out and get help for that um so the first thing yeah first tip adjust your perspective it's as bad as a physical injury we should treat it more seriously next one okay build and maintain a support system click I do not mean this support system we are all addicted to crypto and if you were just in if all your support is people who are also in the same Echo chamber as you then that's not going to be as effective uh next so don't do that next instead next yeah do something like this my support system is my parents uh my friends in the middle and I have a therapist a therapist has been one of the most helpful things for me but again it's just one piece of your support system and um hit one more time click and you can have a little crypto friend support As a treat like if you want it like there are like some really good Discord groups I'm in where we have a mental health Channel and we can just be really open about what we're feeling that day and everyone's support system is going to look different I mean maybe you're just like a total introvert and you just have like your cat great that's part of your support system everyone should make sure that work isn't encompassing their life and that they have some kind of support system where they can like actually say this is who what I do to uh clear out by mind and to make myself understand the issues I'm having click all right don't be afraid to ask for help I kind of alluded to this in tip number one you are not weak uh people around you especially people from different Generations than your own might not understand what you're going through and that's okay like you you should be the number one priority to you I had this problem for a really really long time it was very difficult I was helping a lot of different people not taking care of myself uh still struggling with that to this day but I'm starting to finally come to an understanding myself that like if I can't help myself others are going to be affected as well and if I don't help myself I'm just going to keep burning out harder and harder so yeah that's kind of um yeah just the tip is just don't be afraid to ask for help next slide now we're going to talk about burnout next right so burnout is individualized it is different for different people um I I I I've never admitted this publicly but um some a mistake I made early on in working for ethereum I was at the ethereum foundation early like 2015 2016. and I would travel with vitalik a lot and we've all seen how vitalik works so in my mind I was like oh if I'm not matching vitalik I'm not doing good enough but in reality vitalik does take time to himself he does take care of his health and his body and breast and stuff but I I was kind of naive and just thought I just need to be pushing myself harder and harder and harder to accomplish things and I mean I'd be I'd be lying if I didn't say that got me places but it was at the toll of my mental health and I've had a multi-year mostly burnout period because of it like 16 18 hour days of nothing but ethereum for like three to four or five years gets to you um so yeah don't don't compare yourself to others and and do yourself check-ins this is something where a lot of people I find in the crypto space are very analytical they aren't going to do like a body check of like their emotions I had a lot of therapy before I could come to empathize with myself and I think that's something more people should do to maybe put a reminder in their calendar and say you know how am I feeling like is everything good do I need to adjust things so yeah um or check it with your support system too my spouse Lillet is amazing um I'll go up and I'll be like hey am I Manic and they're like yeah you're a man it goes like I had no idea and they're like you've been up for 20 hours I'm like okay so uh yeah next slide here's some resources also just by the way uh start thinking of questions we're going to have a good amount of time for questions um additionally if like people don't have exactly questions but like under 30 second personal experience that they want to share um that's fine too at the end of this um okay resources next slide all right internet's your friend there's online therapy that I found a lot of people have found very helpful I have a therapist in my town but we work remotely um it's not like super expensive and you can sometimes get work to pay for it so I'll talk to that about that in a second also something that was really good for me and understanding myself and coming to terms with how I operate as a person is taking a neurocycle to neuropsychological tests one of them one of them was a general one and that once they said you have bipolar two you have ADHD you have OCD and I was like okay cool and then years went by and uh everyone in my life was like Hey you really seem autistic and I was like you're diagnosed right it's like No And so I I'm not the kind of person who likes to self-diagnose with when it comes to medical stuff so I did that test and the autistic testing people came back were like yeah you're autistic however you're so good at masking and mimicry that and I and eye contact that like you just naturally or like do that but it's or unnaturally do that but it's taken you a while to get there I didn't have any friends till High School no one wanted to talk to me so I kind of just learned and I think a lot of us do this what we what what facial Expressions we have to do to get a positive response from people so yeah join or start chat rooms that are crypto or non-crypto to build a support system those are really important don't let all your chat rooms be work related that'll just drain you uh touchgrass go outside don't I mean you can walk with your laptop it's not the weirdest thing in the world maybe um and being outside and getting exercise is a very important thing I've ever I've also heard there's like Sun lamps or something that might be helpful I'm actually really bad at this so like do as I say not as I do but going outside and getting exercise really does do physical and chemical things to the body to help with a lot of the emotions we struggle with slide okay so in our ecosystem in ethereum what can we be doing to push the topic of mental health forward slide so if your company doesn't have proactive mental health measures advocate for them we need to make them common um some examples mandatory vacation days I've heard of this working more so recently for people who are truly Workaholics um I mean it's going to be an interesting subject but when you know if you're approached about it or if you talk to your work but I've heard it works uh stipends for therapy or Psychological Services I mean they give you like what like a couple thousand dollars for a new Macbook and you get like a rolly chair that's really cool if you're working from home why not monthly stipends for therapy I think that's going to be really important and going on like everyone's going to have to be doing that eventually um and