I’m a month late for an article on Mental Health Awareness Month, but we don’t need to confine these important discussions to 31 days, right?
Over the 9+ years I’ve run Stonemaier Games, I’ve noticed a pattern with my mental and physical health as it relates to me as a creator that may resonate with others: I’m really bad at noticing that a certain area of my health has declined until I’m well in the midst of it (or beyond it). That is, my mental and physical health self-awareness is much lower than I’d like it to be.
Some examples of this:
- During my original Viticulture Kickstarter campaign in 2012, I pushed my body to the limit in terms of focus, sleep, and exertion. Other than the full-time job I had at the time, I spent every waking moment working on the campaign, and I didn’t realize the toll it was taking on me. The day after the campaign ended, I got really sick (somehow my body knew to hold off until then).
- In the spring and summer of 2016 when the Scythe Kickstarter rewards were being delivered early to backers, what should have been a time of celebration was instead a time of deep disappointment and probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to depression. In short, some backers’ passion revealed a dark side of humanity and Kickstarter–the example I always give is that even though the game was delivering early in the US, backers in some states were outraged that backers in other states had their rewards shipped first (there were nearly 10,000 backers in the US, so even with Funagain shipping constantly, it took them a few weeks to send everything). I didn’t realize the full extent of how this impacted me until later when I looked back at how I was feeling that summer, but you can see it in the articles I wrote during that time.
- Before I started working full-time at Stonemaier Games in late 2013, I was a fairly active person (I played soccer and worked out a few times a week). But then I worked from home and devoted 70-80 hours a week on Stonemaier. There were still waking hours in the day to focus on physical health, but I just stopped prioritizing it, and sports and exercise became rarities. One day I weighed myself and realized I was significantly heavier than I’d ever been (not that weight is the only indicator of health, but it’s one measure that I’d gone off the rails). I’ve worked hard over the last few years in terms of daily exercise, a vegetarian diet, and some sort of weekly sport (indoor rock climbing and then disc golf) to get back on track, but it amazes me that I truly didn’t notice the declining state of my physical health.
I’m nowhere near qualified to offer advice about mental and physical health, so I’m not going to do that. But I can say that personally, I need to check in with myself on a regular basis to ask myself how I’m doing. I can’t address a problem unless I realize a problem exists.
This may seem like a self-centered thing to do, but if I’m in a funk, I’m probably not at my best for how I treat our customers and the people in my life.
Also, while it’s my responsibility to be aware of my health and take care of myself, sometimes contact from a peer is incredibly helpful. There have been a number of times during drama that another creator has reached out to me to say something as simple as, “Jamey, it sucks that this is happening, but this too shall pass. I’m thinking of you.”
That makes a huge difference, and it’s something I’m trying to do more often when I see a fellow creator struggling. My heart particularly goes out to creators who try to do something good or who have a history of compassion/kindness/generosity and have a slipup that results in baffling levels of harassment and bullying. We all make mistakes, and I’d love to see us evolve to help each other improve, offer a path to redemption, and remember that there’s a fellow human being on the other end of that tweet.
So that’s my overall conclusion: Mental/physical health self check-ins are important, and look out for other people too, as they may be struggling too (and may not even realize it).
Do you have any thoughts about mental and physical health awareness? This is a safe place to share if you’ve struggled too–when you’ve had rough patches, did you realize that while they were happening?
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32 Comments on “Mental and Physical Health Awareness: A Creator’s Thoughts”
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As always, I appreciate your writings, Jamey.
I’ve certainly been on the receiving end of social media beat-downs for being Conservative and/or a practicing Catholic. I’ve come to avoid social media the way you used to avoid reddit. The culture in our industry is very “inclusive” … “unless we don’t agree with you”. Then it can be downright cruel. I’ve found myself in your “Post-Scythe” funk several times. And I’m still so sorry you’ve had to deal with that toxicity. People do indeed forget there’s a human on the other side; things they’d never say face to face.
Whatever the thing of the day may be, kindness & generosity will always prevail over negativity and exclusion.
Prayer, and then finding a way to be specifically generous to one of those who hurt me is currently my best way of dealing with it.
Although I’m a school counselor, a lot of the same concepts and techniques for helping younger adults and school-age children still apply to adults. Please take time for yourself to stay healthy.
You can’t take care of anyone or anything (like a Kickstarter!) if you don’t take care of yourself first. Rely on your team, take a break, and make a hard limit on how far you want to push yourself.
If you need help, reach out to a friend, but, more importantly, get professional help if needed.
The gaming group / community I run is a huge advocate for mental health awareness, well being, community and inclusion, we’ve raised £11 000 for a local mental health charity.
I’ve put some of of our thoughts in to a mental health guide and shared and improved it, It’s not perfect and I’d love any feedback to make it better.
https://herefordshireboardgamers.co.uk/mental-health-and-communities/
This is wonderful, Adam! Thanks for creating and sharing this resource.
