NFTs & Mental Health: How To Avoid Digital Burnout
NFT stress and digital burnout is real. During 2021, many communities adopted a “rise and grind” approach; NFT Twitter was brimming with people “shooting for the moon” and chasing “generational wealth”, as the market saw exponential growth and traders and flippers saw huge returns.
When you see someone making life-changing money or building career-defining projects, it’s natural to want a slice of the pie. But not everyone can win – and where there are losses, there can be some serious low moments.
So when profits start to slow, and a bull market inevitably becomes a bear… How do we look after ourselves? How should founders, CEOs, investors, and hobbyists all react? What does wellness in Web 3.0 really mean?
The current state of NFTs
The NFT market at the moment is rough. So do NFTs have a future? Sure they do. It’s just that right now, we’re in what we call a “bear market”.
According to our friends at Investopedia, bear markets occur when prices in a market decline by more than 20%, often accompanied by negative investor sentiment and declining economic prospects.
Before the bear, we saw a “bull market”. Remember that time every man and his dog suddenly got interested in Jpegs?
In 2021, the market exploded, with total NFT sales topping $17.6 billion – more than a 200-fold year-on-year increase from 2020. With a boom that big, it makes sense that a market correction came around to make us all eat a bit of humble pie.
Sadly, in a bear market, it’s not just the scams that evaporate into thin air. Lots of legitimate projects unfortunately get caught up in the harsh market conditions, and most will fail to see it through to the other side of crypto winter.
But these boom-and-bust cycles are a cornerstone of any new technology. If there’s uncertainty over the true value of an asset (tick!), there will always be price swings – and with them, emotional buying and selling decisions.
Changing our perception of a bear market: a time for opportunity and reflection
Now for the crunch. While it may be heard to hear if you’ve incurred losses, many people active in the Web 3.0 space believe that the bear market is actually crucial to the rest of the cycle.
It won’t help you avoid digital burnout, but perceiving the bear market in a different light can be incredibly helpful for your mental state. Sometimes a simple change of mindset can be the first step towards prioritizing self-care.
So here goes. The bear market, in our humble opinion, separates those looking to get rich quick (often with little care for the fate of others – think of all of those ‘pump and dump’ schemes) from those who are in it for the long term, and care about adding value to communities and Web 3.0 ecosystem.
This is certainly the sentiment of Eliza Gwendalyn. Co-owner of RDB Car Club and CEO of Blockchnmedia, Eliza is passionate about the transformative potential of Web 3.0.
“While the bear market has been a major bummer for most right now, I think it’s what the industry needs. Desperate times prevail the strength within a space,” Eliza told Meta Hollywood.
“We will find out what projects, companies and leaders will pioneer the future of this industry while the market is at its worst. We have already started to see this shift in Web3.”
General wellness tips for NFT stress
After recalibrating our perceptions (“the market’s down, but we’re not!”), we want to run through some quick digital detox tips.
If you’re spending too much time online, try to use tools that limit your ability to endlessly browse. Scrolling can be highly addictive (especially where investments are concerned), so try to be conscious about your time spent doing this.
Make sure you’re spending time outside, staying hydrated, and perhaps making a commitment not to use technology before bed. It’s all standard stuff, but small changes like this really can help to improve overall wellness.
When it comes to NFTs and crypto, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Never invest money you’re not willing to lose. If you’re buying in Web 3.0, do it because you like the project or the art – not because you hope to see financial returns.
CEO tips: How to manage your mental health and navigate a bear market
Enough of us harping on – here’s what the real experts are saying!
We spoke to three Web 3.0 CEOs (who all tend to agree with Eliza on bear markets!) to see what advice they can offer for managing mental health when the going gets tough.
Matias Dorta, CEO of AssetDash, told us:
Slow down and regroup!
“In general, bear markets should be seen as a time of opportunity.
This is the period where you can slow down and plan bets for the long term. It’s a great time to get your finances in order, research, and pick the assets you want to accumulate at discounted prices.”
Simon Furlong, Cofounder of Geode Finance, told us:
Learn, learn, learn
“Learn enough about a particular project or chain to develop conviction. When you have strong enough conviction, bear markets are a great opportunity to accumulate.
Bear markets do not necessarily affect the fundamentals of the asset you invest in. As long as fundamentals have not changed (maybe they have got stronger? Think ETH Merge), then the short-term price doesn’t matter.
If you don’t have conviction with a long-term time horizon, then you might as well trade the markets, in which case it doesn’t matter which way the price goes.”
Taariq Lewis, Founder of Volume Finance, told us:
Find your tribe! And seek emotional support
“The best way to manage a bear market is to practice crypto ‘group therapy’. Group therapy is where you join a group of individuals experiencing the same problems or issues. You meet with a professional leader and share your thoughts about what you are experiencing.
In crypto, group therapy is about joining your neighborhood crypto group meetup where you can learn about the new blockchain and cryptography technologies, and network with other blockchain professionals and hobbyists who understand the bear market experience.
Group therapy is proven to be effective for helping build support networks during tough times. The added benefit of group therapy in crypto is that you might meet the next breakout star blockchain project that is going through the same tough bear market struggle as the rest of us. These groups can be found on meetup.com or Reddit.
Join a crypto meetup group and bond with others willing to share the emotional support needed to survive the bear market.”
To sum it all up…
Managing your mental health in today’s breakneck-speed, round-the-clock, breaking-news world can be tough at the best of times. And NFTs, love them or hate them, can certainly add to that stress.
Make sure you have people you can talk to, never invest with the hope of financial returns, and, as Taariq Lewis says so well: find your tribe!
At Meta Hollywood, we’re building a community of movie and Web3 lovers. If that’s you, why not come say hey?
Featured image by Timisu on Pixabay
