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Not to add another load on your mind, but the long-term issue here is that - assuming this is a crunch that ends - you will still be heavily affected for a long

Not to add another load on your mind, but the long-term issue here is that - assuming this is a crunch that ends - you will still be heavily affected for a long time during normal, non-stress periods. It takes a long pause from stress for you mind and body to stop over-producing stress hormones. I hope you situation changes for the better soon, and when it does, remember to be mindfull of yourself and accept that everything won't go back to normal right away, just because the external stress-factor stops.

everdrive 7y ago
Not OP, but thanks for this advice. I left a similar situation, and relaxation and re-normalization has been slow to arrive.
- seesaw 7y ago
  I was stressed out for almost five years, due to work and personal tragedies. I was sad and lost my personality. What helped me get back was exercise and meditation. Exercise made me relaxed, and meditation improved my sleep. It was hard, since being depressed means you have no interest to exercise or meditate either.
  - throwaway10928 7y ago
    Consider tricking your brain with chocolate! After a long break, or perhaps if this will be your first experience doing regular exercise, you might not get the rewarding endorphines after exercising the first couple of times. Consider buying a chocolate bar (darker means more chocolate means less sugar and is better for you) and tell yourself that this chocolate bar is for exercise. Now, after coming back from your exercise, drink a big glass of water and eat a piece of chocolate. You want to eventually eat just a small piece of chocolate after each exercise, but be forgiving to yourself when you end up eating half the chocolate bar after your first exercise despite your good intentions :-) Do this for a couple of weeks and suddenly you will find yourself forgetting about the chocolate and you are now "hooked" on the endorphines. Be careful not to let your new addiction make yourself break your body. Fx when running it takes up to half a year before your body gets robust enough for doing long and regular stretches. Most importantly: do what it takes to make it a joyful habit!
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
I find my stress reactions are still coloured by a long past sustained period of stress, about twenty years ago. That's despite a life fairly free of it in the intervening period, and no remaining symptoms of that time. With hindsight I should have walked away long before I started questioning my situation.
- mythrwy 7y ago
  Approaching age 50, there are a lot more "I should have walked away sooners" than "I should have stuck with thats" in the rear view mirror. But I can't say it's generally good advice to walk away frequently because I'm not sure what the outcome of so much walking away would have been.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    That's very true. From my mid 50s perspective there's been a couple of big, "I really should have stuck with thats", but mainly "life's too short to put up with that garbage". Which of course makes it really hard to generalise into advice.
    - o-__-o 7y ago
      what do you do?
  - turk73 7y ago
    This. I can't tell you how many jobs I had that were un-salvageable early on and I knew that and still stayed there because "it would look bad on my resume." I'm doing it right now in a lot of ways! What I have also realized is that every developer job is a shit show of some proportion and the only smart move is to soon not be a developer anymore. Except, you know, the whole loss of income thing that goes with that decision. My kids won't be writing code for a living.
  - meowface 7y ago
    I'm roughly half your age, and this has already been my experience. If you want to quit something, you shouldn't put it off.
mistermann 7y ago
> It takes a long pause from stress for you mind and body to stop over-producing stress hormones. I can vouch for this, I feel like I have been permanently damaged from a multi-year stressful job. Speaking of stress hormones, does anyone in this thread know if there's some quantitative way to measure stress hormone levels, even if it's only somewhat accurate? The best real relief I've managed to find is microdosing psilocybin combined with meditation, this seems to allow me to see right through my negative beliefs & perceptions, but also largely eliminate the ongoing ~unavoidable mental/emotional (eventually manifesting in physical) reactions to them. It feels like it allows me to mostly not give a fuck about things like normal people. Perhaps something the grandparent should look into.
- blackflame7000 7y ago
  Yes, stress levels are tied to cortisol levels in the bloodstream. This is especially bad for your physical health as it will cause you to store fat and crave sugary foods. The single best thing you can do is exercise 5 times a week for at least 45 minutes. It will retrain your brain to embrace stress because of the endorphin reward you get after. I promise you, the gym is never as hard as people make it out to be in their mind. 90% is just showing up. Don't take shrooms, you're just messing up your brain chemistry even more with a temporary bandaid. Furthermore, you're treating yourself with a drugs side-effect. If anything the drug you are looking for is Ativan or Xanax. I'm someone who used to be majorly overweight, overworked and stressed to no end, but exercise changed my life.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    Thanks for the advice. And not to be argumentative, but I think it's fair to say that neither you nor anyone else on the planet knows with certainty the full range of possible benefits and detriments to exercise, psilocybin (particularly, in no small part because it is illegal to even formally study for the most part), or anything else for that matter.
    - blackflame7000 7y ago
      Human's might not have a full understanding but there's an entire branch of science (pharmacology) dedicated to studying these things. We know that Alcohol has a detrimental effect on your coordination just like we know Psilocybin has a detrimental effect on your perception of reality. Frankly, I think it's far less strange for someone to show up to work high than tripping.
souterrain 7y ago
To this point, does anyone have links to studies or even anecdotal “I did this after a stressful period and my results were positive” write ups?
blackflame7000 7y ago
In my experience, the best cure for this is exercise especially running or weight lifting. It trains your brain to endure difficult and strenuous tasks. Furthermore, the endorphins that are released subconsciously start to build the association between feeling good after facing a stressful situation. You begin to look at stressful situations, not as something to be feared but something to be conquered. I used to be the biggest introvert because social interactions stressed me out. Now I thrive for that feeling of, "Man this isn't as hard as I thought it would be"

everdrive 7y ago

Not OP, but thanks for this advice. I left a similar situation, and relaxation and re-normalization has been slow to arrive.

