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I've been thinking lately about the line between feeling "stimulated" and feeling "stressed" by intellectual work. I certainly crave challenging problems but I

I've been thinking lately about the line between feeling "stimulated" and feeling "stressed" by intellectual work. I certainly crave challenging problems but I feel sometimes like that inherently brushes up against stress -- thinking hard about a problem and hitting frustrating roadblocks along the way is more stressful than laying on the beach, but also to me feels much more meaningful. I worry if the type of person who seeks out stimulating work and having that become a source of stress is risking damaging their health in the longer term -- I always vaguely assumed thinking hard about problems was a net positive for my brain & would keep me mentally active, but perhaps it's worth thinking about finding ways to keep doing this kind of work and at the same time minimizing the impact of the stress it causes. Maybe aiming to work only when feeling well-rested, or working without deadlines could be things to consider along these lines -- I don't really have a central thesis or solution to stress-free & stimulating work, but these kinds of ideas have been on my mind.

mettamage 7y ago
I thought quite a bit on the topic of craving and frustration. I wrote an article about it that I could email to you if you would like. And I learned a thing or two about stress when I studied psychology. Here are my thoughts (without sources and a bit worse editing as I am on my phone). > I certainly crave challenging problems. When crave something I always wonder how it is different vs a cocaine addict craving cocaine. I crave mental stimulation as well, so here are my observations: 1. Psychological addiction is possible. 2. Craving too much mental stimulation could weaken your social ties depending on how you seek it out. 3. You become intellectually sharper at whatever it is you’re stimulated by but in almost all cases not sharper in other areas, even when skills are transferable (unless the areas are really close). 4. As almost always, following a chronic crave does not make you happier. Like scratching an itch doesn’t make you happier. Being frustrated is not an issue in my opinion. Frustration results from not achieving your goal while you believe you should still be able to progress but somehow you don’t. There is no stress there as you can simply do something else. Take the option of doing something else away and then you do have stress (e.g. this wasn’t a frustrating hobby problem in your free time but a problem on your job that is making your company lose $10k per hour). > I worry if the type of person who seeks out stimulating work and having that become a source of stress is risking damaging their health in the longer term Only if it is chronic. Read about the HPA axis. It proposes a biological explanation for depression through stress. Also, burnout is symptomatically very similar to depression (I am on mobile cannot find the source now, but any decent search engine can help). > I always vaguely assumed thinking hard about problems was a net positive for my brain & would keep me mentally active In this particular case the exercise analogy works. If you do anything physical (or mental) that is beyond your capacity or stamina but you somehow are forced to go through with it, then you will experience stress. In closing only chronic stress is a bad thing since we can recuperate from temporary stress. Aka we simply need the ability to rest and the ability to recover. On a short-term basis, stress is a good motivator to some. Related to all of this (in an unusual way) is the self-determination theory of motivation. What you may see here is that in my examples people have little to no autonomy and that results in stress.
- dkersten 7y ago
  > When crave something I always wonder how it is different vs a cocaine addict craving cocaine. Lately, I've been trying to give myself plenty of boredom time. I still fail at it a lot, but I try to do most things with purpose now: I don't listen to music just because, for example, instead I decide I want to listen to music and then sit down to do just that. I feel I enjoy it a lot more this way! I also don't idly listen while travelling or walking anymore. I go for walks almost every day now and I enjoy the quiet as much as the exercise. I also try not to idly read stuff online (especially on my phone). I definitely still fail at this, but slowly I'm improving. Its better to spend half an hour bored than mindlessly reading stuff. There's been plenty of articles here about how boredom is good for your brain, after all. Having said that, I do find it very difficult to do work that isn't mentally stimulating. > On a short-term basis, stress is a good motivator to some. When I was in my early twenties, I worked very very well under stress. Having a lot of pressure pushed me harder and I got a lot done in a short space of time. As I get older, though, I find that the stress bleeds over to the rest of my life and I'm less able to just shrug it off or channel it to get work done, so now too much stress slows me down instead, and seems to negatively effect my life and health in other ways instead. A small bit of stress is fine, of course, but chronic stress is, I believe, very unhealthy. Anecdotally, I had a ton of health issues a few years ago that I believe (and the doctors said its possible when I asked about it) that they were all a side effect of my few years as a startup founder. Again, anecdotally, I've known other startup founders (including my current boss) who have had probably-stress-induced health problems. Its an aspect of startups people rarely talk about or warn you about.
  - mettamage 7y ago
    I feel like I'm almost reading my own writing here. I have very similar experiences. > Its an aspect of startups people rarely talk about or warn you about. I agree, and it should be talked about more. The same is true for other high performance jobs (e.g. investment banking or consulting), where high performance means working a lot of hours. I also think Ycombinator could improve on this as I remember Sam Altman saying during a Startup School lecture (paraphrased): if you get a burnout, fix it. I felt like he implied to just make it work somehow, it doesn't matter how. In fairness, most of these people aren't mental health professionals and somehow had to deal with these things themselves as well and they are simply sharing their views on how they dealt with it. What I wonder is if they reflect on the idea that some people that this as advice and moreover take it to heart. Taking a personal strategy of someone else to heart seems quite dangerous to me.
GuB-42 7y ago
I don't find challenging work particularly stressful. In fact, I usually find them less stressful, because I just try to do my best, and accept the possibility of failure. The most stressful situation for me is when I have a relatively easy task but that failure is not an option. For example: - Climbing a vertical cliff with full protection: challenging but not stressful. - Walking on a beam on top of a 10 story building: easy but stressful.
zzzeek 7y ago
My advice would be to use your brain for this stimulating work as much as you like, and manage any stress response separately, that is, get plenty of exercise, sunlight , nutrition, and as a bonus look into some kind of mindfulness routine particularly where you practice being aware of where stressful physical responses can be perceived and mental patterns that can release them, after all anything you practice doing with your mind will affect its physical formation in one way or another. Plenty of brilliant 90 year olds out there who never stopped their minds from working.
arrosenberg 7y ago
Check out the book "The Upside of Stress" by Kelly McGonigal (or watch her TED talk - https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress...). It helped me understand how different sources of stress were affecting me and how I was framing those situations. There are multiple ways stress can affect you, and only some of them should be viewed negatively when they pop up at inappropriate times. In many cases, stress can be viewed positively as the body warming itself up to take on a challenge, rather than a response to a threat. Those things feel physiologically similar, so your brain doesn't always interpret them correctly. The goal is removing/reframing the stressors that make you feel threatened, and selecting for the ones that make you feel challenged.

