ABSTRACT
Mental health often gets ignored in modern work life. Especially in a career guide for newcomers to a challenging role, this should change. While not true for every position, community management is commonly public-facing and contains direct communication with partners, content creators, and community members. That can quickly become mentally straining and require strategies to handle it. Communication can be harsh and stressful, with negative messages and feedback coming in from hundreds if not thousands of people at once. To prepare themselves for long-term, healthy success, community managers (CMs) have to develop methods for self-care and recognise warning signs in themselves. That proves useful for their community work, too. For numerous players, their communities are a rare place of refuge from life and provide them with social connections. By virtue of being so close to them, CMs can often spot worrying patterns in their players' behaviours but feel as if they do not have any agency to help. While the author underlines that CMs cannot and should not try to emulate mental health experts, there are some steps they can take to assist people. The author provides a list of useful mental health strategies.