then the last one's very important and close to me because behind the scenes because I've been in ethereum so long I've dealt with a lot of mediation uh and major projects where they didn't have um like a traditional HR or anyone that would mediate conflicts within their organization so I don't like the term HR because like HR is hired by the company to protect the company's interest so sometimes they're great and they really do go to bat for you but there needs to be like a new term or a new kind of person that is like paid by the company but is like legally and in all other ways separate from the company so that they like if you have a problem with the highest levels you can go to them instead of having to escalate it through other means or being too scared to escalate it so if you're a crypto company right now and you have employees um see what your employees need maybe they don't need any of this uh they probably need number three at minimum and I've talked to a few companies about them implementing this and I'm going to see how this goes uh but yeah just really advocate for this stuff because I mean they're going to be Pricks if they say no right so yeah all right next slide okay be kind take care of yourself and ethereum we'll continue to have a soul ethereum is the best cryptocurrency ecosystem project because it has a soul and what I mean by that is that unlike other projects that kind of like uh have uh Debs they hire just for a short amount of time and then they get uninterested and drop them there's a lot of fun cool things there's a lot of great people there's a lot of good discussion in ethereum and there's values that the earliest people in ethereum have like instilled in us around censorship resistance and decentralization and other stuff but also just like not being a dick like you see it with metallic you see it with Danny Ryan you see it with Tim baiko like they all exude this value of like not getting into sticky situations or you know having useless fighting with people so um yeah and also like when you're on Twitter just stop for a second when you're about to like just post that rage tweet like to reply to someone and think like they might be going through a hard time right now I've actually reached out to people on DM if someone's acting a little off about something they're saying and I'm like hey are you cool and sometimes they're not sometimes they're in a manic phase sometimes they just had a rough thing happen and they're just trying to escape that by going to Twitter and being off off kilter so uh yeah just like have empathy in that area I guess it's the best way to put that next slide thank you so much we're going to do questions now we have at least 13 minutes so yeah uh oh thank you Hudson thanks for the talk I like your T-shirt what's your take on psilocybin psilocybin oh oh I'm not I'm not working anymore right now I can talk about that um so um psilocybin is an amazing amazing tool for mental health um I've tried a lot of non-traditional things for my bipolar 2 and depression one of them is IV ketamine it's very expensive it's legal in the U.S but it's very expensive that is I've it's helped me a ton sometimes other times it doesn't help me at all additionally uh psilocybin um I've heard on when you take a major trip it can do a lot of things in my case when I took a major trip on mushrooms it gave me more empathy because that was a hard thing for me additionally I uh in a very dark dark time when I was had to be working I microdose psilocybin for a year and it was one of the only things that helped me because the prescription medicine wasn't doing its job exactly and I was doing them together but you know I just was on the wrong stuff for a while so yeah love psilocybin next up excellent so psilocybin is like a scientific term for magic mushrooms oh um wonderful talk Hudson um I wondered what your recommendation for like post Devcon like recovery is because like Devcon you come here it's like really intense I'm like really tired it's like you know doing stuff I always decides interactions and then after this I'm going to get on um do 18 hours of travel and then like sit in my house again like how do I recover from that like Drop yeah there's gonna I mean a lot of people actually go into a little bit of a depressive slump or anxiety slump after a big conference where they're like overly social for a week um I used to go way harder at Dev cons and I would crash for a whole week afterwards I'm actually pacing myself this time but uh to answer your question everyone's gonna be different some people like just want to watch Netflix all day after they get back from a conference and just not do work for a day or two others need like multiple days to sleep depending on where they came from others want to get right back to work because they stay energized I don't understand those people some of the time but you know it's different for different people so just um just kind of like really focus on what you think is the most relaxing thing for you and what will help you recharge okay uh yeah thank you um so in the title of the talk there was like your cryptocurrency or gig your ethereum gig um you have any particular advice for people who are doing gig work where they might have multiple projects or you know not just have like one full-time job that's a really good question so yeah if you're just doing gig work um it's it's there's good and bad with it because I've also been there to an extent as a contractor and stuff usually depending on where you are in the world you might not get benefits um things like that I would set aside a little bit of money for like therapy and stuff like that especially if health insurance in your country if you're if you're lucky enough to be in a country that just does it for free great but like for us uh that you know you need to like set aside some money and time for it um yeah also like one thing I'm not going to show this company because I don't know the ins and outs of it but as a gig employee check out opolis they do some stuff around having gig employees get Group Health Care through them in a cryptocurrency way it's actually the East Denver guy John powler runs it so yeah check that out that might be a good thing for Gig employees hi that's an amazing talk thanks so much thank you um I noticed that a lot of people in crypto often have like Mania or like sometimes just a little bit like myself included when I first got into crypto I was like very manic um and people tried reaching out to me about no no I'm fine um so I was wondering like what is a good approach to dealing with like someone that you care about who may be manic yeah so um if you yourself are Manic and you're kind of coming to that realization um definitely talk to Medical people um the ones that I would recommend um to look up for would be like therapists can do so much but then there's other ones who can prescribe medicine like psychiatrists and sometimes um them working together