mettamage 7y ago

I thought quite a bit on the topic of craving and frustration. I wrote an article about it that I could email to you if you would like. And I learned a thing or two about stress when I studied psychology. Here are my thoughts (without sources and a bit worse editing as I am on my phone). > I certainly crave challenging problems. When crave something I always wonder how it is different vs a cocaine addict craving cocaine. I crave mental stimulation as well, so here are my observations: 1. Psychological addiction is possible. 2. Craving too much mental stimulation could weaken your social ties depending on how you seek it out. 3. You become intellectually sharper at whatever it is you’re stimulated by but in almost all cases not sharper in other areas, even when skills are transferable (unless the areas are really close). 4. As almost always, following a chronic crave does not make you happier. Like scratching an itch doesn’t make you happier. Being frustrated is not an issue in my opinion. Frustration results from not achieving your goal while you believe you should still be able to progress but somehow you don’t. There is no stress there as you can simply do something else. Take the option of doing something else away and then you do have stress (e.g. this wasn’t a frustrating hobby problem in your free time but a problem on your job that is making your company lose $10k per hour). > I worry if the type of person who seeks out stimulating work and having that become a source of stress is risking damaging their health in the longer term Only if it is chronic. Read about the HPA axis. It proposes a biological explanation for depression through stress. Also, burnout is symptomatically very similar to depression (I am on mobile cannot find the source now, but any decent search engine can help). > I always vaguely assumed thinking hard about problems was a net positive for my brain & would keep me mentally active In this particular case the exercise analogy works. If you do anything physical (or mental) that is beyond your capacity or stamina but you somehow are forced to go through with it, then you will experience stress. In closing only chronic stress is a bad thing since we can recuperate from temporary stress. Aka we simply need the ability to rest and the ability to recover. On a short-term basis, stress is a good motivator to some. Related to all of this (in an unusual way) is the self-determination theory of motivation. What you may see here is that in my examples people have little to no autonomy and that results in stress.