seesaw 7y ago
I was stressed out for almost five years, due to work and personal tragedies. I was sad and lost my personality. What helped me get back was exercise and meditation. Exercise made me relaxed, and meditation improved my sleep. It was hard, since being depressed means you have no interest to exercise or meditate either.
- throwaway10928 7y ago
  Consider tricking your brain with chocolate! After a long break, or perhaps if this will be your first experience doing regular exercise, you might not get the rewarding endorphines after exercising the first couple of times. Consider buying a chocolate bar (darker means more chocolate means less sugar and is better for you) and tell yourself that this chocolate bar is for exercise. Now, after coming back from your exercise, drink a big glass of water and eat a piece of chocolate. You want to eventually eat just a small piece of chocolate after each exercise, but be forgiving to yourself when you end up eating half the chocolate bar after your first exercise despite your good intentions :-) Do this for a couple of weeks and suddenly you will find yourself forgetting about the chocolate and you are now "hooked" on the endorphines. Be careful not to let your new addiction make yourself break your body. Fx when running it takes up to half a year before your body gets robust enough for doing long and regular stretches. Most importantly: do what it takes to make it a joyful habit!

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

I find my stress reactions are still coloured by a long past sustained period of stress, about twenty years ago. That's despite a life fairly free of it in the intervening period, and no remaining symptoms of that time. With hindsight I should have walked away long before I started questioning my situation.

mythrwy 7y ago
Approaching age 50, there are a lot more "I should have walked away sooners" than "I should have stuck with thats" in the rear view mirror. But I can't say it's generally good advice to walk away frequently because I'm not sure what the outcome of so much walking away would have been.
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  That's very true. From my mid 50s perspective there's been a couple of big, "I really should have stuck with thats", but mainly "life's too short to put up with that garbage". Which of course makes it really hard to generalise into advice.
  - o-__-o 7y ago
    what do you do?
- turk73 7y ago
  This. I can't tell you how many jobs I had that were un-salvageable early on and I knew that and still stayed there because "it would look bad on my resume." I'm doing it right now in a lot of ways! What I have also realized is that every developer job is a shit show of some proportion and the only smart move is to soon not be a developer anymore. Except, you know, the whole loss of income thing that goes with that decision. My kids won't be writing code for a living.
- meowface 7y ago
  I'm roughly half your age, and this has already been my experience. If you want to quit something, you shouldn't put it off.

mistermann 7y ago

> It takes a long pause from stress for you mind and body to stop over-producing stress hormones. I can vouch for this, I feel like I have been permanently damaged from a multi-year stressful job. Speaking of stress hormones, does anyone in this thread know if there's some quantitative way to measure stress hormone levels, even if it's only somewhat accurate? The best real relief I've managed to find is microdosing psilocybin combined with meditation, this seems to allow me to see right through my negative beliefs & perceptions, but also largely eliminate the ongoing ~unavoidable mental/emotional (eventually manifesting in physical) reactions to them. It feels like it allows me to mostly not give a fuck about things like normal people. Perhaps something the grandparent should look into.

blackflame7000 7y ago
Yes, stress levels are tied to cortisol levels in the bloodstream. This is especially bad for your physical health as it will cause you to store fat and crave sugary foods. The single best thing you can do is exercise 5 times a week for at least 45 minutes. It will retrain your brain to embrace stress because of the endorphin reward you get after. I promise you, the gym is never as hard as people make it out to be in their mind. 90% is just showing up. Don't take shrooms, you're just messing up your brain chemistry even more with a temporary bandaid. Furthermore, you're treating yourself with a drugs side-effect. If anything the drug you are looking for is Ativan or Xanax. I'm someone who used to be majorly overweight, overworked and stressed to no end, but exercise changed my life.
- mistermann 7y ago
  Thanks for the advice. And not to be argumentative, but I think it's fair to say that neither you nor anyone else on the planet knows with certainty the full range of possible benefits and detriments to exercise, psilocybin (particularly, in no small part because it is illegal to even formally study for the most part), or anything else for that matter.
  - blackflame7000 7y ago
    Human's might not have a full understanding but there's an entire branch of science (pharmacology) dedicated to studying these things. We know that Alcohol has a detrimental effect on your coordination just like we know Psilocybin has a detrimental effect on your perception of reality. Frankly, I think it's far less strange for someone to show up to work high than tripping.

souterrain 7y ago

To this point, does anyone have links to studies or even anecdotal “I did this after a stressful period and my results were positive” write ups?

blackflame7000 7y ago

In my experience, the best cure for this is exercise especially running or weight lifting. It trains your brain to endure difficult and strenuous tasks. Furthermore, the endorphins that are released subconsciously start to build the association between feeling good after facing a stressful situation. You begin to look at stressful situations, not as something to be feared but something to be conquered. I used to be the biggest introvert because social interactions stressed me out. Now I thrive for that feeling of, "Man this isn't as hard as I thought it would be"