or like getting a piece of paper that the therapist says like yeah this person's Manic and then the third then the psychiatrist is like I agree and then they get you something that's one thing um as far as other people in your life um just like if they were having any other things that you were concerned about in my in my case I think I would just message and be like hey I'm concerned and wanted to get your take on this I've done that line a lot um and also it's gonna depend on the person some of them are much more responsive with that kind of feedback some of them are like no no talk about health don't talk about health So like um showing that you care is usually going to break down a lot of barriers to people so that's kind of what I've done uh so quitting a position for mental health after a certain period of Time how do you deal with uh the sort of the drudgery of not doing anything and not triggering further mental health issues yeah that's a tough one because I've actually been on a mental health break since February and I know other people who are struggling with this too um one thing that I did was try to make myself busy with um non-crypted stuff like explicitly non-crypto stuff so um we had a friend move in with us temporarily so we were getting their room together we in the last year we've acquired nine chickens please don't tell where I uh my uh my uh County in Texas that we did this we technically have an illegal chicken there's only supposed to be eight uh but so yeah so like just dealing with like you know and there's like a garden we have like there's a lot of things to deal with and so it's like manual work like that gets your mind off it additionally rekindling old friendships is a good idea like finding you know support groups that are in or outside of crypto to just kind of stay up to date and um for people who are just getting out if there are opportunities for little bits to help little advisory roles or like throwing in a few GitHub commits that can kind of help a little bit with like I'm you know I'm still here I'm still doing stuff um but yeah don't ever Rush getting back into something just because there's that kind of void that's just something that maybe a therapist can work out or you can find by doing other little tasks thank you so much such a great talk uh my question is somewhat related to that is with your spouse how do you you guys have three cats um yeah and I'm going in that direction as well so what's it like like when you're when you're off the mental break and do you guys discuss crypto do you not do you intentionally just leave it there or yeah if you get this if I don't mean to Pride into your priorities yeah you know yeah that's kind of like how do you interact with those closest to you about this while you're going through this it's kind of what I take from that so I can kind of give my personal thing I really don't mind um so uh my spouse Lilith who's amazing um does isn't exactly like crypto that much uh to be fair they did volunteer and actually work on devcons two and three which wasn't the best experience behind the scenes so that was a little bad but also like they just they don't jive with many people in this space um it's just not their interest they're just like artists and artists and stuff so and not into nfts so uh basically what I do is uh I don't really talk about crypto that much sometimes when I have like interesting conflict resolutions or like uh hot tea for crypto like I bring it to them because it's kind of just fun to talk about like oh I can't believe this conference video is ridiculous I can't believe uh what's what's one that I showed them oh like a dfinity the launch video and stuff I was like they look like robots so like showing cool stuff like that is fine but like yeah in general um there are some crypto power couples that make it but for the most part most people I know that are happiest with their spouse in crypto try to keep their work separate and because it can blend so easily that can cause further problems so yeah um and then also I actually you had one more point which was when you start getting back into it after leaving um just be in close communication with that person to say let me know if it's too much or like hey today am I spending enough time with you I had a lot of problems early on where like ethereum would replace my friends and family so I'm now like hey are you feeling do we need are you feeling connected today like do you want to watch a movie like that kind of stuff and that's helped a lot we have time for one more question anyone else hello uh great talk thank you so much I would just really love to hear you riff a little bit on how managers can be empathetic and caring when they have to give corrective feedback or or sometimes even help an employer realize that it's time for them to part ways with the organization yeah I can rip a little bit on that um empathy is really important managers should have that and my personal experience um my two most recent full-time Employments for the ethereum foundation and flashbots uh the ethereum foundation I had to I broke down and I was getting sent to um I took a grippy sock vacation to brain jail aka the mental health hospital so I was doing synth there and I messaged um the leadership at the EF and I was like hey I'm coming here so sorry I feel like I'm letting you all down and they're like no you take as much time as you need you will have a job when you come back that is the number one thing I think managers may not realize is that they think oh if I'm going away for one two three four weeks at a mental health ward you know I will lose my job because of what I'm doing but though they said you take as much time as you need we're here to support you everyone's covering your back so shout out to the EF for that and then later I worked for flashbots first but I got into it too quickly and um there was a point in late last year where I was just like absolutely a mess with like home life stuff and or family or family stuff and other things and uh I just was like bawling on the phone till to Phil dying and I was like I can't do this I can't do this and he said there's nothing we have full support you are getting a two-month paid mental health break and at the end of it you can come back if you want or if not we're totally cool so like flashbots had a policy in place to like you know deal with this and I was really happy about that and it took me a while in February when it was over I said I can't come back yet my medicines aren't right Etc since then I've been doing a lot better but like it was just amazing to me that like they're so Progressive in that so as a manager yeah you need to to just people are P people first that's what like the EF has done in various ways and flashbots does in amazing ways so um yeah put people first be empathetic and make sure they know they have a job thank you so much all right thank you so much for your talking for sharing your story