Good editorial and well presented.

As well as being a DBA, I also happen to be a first aider, and one of the incidents I had to respond to a few months ago was someone who suffered a panic attack (which we, the first aiders, fortunately correctly diagnosed despite everyone else in the meeting with the casualty jumping to the heart attack assumption). Stress, when allowed to, can adversely affect anyone and the results can be dramatic, long lasting or both. And, of course, responding to someone with those symptoms can be pretty stressful too.....

One of the points in the article that rang most bells, though, was the last paragraph; the point about eccentrics having the confidence to be themselves. DBAs are often called to work outside their "comfort zone", and that calls for a confidence not in your existing bank of knowledge but of your ability to assimilate new knowledge on the fly. That's a pretty high degree of self confidence, whether you're eccentric or not, and I can't help but believe those who can become "comfortable" outside their "comfort zone" will be less susceptible to the adverse effects of stress.