Recognizing the Health Risks of Game Development - Beyond Carpal Tunnel (Sponsored by the IGDA)

So, uh, welcome to our talk recognizing the health risks of game development beyond carbal tunnel. I'm Wendy Despain. Uh, we're not in order here, but this is Patricia Piser and Lydia Breen and Adam Martin. And hey, thank you for the one person applauding. Um, this was kind of a hard talk to give. I have wanted to give it for a while, but um, it's hard to get people to do it. So, um, genuinely I want you guys to know that these people sitting up here today are the brave ones. Um, I had asked at least two other uh fairly famous developers, not that these guys aren't famous, but um,

well-known people in the industry who said, "Yes, I want to talk on this topic. This would be great." And then their PR department found out what they would be talking about. And their PR department said, "No way are you talking on this topic." So uh we I'm a contractor. I work with lots of different studios and companies and these guys have started their own companies. So uh their PR departments are not a little queasy about talking about the fact that there are some uh health problems with working in the game industry. Um oh we'll get there. So this is why I wanted to give the talk. I have started teaching students about game design and um they're very excited about game design and they're

very excited about getting into this subject and um not worried at all about what it will do to their life. Um, and when I try to talk to them about it, they say, "Well, you know, it might give me carpal tunnel, but there's surgery for that now, so what's the big deal?" And uh, when I talk to all of my game industry dev friends, they say, "H, yes, so I'm on my fifth spinal surgery." Um, there's a big disconnect between what students coming into the industry think their life is going to be in the game industry and what it actually is for people who have been in the industry for a long time. Um, so I started to wonder, is this just me? Is it just my friends who are willing to

talk to me about hey, you know, dump on me all of my health problems because I have my own health problems. And um I wondered if I was getting a skewed view, you know, maybe it's just that people like to complain to me about the health and maybe it's not the entire industry that has these problems. Um could be. I I like to check things out before I uh go and tell everybody we've got to change order. But um no, this is a real thing. People are really dying. Some of us in this room have friends who recently have been added to the list of game developers who have died. Um, and so it's kind of a tough topic to talk about because when we're talking about it's dangerous, it's not just well maybe you'll have to

go through one little surgery at some point in time. Um, there are real dangers in this industry that need to be talked about. So I went through to kind of analyze why it is that people are dying in our industry and uh it came down to three things. Um first neglect. They're just ignoring symptoms that they have. Um not going to doctors. Uh, one of the people that I talked to as I was discussing this talk with them um shared the story of their friend who was a game developer who felt fine and then uh there was a little mole on his shoulder and six months later he was dead because he had cancer and cancer doesn't hurt. So he didn't go to the doctor. He felt fine. And so if it had been caught six

months sooner, he would have lived, but he felt fine. So he didn't have his regular checkups and things like that. So, um, the other thing is reckless behavior, which I include, um, driving while sleepd deprived, like when you've been crunching for 3 weeks straight and you haven't had enough sleep and you wake up on the freeway going 70 or you don't wake up on the freeway going 70. And uh, there are substance abuse problems in the industry that sometimes we admit and sometimes we don't. And then the third reason is the hardest one I think for a lot of us but has hit home fairly recently. So um big question is what is going on? Uh I

like to do research and not just guess. So I have an idea. I am going to put together a totally unscientific anecdotal interesting survey to get um feedback and stories and find out if it's not just my small circle of friends, but get it out to uh as many people as I possibly could. So, I got there it is. Um, lots of responses, 420 answers from 27 countries. Um, and it was very enlightening. I came up with the questions based on, you know, things I know myself and research on other industries that spend

a lot of time working in offices and creative industries like um television and movies and some things like that. Uh the feedback that I got really surprised me. Um, everyone kind of knew that they were not taking good care of themselves with their ergonomics and nutrition and taking breaks and getting enough exercise. I have some really fun graphs I tried to shove into this short presentation and had to take out, but I will make available later because it's very interesting information. So, when I talked to people though and in the feedback that I got written in in the hey, write anything you want. Um, they were like, we know this stuff. We know we're not sitting up straight at our desks. Um, are you going to talk about mental health? Uh, and uh, please.