@Jamey It’s the least we can do. Anyway we can give back and help we do. I like to document and share my thoughts in the hope it helps others.
I love reading this blog and the thoughtful topics. As some one who is badly dyslexic i tend to be slowler and more cautious in what I write. So i tend to write specific guides and articles and treat them as living documents so I can go back and fix some of my typos.
Keep up the good and interesting work and feel free to share the article, if you any one wants to. I hope we need need the actual first aid advise in it, but I know I have :(
From a community point of view.
Lead by example, set your culture to be open and talk about mental health. Enable others to talk, be themselves
Check in on your members, those who show personality change.
Look out for each other and don’t underestimate your value in helping others.
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself and look after yourself.
Don’t make your community in just your image, support introverts, extroverts, heavy gamers, social gamers etc
Enable your members to contribute, giving back and having a focus can be a huge help.
From a personal point of view I’m probably a bad example. I put too much on myself.
Thank you for sharing, Jamey. I don’t feel comfortable sharing too much or qualified to really give tips but I’m pretty familiar with the daily struggle of mental health. I can’t imagine what a 70 hour work week looks like. American society (and other countries) often praise such work drive as “passionate” or “driven”, and while that may be partially true, it’s all too common to reward that self-destructive behavior despite our degrading health.
I actually found the 80-hour workweek to be rewarding and fulfilling for me (https://stonemaiergames.com/the-80-hour-workweek/). The problem wasn’t the amount of time I was working; it was that I wasn’t setting aside even a little bit of time for exercise. I still work–and enjoy working–around 65-70 hours a week, and I love it! :)
I developed Anxiety in my mid 30’s, never had it before(I’m 38). I think having kids brought it on, the stress etc. I found sitting in a quiet room on the floor for just 5 minutes helped. But you have to close your eyes and clear your mind, similar to shutting your brain off before you sleep, don’t think of anything. For me I found the easiest way to do that was imagining a fence post, I just focus on the details of the fence pole. Don’t think of doing the dishes, chores, what needs to be done tomorrow, just clear your head. Yes, it is meditation. I think if i lead with that some people immediately disregard it just at the thought of the word. But it helped me, big time. I recommend it. I also played sports my whole life, soccer, baseball, basketball, I was always active. That helps too but I don’t get the chance to do much of that anymore. You’re an inspiration Jamey, keep doing what you are doing! I am trying to design a game myself and I use a lot of the information you post. I thank you for all that you do.
Thanks for sharing that visioning technique, Ryan! I’ve dabbled in meditation and have enjoyed it whenever I’ve made time for it.
When I was in college, a series of things made me slowly spiral into depression. It was hard for me to notice at the time for many reasons, one of which was definitely that it was a lot of little things spread out over the course of 5 years. I ended up failing out of college/dropping out (I stopped going to classes and I was on academic probation so I failed out), and it wasn’t until after I made massive changes in my life that I realized I had been so depressed. Now, I’m thinking of going back to college but I’m afraid I might fall back into that cycle if something similar (or new) triggers those old feelings.
I’ve also been working in construction with my dad for a few years, and with the excessive heat waves that have happened each summer, as well as the sheer strain of the work on my body, I want to make a career shift. And while I think I’d make a great game developer, I’ve got a long way before I can move into the industry. So I’m going to start with college and go from there.
But now I definitely have systems to help me cope with my anxiety and stress. My girlfriend is great about checking in on me and making sure I check in on myself. And hopefully when I start making the transition back into school, I might have some time to work on actually prototyping my board game designs.
Thank you for saying this, Eddie. I can relate to having little things build up so incrementally that you don’t even notice the impact they’re having on you. I’m glad you’ve found some healthy ways to cope with anxiety and stress, and I wish you the best with your game designs!
As someone who deals with an alphabet soup of mental issues (depression, anxiety, ADHD, EID, PTSD, and so on), I have personal experience in not always being aware of my slipping health. It is also difficult to explain to others how hard I work to appear as “normal” as I can. I wrote an article on this once ( https://discover.hubpages.com/health/Highs-and-Lows-Living-With-Anxiety-and-Depression ).
Take care of yourself, sir. And know that you are appreciated, cared for, and that not all are of the bleaker side of humanity.
I really appreciate you sharing your insights in this article, David.
When I’m mentally in a rough place, it helps me to find purpose in stuff I can do to change the world a little bit. That may sound overwhelming, but actually we all change the world together, so everyone can make a difference.
