About

:sparkles: A curated list of awesome articles, websites and resources about mental health in the software industry. :sparkles:

Mental health is a level of psychological well-being or an absence of mental illness. It’s the psychological state of someone who is functioning at a satisfactory level of emotional and behavioural adjustment.

It includes subjective well-being, perceived self-efficacy, autonomy, competence, inter-generational dependence, and self-actualization of one’s intellectual and emotional potential, among others.

This list compiles several self-help resources we’ve personally found useful for a range of mental health problems, but in no way are they a replacement of professional help, psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. We’re not experts, and even if we were, most of these tools are meant as an aid to therapy, not as a substitute.

If you’re in a crisis, please see here, or here for resources in your country.

Contents

• Applications
• Articles
• Books
• Conferences
• Meetups
• Organizations
• Podcasts
• Talks

Applications

Applications to help with dealing with anxiety, depression or other mental health problems.

• Moodpath - Interactive, app-based screening, created to recognize symptoms of depression.
• Nyxo – Open source sleep tracking and sleep coaching app for iOS and Android.
• Sanvello - Daily tools for stress, anxiety, and depression alongside a supportive community. Based on cognitive behavioral therapy & mindfulness meditation.
• Quirk - A GPL Licensed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) app for iOS and Android.
• Three Good Things - Write down three good things in your life every morning.
• Wake Up Time - Calculates optimal times to wake up based on your body’s sleep cycles.
• we are ANXIO.us - A collection of mental health and wellness apps, plus resources.
• Wrabit - Build a daily writing habit while contributing to mental health research.

Articles

Articles, posts and papers on mental health in technology.

• A Programmers Guide To Stress - By Daragh Byrne.
• Are You More Than Okay: The State Of Mental Health In Tech In 2016 - By Julia Nguyen.
• Beating Burnout: A Guide For Supporting Mental Health At Work - By Almanac Core.
• Coding, Fast And Slow: Developers And The Psychology Of Overconfidence - By Dan Milstein.
• Depression At Work Is Skyrocketing, But It Doesn’t Have To Be Your New Normal - By Bev Campling.
• Developer Depression: Isolation Is The Biggest Problem - By Lauren Maffeo.
• Developers: How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome - By Abhishek Pillai.
• Do Not Disturb - By Joe Bell.
• Encouraging Wellness in a Remote Workpalce - By Desi Rottman.
• For The Developers With Anxiety, And Everyone Else - By Daine Mawer.
• How I Beat Impostor Syndrome And Stopped Feeling Like A Fake - By Daragh Byrne.
• How I Conquered Anxiety And Learned To LOVE Coding - By Joyce Akiko.
• How I Fought Through Anxiety And Depression To Finish freeCodeCamp’s Front End Dev Program - By Emily Aamodt.
• How To Keep Your Mental Health In Check When You Work From Home - By WeWorkRemotely.
• How To Move Your Organization From Fear To Fearlessness - By Gustavo Razzetti.
• How To Prevent Or Recover From Developer Burnout - By Anastasia.
• Hunting For A Web Developer Job… With Crushing Anxiety And No Self-Esteem - By James Lave.
• I Can’t Do It All: My Burnout Story - By Molly Struve.
• Intro To Meditation For Coders - By Abe Dolinger.
• It’s Okay To Not Be Okay - By Andrew Montagne.
• It’s Time To Talk About Mental Health In The Games Industry - By Rich Eddy.
• It’s Time To Talk About Mental Illness In Indie Development - By Jessica Conditt.
• Mental Self Care For Software Developers And Web Designers - By B.J. Keeton.
• Mental Illness In The Web Industry - By Brandon Gregory.
• My Mental Health Toolbelt - By Taylor Otwell.
• On Dealing With Anxiety And Depression As A Developer - By Michael Scott Hertzberg.
• Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety Of Software Engineers Using Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy - By Merve Denizci Nazligul, Murat Yilmaz, Ulas Gulec, Mert Ali Gozcu, Rory V. O’Connor & Paul Clarke.
• Perfectionism, Anxiety And Learning To Be Kind To Yourself - By Jo Franchetti.
• Programmer Imposter Syndrome: 6 Ways To Get Over Yours - By Ethan Urie.
• Recovering From Burnout - By Kieran Tie.
• Software Developer Careers Considered Harmful - By Christian Grobmeier.
• Sorry, Not Sorry - How To Advocate For Your Mental Health At Work - By Jessica DiVento.
• Taming Anxiety And Hacking Your Way Into Productivity - By André Pena.
• The Programmer’s Great Clinical Depression - By Jason Lowenthal.
• Tips For Dealing With Developer Stress - By Rich McLaughlin.
• Tips To Maintain Your Mental Health As A Software Developer - By Steven To.
• We Need To Talk About Developers And Depression - By Greg Baugues.
• What Happens When Software Developers Are (un)Happy - By Daniel Graziotin, Fabian Fagerholm, Xiaofeng Wang & Pekka Abrahamssone.
• What It’s Like Being A Developer With Schizoaffective Disorder - By Fris.
• What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work - By Amir Salihefendic.
• Why Burnout Is Dangerous And How You Can Recover From It (It’s Possible) - By Theodora S. Abigail.
• Why Do Software Developers Suffer From Imposter Syndrome? - By Muhammed Rajeef M K.