So, I kind of went back to that. Oh, right. suicide and not taking care of ourselves, neglecting ourselves. Yeah. So, the most depressing uh answer I got on the survey was this one. Uh, how many hugs do you get in a day? And at first, people were a little confused that I meant at work, like in the workplace. So, I clarified pretty quickly that no, I meant your entire day. Um, and if you if you look there, 192 people said they got zero or one hug per day on average. Uh, and then the next biggest chunk is one to three. Like this is yeah, not good. Um, there's been scientific research on this that uh

hopefully I can make it show you. Yay. Um, humans are social animals and we're hide hardwired to hug each other, have physical contact. Um, they've done some really interesting research recently about how long to hug and how much good it does and the fact that giving a really good hug at the beginning of a day can last all day and have beneficial effects on, ironically enough, your heart health, um, like your blood pressure and stuff. Uh, and holding hands helps. Petting your dogs does help. Um the the kind of rule of thumb is that you need four hugs a day just to survive. Uh eight hugs a day for emotional stability and 12 hugs for healthy growth. And if you remember back

we are not getting one hug a day many people in the game industry. Um, and this carries over into and you know is related to how many friends do you have? Um, and I'm not going to judge if you're one of these people that has 30 million best friends or if you're one of these people that has, you know, one best friend and that's enough and you feel fulfilled and that's fine. But the scary statistics are the ones that I highlighted that I don't have best friends and I mostly hang out with people I work with. Now, they're not huge numbers. Like most of the people there say I have a few best friends and acquaintances, but it's not fantastic. So, um, one of the efforts that's going on right now is,

um, a support network that's being built up for people who are, um, feeling a lot of anxiety and loneliness. Um, it's called the Take This Project. It comes from the Zelda. Um, you know, it's dangerous. take this. It's dangerous to go alone. Um so there are some online support networks that are springing up as people realize that um this is a real problem in our industry. Um, and to get a little deeper into it, um, it has to do with like how much stress you feel.

So, how much of your last year did you spend feeling stressed out? And, um, yeah. 37% were stressed out for at least half their life in 2012. Um I some of these statistics just start to get me really sad and upset and um partly because I've had my own problems with health that have been tracked back to stress. And um next slide. Yay. There some really depressing things out there about what kind of health problem stress can cause and I've had doctors say this to me and you know these kind of show it to that that pretty much any can any health problem can be tracked

back to stress. Uh, personally, I was having hair loss. That's not something that a woman my age generally thinks is going to be a problem in her life. And, um, my doctor said, "No, you're just stressed out." And, uh, that's what's causing your hair to fall out. And that's not fun. So, uh, yes, we have a creative industry who likes to do things at the last minute. Um, and kind of some people say they thrive on that, oh, the deadline's coming. But in reality, stress, like they've done studies, they can test this numerically. Uh, stress makes you less productive. It makes you less creative. It makes you less coherent. It makes you less rational. And it makes you less able to

make great games. So if you're stressed out, it's actually impacting your ability to do a fantastic job at what it is that you love. So um let's talk about some of the ways people cope with this stress. Um caffeine was on my list. Um 19% said they need a daily fix, which is like, "No, I need my daily fix." Um, and there were some funny comments written in the other section like, "Oh no, there's blood in my caffeine stream." And, uh, there were some scary ones like, "I drink two to four lers of Diet Coke a day. Um, I use other stimulants that aren't just caffeine." I thought that was brave of someone to write in there and admit that it's not just caffeine that we use in our industry. And um

yeah, while working 16our days, six days per week, I was drinking coffee and Red Bull and eating a leave cold and flu medicine to get the boost from the pseudo ephedrin till I put myself in the hospital with atrial fibrillation. That means his heart stopped working correctly. So, um, uh, yay, my next slide has Grumpy Cat on it. So, yeah, uh, it's the point I'm trying to make is not necessarily about caffeine. It's about, um, using these things long term have long-term effects on your health. Um, and caffeine is not the most dangerous thing that our industry uses to get by. Um, yeah. So,

