Vibe coding doesn't make you tired. That's why it's dangerous.

Benjamin Code released a video this week about developer exhaustion after a year of vibe coding. I watched it in one sitting. Not because it was well made (it is), but because he puts words on something I've been living for months without being able to articulate it.

I'm a freelance AI product builder, and I vibe code every day. Multiple agents in parallel, 10 to 12-hour sessions, projects advancing at a speed I would have found absurd two years ago. And yet, some evenings, I close the laptop and feel like I haven't lived my day.

Except I'm not a developer. Not in the traditional sense. I've been coding for 8 months. Before that, 7 years of UX Writing and Content Design, freelance and in-house. And before that, building wooden houses with my father. I entered code through vibe coding, I've never known anything else. The 3 hours on a bug, the pride of solving it, the honest exhaustion of a day of dev, I've never experienced that. But I can feel something is off.

The stop signal is gone

Benjamin nails it: a normal dev day used to have a natural arc. You hit a problem, solved it, felt exhausted and proud. Your body told you to stop. I never had that in code. But I had it elsewhere.

When I built wooden houses in south-west France, at the end of the day you could see the wall you raised, smell the sawdust, feel your back aching. The reality of work was inscribed in your body. You didn't need to wonder whether your day counted. Your back confirmed it.

With vibe coding, you launch an agent on one problem, another on a second one, you orchestrate, validate, relaunch. It's piloting, not building. Your hands don't produce anything anymore. Your brain works, but differently. And at 11pm, you're not tired. You have no physiological reason to stop. So you keep going.

The problem is that fatigue comes anyway. Not the kind from muscles or a brain that pushed hard. A quieter fatigue. Like a permanent white noise you can't hear anymore but that eats at you regardless.

When your day didn't happen

The broken stop signal is one problem. But there's another, more insidious one. It's when you finally stop, close the laptop, and realize you can't narrate your day. You're not tired, not proud, not frustrated. Nothing. 12 hours of tokens and diffs, and no trace.

There's a word for it: derealization. The feeling that your day didn't really happen.

The other trap is that AI never says no. Benjamin calls it the greatest yes-man in history. Every idea you submit comes back validated. Your prioritization filter breaks, you implement everything that crosses your mind. I have admin pages in my projects I would never have coded myself because the effort-to-value ratio wasn't worth it. But since it only "cost" two hours with AI, I did it anyway.

That's why I built Devil Loop, an adversarial agent that attacks every decision I make. It looks for the flaw, it says no when nobody else does. It's my counterweight to AI's permanent yes-man. It's the only safety net I've found to stay on course when everything tells you yes.

BJJ: the one thing you can't vibe code

6 days a week, I go to the mat. For 3 years. And I can tell you it's become far more than a sport since I started vibe coding full-time.

BJJ is the anti-vibe coding. You can't delegate a choke to an agent. You can't prompt a guard pass. When someone puts a knee on your belly, reality hits you in the face. Literally. No tokens, no abstraction, no "did I really work today?" Your body confirms it. You worked.

It's the only moment in my day where my brain can't multitask. On the mat, if you think about something else for one second, you get submitted. It's a forced cognitive reset. Like a cold reboot after a full day of overheating.

In January 2025, I won a silver medal at the IBJJF European Championships, -76kg category. Back then I was still working as a UX Writer, 2 years into training, 6 days a week. Today I vibe code, the pace is more intense, the days are longer. The medal isn't the point. The point is that the mat had already taught me how to absorb impact before vibe coding even showed up. Without that, I wouldn't have lasted.

What the mat gives back

After 8 months of intensive vibe coding, I've identified what BJJ gives me that coding no longer does:

Honest feedback. AI tells you your idea is genius. Your sparring partner shows you your technique is garbage. The truth is immediate, physical, non-negotiable. You can't negotiate with an armlock.

A natural stop signal. After ninety minutes of combat, your body says stop. That's the signal vibe coding eliminated. BJJ restores it. You walk off the mat, you're drained, you feel good. You know exactly why you're tired.

Chosen friction. Benjamin says we need to reintroduce friction. Not out of nostalgia but out of hygiene. BJJ is exactly that. Voluntary, structured, daily friction. A place where shortcuts don't exist. Where the only way to improve is to get beaten, analyze why, and start again.

Materiality. My father's sawdust, BJJ bruises, same thing. Physical proof that something happened. In a world where everything has become abstract, that bodily trace has become vital.

Not a lifestyle tip

I'm not saying "do sports." Everyone says that. It's as useful as saying "drink water."

What I'm saying is there's something specific about combat that answers the problems vibe coding creates. Derealization, the permanent yes-man, the broken stop signal, infinite multitasking. The mat fixes all of it. Not with concepts. With a knee on your belly.

It's no coincidence that more and more founders and freelance developers are picking up combat sports right now. The body is looking for what the screen no longer provides.

Vibe coding removed the friction from work. BJJ gives it back. Not out of nostalgia. Out of survival.

If you're a developer, creator, indie hacker, and you feel this thing building up, this fatigue without fatigue, this productivity that no longer satisfies, this feeling that your day didn't happen, it's normal. We're all in the same boat. It's been one year. We're learning.

And if you're like me, if you never knew dev before AI, if you entered code through vibe coding and wonder whether it's supposed to feel like this. No. It's not supposed to feel like this. Find your friction.

Find your mat.