Rainy days tend to bring a lot of people down emotionally. That moment when you wake up, peek outside the window, and see a dark, leaking sky instead of a friendly sun can often be quite depressing for many. At the same time, coding has a reputation for being a tedious and often stressful job or hobby, deservedly or not.
Yet, what if we tell you that coding is a rather perfect indoor activity for rainy days? Or that, when done right, coding can be incredibly de-stressing and even akin to meditation?
Why Coding Can Be Incredibly Relaxing
Right off the bat, we need to point out that not all coding is the same. Obviously, if you’re working on a frustrating project, it’s crunch time, your boss’ or client’s requirements have changed five times just last week, and the project itself is nothing more than a boring new data storage system, you probably won’t have much fun working on it.
However, not every coding project is like that. Coding is essentially writing, hence why different programming languages are called that way. And, just like there is a huge difference between writing a mind-numbing legal document and a captivating fantasy short story, there is a huge difference between working on a boring programming project and coding a game, a fun application, or solving a challenging coding problem that pushes you to think creatively.
So, while some work coding projects can be annoying, coding itself can be incredibly fun and relaxing, which is often exactly the kind of activity we want on a gray and gloomy rainy day. Here are the 5 main reasons why coding is the perfect indoor activity to pick up when you want something relaxing to do at home:
1. It Is Very Distracting
Coding is an engaging activity by definition. It gives you logical problems to solve, it asks you to think of creative solutions that often aren’t immediately noticeable or straightforward, it gives you new questions to tackle within the ones you’re already working on, it often pushes you to step back and look at the bigger picture to figure out how to approach a given conundrum, it needs you to consider several things at a time, and so on.
In short, this is the type of activity that gets your mental juices flowing to such an extent that you’ll often forget about the pouring rain or the things you wanted to do outside.
2. You Can Do It In a Very Comfortable Environment
As with any other job or hobby, there is a huge difference between coding in a comfortable environment or on a low kitchen table and sitting on a hard stool with no backrest. Fortunately, you can sort out your coding corner quite easily! There are many cool tips on home coding setup made easy out there, and you often don’t need to overspend on all kinds of new office equipment the way many people fear. Instead, it’s often enough to just move or tweak things around a bit in your living room to get the ideal coding and writing setup.
And, once you have that, sitting down to code for a bit while the sky is pouring down outside can be the best and most enjoyable way you’ve spent a Saturday afternoon in a very long time.
3. It Allows You to Pace Yourself
Coding can be stressful when it’s crunch time at work. However, if you’re just doing it for your own fun or if you happen to have a cool job that isn’t all that unreasonable with its deadlines, coding itself gives you plenty of freedom to pace yourself.
At its core, coding is a creative activity, and, just like writing, it gives you plenty of time to stop, relax, step back, think about it, and proceed whenever you are ready. Most coding projects even have built-in break periods as there are times when the software is processing and loading after some new segment you’ve written, and you can use that time to get a break, think about another piece of the puzzle, or do anything else you want.
4. It Gets Your Creative Juices Flowing
As we mentioned, coding is a creative process through and through. Most people who haven’t done it think of it as just “doing math” and writing gibberish commands you’ve had to memorize beforehand. However, the “math and gibberish” parts are merely the programming language aspect of it. You need to learn the language to code, just like you need to learn any new language to write in it, but the coding itself is a creative process of envisioning, planning, and building up something new and beautiful, just as you would with a painting or a book.
5. It Gets You in the Zone
Being “in the zone” while working on a fun project is as close to meditating without actually meditating as possible. If the rain outside is getting you down and pushing you to think of counter-productive and depressing things, the best way you can do is to jump into an engaging, creative, challenging, and fun activity that will get you so immersed in its flow, that you will easily zone out of all the minor annoyances around you.