the next question was, let's talk about um alcohol and if this is to be believed, 32% of the game industry just doesn't drink. Um, uh, no, but it's not like this is the only survey where that happens. Um, pretty much every survey that asks people about how their their drinking habits, um, it's under reportported. Um, some people said that I get I drink to get drunk more than once a week and that was 4% of the industry sample I had. And that makes me worry like I worry. Oops. Um, and the rest of them all knew the right answer. Yes, I drink moderately and not to excess and only with friends. Um, so this was the next slide statistic

that bothered me. Do you have a hobby that does not involve games? And I I couldn't make that up. 25% that is literally like if you do this 25% sorry it's it's another one 25% of the game industry sample self- selecting that I had said no they had nothing outside of games that they did on a daily basis. So, um, this goes back to what do you do to cope? Um, with stress, with life, people, emotions. Some people are not getting far enough away from their jobs that they have even a hobby to escape from their job. Like if you're always playing a game,

that's part of your job as a game developer. Um, yes. So, let's move on to the next one. Um, if you woke up one morning with really heavy, painful ache in your shoulder for no reason you can think of, um, what would you do? Um, call in sick and play games. Is that 47 right up there? Uh, check in with a doctor is 83. Um, ignore it. It'll go away. I have too much work to do. Is that huge chunk? um answers in the other section mostly had to do with people who um have had this experience and they're like I'd call my masseuse right away and get an appointment or I'd call my chiropractor or like they they knew

exactly what to do because they have this problem. Um, the one that kind of scared me was Google it and then if it worried me what Google said, then I'd check in with a doctor. Um, and go to work and obsess over it was scary, too. Um, so 68% admit that they would ignore the symptoms of what could be a heart attack. H this terrifies me for so many reasons. Um because pain in your shoulder is classic symptom of a heart attack. Um but even if it's not even if you just slept funny, your body and your mind work together and if we are ignoring things like hey I wonder if that's a heart attack. What else is it in our lives that we're ignoring? Like we are

a lot of those people said that they would call in sick but then play video games all day and not think about the fact that they were in pain. And that's just totally divorcing yourself from your mind and your body. And that's not healthy. It's not going to help you make great gains. Um, so if I had to identify the game industry dangers, like danger, danger, danger. So, the things that people talked about in their open-ended answers, um, toxic bosses, toxic colleagues, unrealistic deadlines, uh, the shifting sands of expectations like, um, oh no, we've got to get this over Friday or we're all going to die. Oh, actually, it's Monday. What? Um, unrealistic project plans. Yeah, we're going to make an MMO in two months.

Let's go. uh extreme pressure just this sense that the job or the game is everything and it's it's really not more important than your life. I promise. Um job insecurity was a big danger uh because there are layoffs for unexpected reasons all the time in our industry. Um, so a lot of people are just worried that they're going to not have a job next week. Um, unc unconscious discrimination, um, women, minorities, there's flatout bullying, um, creative dangers. This one is just the fact that we're we're doing creative things and it's scary to have this baby that you spend two years building in the safety and security of your own little studio and then you send it out the door and

people get on the forums and tell you what they think. Um, it can be hugely emotionally terrifying and hard. Um, and there are toxic miscommunication loops. Um, that one I put in there myself for a terrible project I was on that had really every time we talked it got worse and worse and worse. Um, but just because these are dangers does not mean that nobody gets out alive. It just means that you need to be aware of what's going on. Like if you see a sign that says beware of falling rocks, doesn't mean that a rock has fallen on your head. It means pay attention. If you know they're coming, you can avoid them. You can watch out for them. Uh so had to use a gaming analogy, of course. So if you're in a good questing party,

you need to be aware of what's ahead. Uh and you need to prepare. You need to know you've got your healer and your tank and your ranged weapons user. And you need a plan. And um I have written in my little speaker notes Leroy Jenkins because a lot of times I feel like we are as game developers um and especially the young game developers are running into this uh business excited about it. totally unprepared, not thinking about the dangers at all, not paying attention to the plans and the warnings and everything that other people say. So, they're Leroy Jenkins. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go Google it and have fun. Uh, okay. So, we can't all be the tanks.