Books

Books that has mental health and self-care as the main theme.

• Mental Health In Tech: Guidelines For Employees - By OSMI.
• Mental Health In Tech: Guidelines For Executives And HR Professionals - By OSMI.
• Mental Health In Tech: Guidelines For Mental Wellness In The Workplace - By OSMI.

Conferences

Conferences spreading the word of the importance of mental health awareness and self-care in the software industry.

• Computing And Mental Health - Bringing together communities.
• Anxiety Tech - Learn how to advocate for mental health at work, how technology can be better designed to support mental health, what technologies are already working to help those who suffer with mental illnesses, and how you or your company can be leaders in this field.

Meetups

Meetup groups all around the world focusing on mental health in the software industry.

• Mental Health In Tech Auckland - Organized by Navs, Kai L. & Helen D.

Organizations

Organizations bringing mental health awareness to the software industry.

• Black Minds Matter - A non-profit organisation that aims to empower communities of Black people aged 13- 25, and wants to make more equal and just society for all.
• Black Therapists Rock - Black Therapists Rock (BTR) is an organization committed to increasing awareness of social and psychological challenges impacting vulnerable communities.
• The Black, African, and Asian Therapy Network - The UK’s largest independent organisation to specialise in working psychologically, informed by an understanding of intersectionality, with people who identify as Black, African, South Asian and Caribbean.
• Brown Sisters Speak - Mental Health Peer Support & Advocacy for Women Of Color.
• Compassionate Coding - Compassionate Coding combines the effective practices of agile software development with a focus on empathy and the latest in positive organizational psychology.
• Everybody Has A Brain - Everybody Has A Brain is about creating opportunities for dialogue around personal mental health.
• Hack Mental Health - The intersection of mental health and technology.
• IfMe - Community for mental health experiences that encourages people to share their personal stories with trusted allies.
• Mental Health Hackers - An Organization that aims at providing support services to those who may be susceptible to related mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, social isolation, eating disorders, etc.
• Mental Health Knowledge Base - GitHub-based project and website that encourages a diversity of views regarding mental health.
• MHPrompt - Let’s start a conversation about mental health in tech.
• OSMI - Open Sourcing Mental Illness is a non-profit, corporation dedicated to raising awareness, educating, and providing resources to support mental wellness in the tech and open source communities.
• SelfCare.Tech - A repository of self-care resources for developers & others.

Podcasts

Podcast episodes with «mental health awareness in the software industry» as the main theme.

