Intentional Privacy

I’ve already made some changes to the Six Pillars of Health cheat sheet. I will keep the most updated version here.

Stress is a component of everyone’s life. Stress can be good; making us feel alive and excited about life. Bad stress comes from chronic or numerous acute stress situations. Chronic stressors for information security professionals can include working long hours, burnout, frequent travel, inadequate sleep, poor food choices, an unhappy or incomplete home life, imposter syndrome, inadequate resources to do their jobs properly, a lack of support by management and other stakeholders, and trying to keep up with new developments in the industry. While acute stress—sometimes referred to as the “fight or flight” response—can be motivating, constantly reacting to events in emergency mode instead of proactively looking for solutions can lead to becoming an adrenaline junkie.

Managing stress poorly can lead to major health problems such as depression, heart attack, stroke, and autoimmune diseases. It can even impact your job performance!

A couple of years ago, I let bad stress take over my life, and I paid for it with health problems. Last week, I spoke at BSides Austin in the Mental Health Hackers Village. My talk was called “Using the ‘six pillars of health’ to mitigate stress and emotional malware.” I put together a cheat sheet that contains some tips on how to live a less stress-filled life.