Um, and even if we are, we have to switch out. If you've ever if you've ever played an MMO multiplayer game, you know you can't all do the same thing at the same time. So, uh, balance is balance is super important. And how do you know when you go from, hey, this is weird. that I'm having a hard time to actually I need help. So, I'm kind of gonna pass this over to Lydia. Not that she can actually see the screen. Yep. Lydia is um if you missed on the beginning uh based here in San Francisco, psychiatrist

um and helped me out a lot with like how do you figure out when you need help for your mental health? Um, so, so, so anyway, I'm I'm Lydia Breen and I've been practicing in the area for a little bit over a year, but I used to practice in Chicago for 13. Um, this is a little bit weird for me because I'm used to one-on-one. I don't give a lot of presentations. So, as I've been listening to Wendy talk, I've been sort of wondering and contemplating what are you guys all feeling? And you're probably not going to tell us, but um you know, do you relate to these these ideas? Do you have friends that you worry about? Are you worried about yourself? And and it may be possible that you're not going to actually think about that today, but maybe over the next few weeks, these ideas will come back to you as you're going throughout your days. Um but yeah, so Wendy approached me and said, you know, I'm giving this presentation. We kind of

like to have an MD um to give some credence to these ideas and also to add the part about psychiatry, about mental health. Um how do you know if you have a problem? Um well, people are different. Everybody's different. One person's stress might be another person's joy. So, it's not all that clear. And um there's this concept of the baseline. I think I it's up there. Um we we talk in mental health about our baselines. Um some people never really get to a good baseline, but those are the chronically mentally ill and probably not anybody in this room, but usually you can kind of look back and remember, okay, when was I last really happy? When did I last feel really relaxed? I don't know how long ago that is for you. Um it could have been last weekend. It could have been last month. It could have been a year. Those those benchmarks are pretty important. Um, and sure, we might have hard years and

we might have hard months and we might not always need to see somebody. It's my opinion though that it's always helpful to see a therapist. Mine too. Sorry. There's two. I do psychotherapy in my practice. A lot of psychiatrists don't. I believe in it. Um, there's different kinds of psychotherapy. I can get into that later too, but medication can sometimes be useful as well. Yeah. So, your next one is the danger. Yeah. So, um rather than um putting together an exhaustive list of the DSM diagnosis, um there's there's too many and I don't know for sure which ones are the most common in your industry. They may not be any different than any other industry where where work conditions are tough. Um there's a lot of them in this area. Um so but there are things that that are obvious to me that probably depression and anxiety are are pretty high up there. Maybe ADHD and certainly as Wendy mentioned substance abuse that can make

all of them worse. Um so if you're having trouble sleeping, if you're having trouble getting yourself to eat because your appetite is low, those are kind those are kind of the the biggest ones that you want to be thinking about. and and time is important. Um people can sometimes feel unable to sleep or have appetite problems for a couple of days. That might not be a big deal. When things start lasting more like a couple of weeks, it is actually a big deal. Major depression, major depression or a major depressive episode actually only requires two weeks of symptoms to be clinical um of significance. So, we have problems sleeping, um, appetite, problems tr trouble concentrating, um, getting tired way too easily, just not having enough energy to make it through the day most days. Um, lack of interest in in things that used to cause cause you to feel happy or give you pleasure. Um, frequent feelings of guilt or

worthlessness. um the the sense of feeling sort of just slowed down or an agitated feeling and actually people can see that in you usually a slowed down or sped up look to you that can be part of depression. Um ready to go to the next one? Not quite. Okay. Um and generally of course depressed mood. Depressed mood most of the day every day. Um, constant worry, irritability. These are kind of your anxiety symptoms. Having muscle tension all the time or most of the time. Next. Um, yeah. Next. Um, there are a lot of symptoms under panic attacks, but panic is actually pretty common. And Wendy mentioned physical symptoms. There are physical symptoms that can be caused by