dkersten 7y ago
> When crave something I always wonder how it is different vs a cocaine addict craving cocaine. Lately, I've been trying to give myself plenty of boredom time. I still fail at it a lot, but I try to do most things with purpose now: I don't listen to music just because, for example, instead I decide I want to listen to music and then sit down to do just that. I feel I enjoy it a lot more this way! I also don't idly listen while travelling or walking anymore. I go for walks almost every day now and I enjoy the quiet as much as the exercise. I also try not to idly read stuff online (especially on my phone). I definitely still fail at this, but slowly I'm improving. Its better to spend half an hour bored than mindlessly reading stuff. There's been plenty of articles here about how boredom is good for your brain, after all. Having said that, I do find it very difficult to do work that isn't mentally stimulating. > On a short-term basis, stress is a good motivator to some. When I was in my early twenties, I worked very very well under stress. Having a lot of pressure pushed me harder and I got a lot done in a short space of time. As I get older, though, I find that the stress bleeds over to the rest of my life and I'm less able to just shrug it off or channel it to get work done, so now too much stress slows me down instead, and seems to negatively effect my life and health in other ways instead. A small bit of stress is fine, of course, but chronic stress is, I believe, very unhealthy. Anecdotally, I had a ton of health issues a few years ago that I believe (and the doctors said its possible when I asked about it) that they were all a side effect of my few years as a startup founder. Again, anecdotally, I've known other startup founders (including my current boss) who have had probably-stress-induced health problems. Its an aspect of startups people rarely talk about or warn you about.
- mettamage 7y ago
  I feel like I'm almost reading my own writing here. I have very similar experiences. > Its an aspect of startups people rarely talk about or warn you about. I agree, and it should be talked about more. The same is true for other high performance jobs (e.g. investment banking or consulting), where high performance means working a lot of hours. I also think Ycombinator could improve on this as I remember Sam Altman saying during a Startup School lecture (paraphrased): if you get a burnout, fix it. I felt like he implied to just make it work somehow, it doesn't matter how. In fairness, most of these people aren't mental health professionals and somehow had to deal with these things themselves as well and they are simply sharing their views on how they dealt with it. What I wonder is if they reflect on the idea that some people that this as advice and moreover take it to heart. Taking a personal strategy of someone else to heart seems quite dangerous to me.

GuB-42 7y ago

I don't find challenging work particularly stressful. In fact, I usually find them less stressful, because I just try to do my best, and accept the possibility of failure. The most stressful situation for me is when I have a relatively easy task but that failure is not an option. For example: - Climbing a vertical cliff with full protection: challenging but not stressful. - Walking on a beam on top of a 10 story building: easy but stressful.

zzzeek 7y ago

My advice would be to use your brain for this stimulating work as much as you like, and manage any stress response separately, that is, get plenty of exercise, sunlight , nutrition, and as a bonus look into some kind of mindfulness routine particularly where you practice being aware of where stressful physical responses can be perceived and mental patterns that can release them, after all anything you practice doing with your mind will affect its physical formation in one way or another. Plenty of brilliant 90 year olds out there who never stopped their minds from working.

arrosenberg 7y ago

Check out the book "The Upside of Stress" by Kelly McGonigal (or watch her TED talk - https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress...). It helped me understand how different sources of stress were affecting me and how I was framing those situations. There are multiple ways stress can affect you, and only some of them should be viewed negatively when they pop up at inappropriate times. In many cases, stress can be viewed positively as the body warming itself up to take on a challenge, rather than a response to a threat. Those things feel physiologically similar, so your brain doesn't always interpret them correctly. The goal is removing/reframing the stressors that make you feel threatened, and selecting for the ones that make you feel challenged.