Board games are a huge and very important part of my life. So, last year, when COVID struck and suddenly all my game nights with friends were eradicated, I had a really hard time. And actually, Stonemaier has been a large part of my own solution to cope. I was already a playtester on the Automa team, but to be able to spend more time on my board game passion, I started doing more. I did a couple of translations for rulebooks (e.g. Scythe) and I have been lucky enough to be invited as a co-developer on team Automa, working on the Between Two Castles expansion and other projects. It has been awesome, and I can honestly say that solo gaming (both playing a bazillion games as developing a few) has saved the crazy COVID year for me. I have been able to cope, and I ended up happier and more energetic than before. Stonemaier Games and Automa Factory have been of major importance for my mental health. Thank you for that.
Thanks for your comments, Karel. I think I read somewhere that one of the most psychologically healthy things you can do for yourself is to help someone else–I love that there’s science behind altruism. :) I really appreciate your contributions to Stonemaier and the Automa Factory, and I’m glad they were helpful during a tough year.
I believe the more stress you have during a campaign directly correlates to how unhealthy you are during it. The more campaigns I have run, the better I get at managing stress and the healthier I am because of it. Here are some things that work for me:
– Stay organized and be prepared. Get your email inboxes down to 0 before you launch and have a system in place to handle the flood of messages you’ll get during the campaign. Write marketing copy and prepare images ahead of time that you know you’ll need in the first few days.
– Clear your schedule. Take time off from your day job for the first few days at least. Get groceries, a haircut, go to doctor appointments, and knock out any other errands ahead of time that you would otherwise have to do during the campaign. Set expectations with those who rely on you that you will be unavailable. Do anything you can to reduce outside responsibilities and stress, especially during those first few days.
– Don’t rush anything. You will feel all kinds of time pressure for different aspects of the campaign but everyone agrees it’s better to take your time and do it right. Wait to launch until you’re ready. Get that extra component sample to make sure it’s perfect even though it will delay manufacturing. Don’t worry about missing out on “opportunities” that come your way when you’re live. Don’t worry about hitting a retail release date you set for yourself 9 months ago. Everything can wait.
Thank you so much for sharing these tips, Brian! I like the first two tips, and the third is so important. Even during a campaign, everything feels urgent and that you need to do it right away or all is lost. While there are things that need immediate responses, some things really can wait a few hours or even a few days.
Jamey, thank you so much for your transparency – I so appreciate your willingness to share! I’ve been thinking of some of the same things and how I’ve allowed things to slide – this is a good reminder to improve my habits.
Thanks Rob! I hope you find an approach that works well for you.
Thanks you (: So far setting myself some clear rules and boundaries, and asking my wife to keep me accountable to them, is working well.
Sobriety, work-out, prayer and of course boardgames is the recipe for my mental wellness, it took 20 years to discover that. Better laröte than never :)
I’m glad you found the right recipe for you!
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to you Jamey for a posting I made during the delivery of the Scythe Kickstarter.
Just before I got my own copy I saw it in a window of a shop, so I took a picture and posted it in the Scythe facebook group. My bad phrasing of the message unfortunately got misinterpreted as a complain about the shop getting it before me. Given what else was going on I can understand that, but I was just happy to see it. I remember feeling bad because you took the time to check up on my copy of Scythe which I knew was on its way.
So, I learned a lesson about quick postings on the internet that day. :-)
Henrik: I really appreciate you saying that, and I accept your apology. I’m also sorry for misinterpreting the post (there were retail backers of the Kickstarter campaign, and some other backers were complaining about seeing Scythe in stores even though it was perfectly transparent on the project page that there were retail backers and that the game wouldn’t be available for distribution until later).
That was really nice for you to post this comment, Henrik. As a creator myself, I often take text-based communication the wrong way. It’s hard to know whether to assume the best intentions that someone is just commenting to analyze a game or project they love or assume the worst that they are mad or disappointed so that I can try to improve their situation. I usually err on the side of the latter but it’s hard to know what’s best.
Going with the flow:
At times, when sleep is difficult, I find it useful to remember that this regularly happens during the “big mess” stage of creative problem solving—when all the pieces swirl about, waiting for their pattern to emerge.
Days Off:
A friend who frequently dieted always built in “cheat days.” I find that useful, even for—perhaps especially for—some trademark admirable traits, such as earnestness.
Dorothy: I like that balance of going with the flow and being intentional about taking days off.
When I feel myself getting depressed or unreasonably angry to do a mental checklist.
1. Did I get a full nights sleep
2. Have I exercised recently
3. Have I been eating healthy
4. Have I been drinking too much alcohol
I’m constantly amazed at how when I make sure all 4 of those are in balance, I’m able to handle stress so much better.
Thanks for this checklist, Ryan! That’s similar to my checklist for migraines. :)
A daily examination of conscience (which can be used even if not religious) is a great way you look at your day and see where you did well, and where you need improvements. Then, knowing your categories, like Mental, Social, Physical, Intellectual etc. Health, you can make sure you are not forgetting anything. Just 5-10 minutes a day can make a huge impact.
Thank you for sharing your approach, James!