thoughts, by feelings, by mental symptoms. Um, if you're waking up every morning throwing up, that's probably a bad sign. Um, if you have panic attacks, which um is like a very discreet and quick event um of a sudden sense of fear that usually lasts only 10 minutes in its peak and decline. It has many possible symptoms like shortness of breath, palpitations, chest pain, even feelings of things don't feel real, fear of going crazy, fear of dying, a whole bunch of things that people have. Um, some people might have a repeated thought or thoughts that they can't get out of their head. That's obsessive thoughts or behaviors that they know they can't control, they have to do in a certain way, like OCD. Um and then emotional lability like crying way too easily. Um noticing your thoughts are racing, flying or not actually needing sleep. Uh that can that

can be the opposite of depression. Only needing 3 hours of sleep, you feel rested. Uh you feel driven to do more. Um uh grandiose thinking and um increased involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences. Um, and then substance abuse and we can talk about what the difference between abuse and dependence is if you like. Um, obviously if you're hearing voices or you're having visual hallucinations, that's definitely a sign of a psychiatric illness. Um, having paranoid feelings that people are out to get you. And um, suicidal thoughts, big one. Um, if you're having suicidal thoughts at all regularly, once a week, once every few weeks, that's that's not normal and it's something that you should talk to somebody about. Yeah, next slide. I think the next slide is um so how to

get help. It's actually not that simple. I wish it were easier. Um, most people will start with their health insurance plan if they aren't independently wealthy. Um, you can do that. You can call your health insurance and say, "I need a psychotherapist. I need a psychiatrist." Um, and they will give you a list and then you can start calling it. It is a process and it's unfortunate that while you're feeling your worst, you have to now start calling and hope for calls back and things like that. There are many different um ways that therapists are trained. So, I'm a psychiatrist. I went to medical school. I did a psychiatry residency. Um but I'm also a therapist. I also prescribe medications. So, those of us with the MD can prescribe medications. Then there's the PhD and then there's a social worker. There's the whole range of different trainings. They could all be good um at what they do in terms of psychotherapy. Um there are different kinds of psychotherapy. You've probably heard of

cognitive behavioral therapy. There's also psychonamic psychotherapy. Both can be helpful for depression. Um anxiety. Sometimes things like OCD are really better approached with cognitive behavioral therapy. And I think that's probably about Yeah. Okay. I want to um step in with this last thought. really make sure I get it working on there. Yes. Uh so know the laws in your country and state. Um one of the questions on the survey was about hey your doctor says you need an ergonomic keyboard. Uh what happens if you go and tell your boss that you need an ergon ergonomic keyboard? Um, and one person out of the 240 said, uh, I get my keyboard because if I'm in a company more than 14 people employed, uh, it's law that I get if I have a doctor's note, I get an ergonomic keyboard. So,

um, there are actual laws on the books that help you to be safe at work. Um, I am not a lawyer. That's like the I I need to make sure that you all know I am not an attorney. I am not an expert in in labor law or safety at your workplace. But uh that doesn't mean that you can't go to the internet and uh educate yourself. Um, it's an important topic and different in different states and different countries, but uh, OSHA is the place to start in the US. Hey, um, so yeah, it's dangerous. Be careful out there. Take care of yourself. Um,

you need to know that you are the one that's responsible for your own health. Your employer isn't going to send you home when you need a vacation. Um, unless you have an extremely nice boss, but your health is your responsibility. You need to take care of yourself. Um, and that's like my key takeaway message is learn about it, educate yourself, and take care of yourselves because it's dangerous out there, but we can do it. We can we can live, we can survive, we can do this. So, that's the end of my like official presentationy bit. I have other people here on the panel because uh yeah that's just hey this is who we are again. Um real life war stories. Uh