• Emotional Intelligence And Ethics In Tech - By April Wensel in the Happy Porch podcast.
• Jerk Programmer To Compassionate Coder - By April Wensel in the Ardent Development podcast.

Talks

Talks and presentations about mental health awareness and other testimonies and experiences in the software industry.

• A Conversation About Mental Health In Tech - Distill 2014 - By Ed Finkler, Greg Baugues, John Dalton & Paddy Foran.
• Advocating For Mental Health At Work - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Dr. Jessica DiVento.
• Anxiety & Calm Technology - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Amber Case.
• Authentic Developer - Droidcon Berlin 2018 - By Anastasia López Dornak.
• Beyond Burnout: Mental Health And Neurodiversity In Engineering - DevOpsDays Boston 2018 - By James Meickle.
• Burnout And Your Meat Computer - Electromagnetic Field 2018 - By Jessica Rose.
• Cultivating Compassionate Tech Communities - AnxietyTech 2018 - By April Wensel.
• Debugging Our Feelings: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Developers - Peers Conference 2018 - By Jamie Strachan.
• Developers And Depression - Codeland NYC 2017 - By Greg Baugues.
• Developers, Entrepreneurs And Depression - Business Of Software 2015 - By Greg Baugues.
• Emotional Intelligence For Engineers - ngAtlanta 2018 - By April Wensel.
• Fight Tech With Tech - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Pamela Fox.
• Getting Therapy To Those Who Need It Most - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Shawn Kernes.
• Hacking With My Anxiety - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Bryan Hughes.
• Hitting The Wall And How To Get Up Again - Tackling Burnout And Strategies For Self Care - PyCon Australia 2016 - By Jackson Fairchild.
• Howto: Not Get A Burnout - PowerShell Conference EU 2018 - By Jeff Wouters.
• Imposter Syndrome - PyCon Australia 2016 - By Bianca Gibson.
• It’s Dangerous To Go Alone: Battling The Invisible Monsters In Tech - PyCon 2014 - By Julie Pagano.
• It’s Darkest Before Dawn: Alcoholism And Addiction In Tech - DjangoCon US 2016 - By Timothy Allen.
• Living With Bipolar Disorder As A Software Engineer - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Jenna Quindica.
• Looking After Your Mental Health, A Guide For Software Developers - PHP Yorkshire 2018 - By Mark Railton.
• Mental Health In Development - PyCon Australia 2016 - By Eloise Macdonald-Meyer.
• Modern Mindfulness - Hey! 2016 - By Joe Bell.
• Programmers Don’t Like People…Or Do They? - Node.js Interactive 2018 - By April Wensel.
• Self Care: Avoiding Burnout - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Shemika Lamare.
• Stress & Depression, A Taboo In Our Time - GOTO 2017 - By Gitte Klitgaard.
• Stronger Than Fear: Mental Health In The Developer Community - ElixirDaze 2017 - By Ed Finkler.
• Successful, Accomplished, Depressed: A Talk About Performance, Perfectionism, And Burnout In IT - WeAreDevelopers 2018 - By Dennis Traub.
• The Evolution Of VR Therapy - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Skip Rizzo.
• The Mental Impact of Tech Interviews - Abstractions II (Slides) - By Zack Zlotnik.
• The Never Ending Hack Mental Health In InfoSec Community - Circle City Con 5.0 - By Danny Akacki.
• UX Of Wearables In Clinical Treatment For PTSD - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Ada Ng.
• VR Mental Health Startup: Idea To Reality - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Jonathan Sockell.
• Why We Need Innovation In Mental Health Tech - AnxietyTech 2018 - By Solome Tibebu.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for more details on how to suggest awesome resources or other modifications to the list. You can also find an alphabetically-ordered list of contributors of this repository here.

All contributors are expected to adhere to the Code of Conduct of the project. (Contributor Covenant)

This project was started by dreamingechoes.