personally I've got a mystery disease that we have not yet figured out. I go from doctor to doctor and um it's no fun. Uh we've discovered a few things. Not all of it is, you know, jobreated, but things like, "Hey, my hair fall is falling out." They're like, "Hey, stress. Ease up on the stress." And hey, look, the hair stops falling out. It's remarkable. Um, but I don't have quite the same like uh direct job related war stories that some of my panelists have if they're willing to share. Uh and we did get lots of war stories from the uh

survey survey people sharing um scary stuff like uh my boss is so terrible that I can't sleep at night. Um, I'm I'm drawing a blank, so you guys need to jump in and help me out here because Are there any war stories of your own you're willing to share? Sure. Um, one of the things that really struck me from the survey was how many people when given the opportunity to give advice to their younger selves said don't crunch. Um, that crunch was not worth it and that no game was worth their health. Um, I was the QA lead and manager on a project.

um that had an extended crunch going up to ship. Uh we shipped on Friday. On Sunday, I came down with bronchitis because my body finally said, "Oh, okay. I can relax now." And I instantly got sick. Um, I have heard stories of everything from eczema to hypertension to post-traumatic stress disorder. Um, resulting from bullying, office environment. Yeah. Office environments. Yeah. Um, those are really very real dangers. Um my personal pet peeve um in this area is chairs.

Um if you're working in a small company, you're likely sitting in a really crappy chair and these ones like these ones. Um I was working one day and realized that my arm was going numb. And um as it turned out, it was because of my chair. Um and I ended up going out and spending $1,500 on a real office chair because I decided that feeling in my dominant hand was worth it. Um I one of the reasons I also started giving this talk is that I had a friend uh say you've got students you're talking to students tell them if there's only one thing you can teach them it's to sit up straight at their desk have good posture because I've had five

spinal surgeries for nothing. I was like were you in a car accident? He said, "No, it was just from sitting slouching at a desk for 15 years, 16 hours a day." Um, and so he's got titanium rods in his spine. And uh, and yeah, and it's um, I my my experience was um, I had what was suspected to be carpal tunnel syndrome. Um, and it got to the point where after about a year and a half of agonizing pain, uh, doctors were trying to get me to go for surgery. But, uh, it got worse and worse. It got to the point of, um, burning pain from tips of the fingers all the way up the arm to midarm. Uh, sensations of freezing, sensations of electric shock. Um, uh, drugs stopped working. Uh there was no painkillers stopped having an effect. Um and it

eventually turned out in fact this is this is a positive story to come out of this. Yay. Eventually turned out that it was all due to bad posture. Uh because I used to do a lot of um a lot of rowing and I had big shoulder muscles. So bad posture. In fact, as I'm sitting now to reach the microphone, I should be should be. But um leaning forwards like this, the pressure on nerves in the back of the neck uh was called all those nerves run down through your arms and everything uh was um purely all the sensations none of them were biological. It was just the effect of nerves being being pinched and squeezed. And I found this out um by accident uh climbing a tree to get a Frisbee down for someone and hanging from the tree stretching out the arms. Suddenly all the pain went away. Um so then uh for the next sort of three or four months uh looked into this in more detail and I'd been to lots of

specialists already with no no results. Um and started doing uh yoga and taichi and uh gradually the symptoms went away and got much better and ended up with me doing for the last uh seven years doing uh Tai Chi uh quite seriously. So, I'm now fitter, stronger, and a lot healthier than I ever was before. Um, it's great for your health. It's great for your mental health. It's very calming. Um, but I would never have bothered to get into that had it not been for this this single experience. Um, but I think the scariest bit was the um the multiple doctors who were suggesting surgery for something that was literally not the cause of the problems. I actually have a picture of the surgery, but it's a little early in the morning for showing it. Yeah, it's quite brutal stuff. I Yeah, I want I I use it for my students who say, "Oh, well, you can fix carpal tunnel surgery." I'm like, "Hey, you want to see what that looks like?" Um, and then they say, "Oh, maybe I

should work on my typing skills a little better." Um, anything else or do we want to open it up for questions? All right, sounds like we've got question time. I can add more, but specific question. We've got a ton of So, as as people are walking up, we're not having questions. Do we have any questions? If you could go to the the mic mic, that would be great. Then everyone can hear spot here. Um, I'm a student at Nor Eastern University. I'm in game design and uh I'm currently working in a lab so I understand what you're like a lot of I don't know I have had as experience as you have in terms of like you know sitting in front of a computer but I definitely have dead weight you know just hours upon hours just staying in front of a computer and my right hand I actually had to get a magnet um I think magnetism helps a lot uh but I I still

feel the pain and you know even testing beta testing as controllers, what have you. It's it's it is definitely when I have to do both the designing, scripting, and the beta testing, it can be could be a living hell. So yeah, one of the funny stories that was put into the survey was that uh on the typing question, I had other and they said, "Hey, uh for those of us who work on connect titles, we're all getting uh rotator cuff problems because we spend all day doing this in our chairs and things like that. So, uh it can be anything. It's not just typing, but any repetitive motion that you do over and over and over over again." One of the key things that we ran across is just how important it is to get up periodically. And even just walking to the water cooler and getting yourself a glass of water has a significant effect.

Should I show them that scary slide? I'm going to show them the scary slide. Yeah. Um has a significant effect on your um chances even of getting cancer. Let's see if I can make it show up ever so beautifully as I do this from the left to the right. When I was uh researching posture, I did a lot of reading about uh what's the best posture because a lot of us aren't strong enough to hold our posture correctly. Um and the best recurring uh piece of medical advice I found was whatever posture you haven't been sitting in for the last 15 minutes. Um it is it's this thing of movement. your body is really really bad unless you have exceptionally good posture. Um, and it took me uh probably 3 four years into Tai Chi before I had good enough posture to to literally sit still, completely still correctly. I just didn't have the strength in all the muscles. But for everyone else, uh, for

most of us, it's a case of just keep moving. Um, I I have a friend who started yoga and one of the first poses that you learn in yoga is called the corpse pose. where you lay on the floor literally and the instructor kept coming over and saying, "You're doing it wrong. You're doing it." She's like, "How do you do corpse pose wrong?" And he would push on her shoulders because she was so hunched this way that her shoulders were not touching the floor when she laid back on the floor. So, I mean, yeah, get up and move around. This the scary slide is that uh the yellow parts of the day where you just get up and go get a drink of water, that's considered moderate exercise. Getting up and walking around your office. Um and any moderate exercise throughout the day greatly reduces your chances of getting cancer of all things. So you've got a question, so go ahead.

It's actually not a question. Um, and this is not my real voice, but um, I'm with an 80 person company, so we're not the super giant, but we're not small. Yeah. Um, the other thing I'm the director of talent and culture, and I came from other tech worlds, so I would also say there may be some learnings out there from the rest of the tech world because they do it, too. Absolutely. But we have an EAP. And so the other thing I noticed when I came on a year ago is most people didn't know it. So I feel like the EAP fairy. I have little flyers and anytime somebody's looking stressed I'm like, "Okay, what's going on with you?" And if and then I'm like, "Oh, why don't you consider this?" And so there I mean there's there are tools that are there people may not know about. Yes. Will you say the full EAP? I bet a bunch of people here don't even know what that is. It is a sort of a subset of your insurance policy that's called the employee assistance program. Uh usually there's a 247 hotline. So, um, you know, definitely, you know, in a moment of crisis, you don't have to wait until the next day to see if you still have

crisis. You can call the 24/7 hotline. Somebody will talk to you and they will refer you. And typically, there is a set number of free sessions for each EAP. Um, and it doesn't have to be I'm depressed or suicidal. It can be I can't deal with the fact that my parents need care now or you know, my kids got issues. And so it's also a way to get other community resources that you don't have time to go research on your own. It can be a way to find that, you know, oh, I do need a therapist. That's that's how I found one of my therapists once was calling EAP. Right. So there's tools out there that even well-meaning employers and employees may not know about. Yes. Um so definitely go and ask. And the other thing is that um it's it's becomes part of your culture. If you're the one that wants to go walk or ride or whatever at lunchtime, we have a whole group of people that go every day at lunchtime and they run and they exercise and they all do do it differently, but what it is is that because there's multiples of them, somebody's always in the mood and that will encourage the

rest of the people to go. So, you can you can start shifting your culture in small ways um that are not uh going to freak anybody out. Yes. Um, there were a couple of things in the survey that were like uh be careful about like uh companies that have the gym and the food and the everything there because it's actually a trap. You're never going to leave because you can just sleep at your desk and um yeah, so watch out for that. But but you c you can be a force for change for your colleagues as well like when you start making a change in your own life. Yeah. Yes. Uh this is for this question is for Patricia and Adam but also for for Lydia as well. Um I'm a faculty member teaching uh game development and obviously that is a major issue with um trying to always fight that culture but

at the same time there's a certain amount that the students do need to do to be able to compete in the in the uh to get into the career do you and I do try and I have breaks every hour and I have a big section about um cumulative trauma disorder uh and health disorder in my um syllabus But beyond just taking breaks, are there some other things the three of you could suggest both for the physical and the mental side? Just little things within the classroom and that I can start to kind of integrate help them integrate into their practice. So, I'm going to do a shameless plug at this point. Um, uh, as a hobby, I run a site called I Love Crunch, uh, whose purpose is to just document, uh, and pull together, uh, what people are saying about Crunch and what the evidence is and the anecdotal stories. Um and uh I get no benefit from this. There's no ads or anything. It's just uh it's there as a service for two reasons. One is that a lot of uh a lot of teams and companies lie outrageously about

their crunch behaviors. Um and what I've seen working with students is a lot of their impressions come from what they've read in the press. And frequently what they're reading in the press is bold-faced lies. Uh there's an awful lot of it. It's been through multiple layers of PR people. It's been through multiple marketing people. Um and to combat that was the main reason we started this site to document what's actually happening at these companies. So you can go there and you can click on uh any company title and any any project title uh and see what's been publicly said not just by the managers and the leads and so on but the engineers the artists the programmers working on it. Um and I I appreciate your your problem. you're fighting a a rear guard action against the overwhelming uh set of uh public statements by people uh who will go nameless cuz I don't want to be sued but making statements like if you do not crunch you're unprofessional and you will never work for my company. Um which

is completely outrageous and entirely wrong. Um but the uh the one of the recurring things we see on the the studies is that um uh pretty much everything people think they know about their working habits is wrong. Uh you cannot self diagnose how effective you are uh and how well you're working and you have to get other people to verify it. Um uh there was a thing we did at at one team which we found worked really well which was doing um uh Connect 4 playing it online anonymously with a maximum of 3 seconds per turn. And uh it's such a simple game. We all know how to play it. But it turns out 3 seconds per turn really checks how alert and awake you are because you can lose in three moves just because your brain isn't functioning. And you can do this after a cup of coffee first thing in the morning when you think you're wide awake. Um, and so we found doing really stupid tests like that, but really

simple ones was a massive eye openener for all of us. Um, it would even show up uh did you go out and drink alcohol last night? It made a noticeable effect on how often you you won versus lost. Um, and my experience is beyond something like that that's very uh in-your-face and evidence-based, no one is convinced. Um, but I would I'd recommend doing stuff like that because it's also quite fun. Um, uh, and I do that, too. Actually, it's not the same game, but I I I play a game to see how alert I am because I know if I'm alert, if I'm really functional, I can win every time. And when I lose, I'm like, "Okay, time time for me to stop because I'm going to be making more mistakes that I have to fix tomorrow than I'm going to make progress." So, yeah. And just one last piece of advice, get a hobby. A hobby that is not playing games. Not games. Yeah, absolutely. That one that terrified me that 25% of the respondents

had nothing beyond games in their life. Uh the CAS are telling us we're done. Come on up and ask us the questions individually. Thank you. Thank you.