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Not for anything because my situation is completely different. But I went through a difficult period too. And I actually realised I had stopped doing any kind o

Not for anything because my situation is completely different. But I went through a difficult period too. And I actually realised I had stopped doing any kind of recreation at all. It sounds crazy but learning how to do nothing again is really hard. I couldn't actually game at all. I tried but I felt like I was doing a shift. So I started with driving and listening to soccer on the radio (something I hadn't been actively interested in for decades)...it is totally pointless. And now, finally, I have started to game occasionally too. No, it still isn't quite the same as when I was a kid. I can still remember playing Dungeon Keeper and Theme Hospital/Park when they first came out (I even remember purchasing DK)...nothing can compare. And I can't play FPS anymore. But yes, it is very easy to forget about recreation and even feel guilty for doing it...but it is valuable. Exercise can be very effective too. I have tried meditation repeatedly (srs, like six or seven periods over about a decade) it just doesn't work for me. But exercise is a way to stay active and bring down your everyday level of anxiety (although I have never got to the point where meditation becomes bearable). Reading can also be very effective if you are already feeling anxious (although I understand it isn't for everyone). But reading with purpose can be self-defeating. Worrying about remembering or all the other stuff that goes along with reading job-related stuff can be really troublesome. Hopefully, this will all help someone though. I wish someone told me ten years ago that it was okay to do something that had no meaning or point. Christopher Robin was right.

eof 7y ago
I believe you tried meditation but I don’t buy the “it doesn’t work for me” That’s like saying exercise doesn’t work for you. Maybe you are going too hard too fast and getting injured or any number of things that make it difficult. But meditation works, even if it’s (like exercise) a difficult habit to pick up.
- hogFeast 7y ago
  Meditation is different because it requires sitting still and doing nothing for a period of time. I have probably gone months without doing this to any degree. I don't sleep without listening to something. I can rarely sit down and just watch TV. Etc. I am fairly sure the issue isn't medical: I can code, drive, and read for hours at a time without losing focus. But meditation is still torture (as is having to sit down and watch TV). I have tried several times, I have done it every day for up to two or three weeks (willpower is not really an issue) but every time, after a while, I ended up feeling more trepidation and anxiety about doing it. In addition though, I think there are good reasons to prefer exercise in certain cases (YMMV, and this is just my experience): Stressing your cardiovascular system mimics the physical effect of a panic attack. And part of the reason that panic attacks occur is because something is wrong with the link between the physical and mental parts of the system. You can't solve it with looking at one side alone but it is useful to experience the physical sensation of panic without the mental side (hopefully, it can set things off). I don't meditation is as effective on the physical side, it may be effective on the mental side but not for me. This is not going to be relevant for 95% of people. But it has been my experience of it. I also think it is pretty unwise to say it should work for everyone. If you get the impression that should work for everyone, and then you try and it doesn't work...you feel terrible (if you have a disorder, it is worse...you might feel shame). Unf, in my experience, this is fairly common within psychology too which has endless "universal"-sounding solutions with weak effect. It just isn't that simple. Try stuff. See what works. Again, hopefully this will help someone. The number of times that I have tried meditation should suggest that I was convinced, past the point of logic, that I was the issue...not meditation...unsurprisingly, that belief elicited little progress. It makes more sense to just do what works.
  - eof 7y ago
    With all due respect your exact same line of reasoning would work for exercising. Why would it be unwise to think it works for everyone? Does doing sit-ups make everyone’s core stronger? Does doing squats make everyone’s legs stronger? I have no idea what you were doing when you were meditating, but having anxiety about it is certainly not proof that it doesn’t work. Maybe you didn’t have good guidance? Maybe you were having some benefit you didn’t notice or measure? Preferring exercise over meditation doesn’t really make any sense? Exercise and meditation do not serve the same purpose. It would be best to do both with a good plan, it’s essentially impossible to do zero of either of them. If someone told me exercise didn’t work for them, I’d simply say the same as I would to you, you must be doing it wrong (for your situation), or it is working, and it’s not at a fast enough pace for your liking. What I would guess is going on would be loosely similar to someone who starts to exercise and does it with bad form and not enough conditioning for the exercises they try. So they get hurt or too sore and just think it won’t work.
    - joelx 7y ago
      The scientific research supporting exercise is vastly stronger than the scientific research supporting meditation. The proven benefits of exercise are in order of magnitude different than the benefits of meditation.
  - honzzz 7y ago
    I am not saying meditation works for everyone. However, I would suggest that if you decide to give meditation another shot, try to approach it differently. You say that "it requires sitting still and doing nothing for a period of time" - I don't understand it that way, at least if we talk about mindfulness meditation. I am no expert but I would say the point is non-judgemental observation of what occurs in your mind. If what occurs in your mind is anxiety or restlessness, try to observe it without trying to control it or escape it and see what happens. You might be surprised. If you do not approach it with some preconceptions of what it "should" do and just try to accept what comes, it might make you feel better - it seems like a paradox but human psyche sometime works in surprising ways. BTW, that is also why methods like paradoxical intention (Viktor Frankl) work - when you feel anxiety attack coming, you don't try to calm yourself down. You try to be even more anxious... and surprisingly, anxiety subsides.
- taneq 7y ago
  No. Meditation does not "work for everyone" no matter how hard you no-true-scotsman it and I'm sick and tired of reading this. Source: Dad was massively into all that woo, spent my whole teens trying, even spent a week at an ashram in India. No, meditation is not for everyone.
  - eof 7y ago
    30 minutes of cardio everyday isn’t for everyone. But anyone who does it will have adaptations as a result.
    - taneq 7y ago
      All 30 minutes of attempted meditation per day does for me is dramatically increases my desire to punch someone. If that counts as an adaptation then sure.
      - maxmunzel 7y ago
        I can recommend you to start with 5 minutes (set a timer), increase to 10. After some practice you can omit the timer, but it really helps you getting started.
  - aasasd 7y ago
    IMO ‘woo’ and ‘ashram’ is exactly the wrong way to go about mediation, for westerners. I'm automatically revolted by most kinds of spiritual stuff, but people I respect kept saying meditation helps to control the brain's attempts to wind itself up with drama. So finally I found the app ‘Headspace’ where a guy mumbles into my ear, with zero spiritual load and no cheesy music. What it does for me is I relax muscles including those I don't even feel otherwise, and which are all constantly tense due to bad posture. Only then, the mind calms down―tenseness and anxiety are normally in a feedback loop, and I have to break it. Can't relax as deep and fast without the mumble―takes three times as long and still not the same. Also I don't think that in the teens you feel your bodily and mental states as acutely, at least I didn't until almost thirty―because in youth you're more active and feel alright most of the time. Took me several years of paying attention to my body and mood (before taking up meditation), to learn to recognize when I'm getting worked up for no reason. So yeah, in this sense it's probably not for everyone.
aasasd 7y ago
BTW, when I had a bad anxiety problem, what really worked for me is walking. Really long walks, two hours minimum just wandering around the city. Three or four hours were better. The shitty feeling really subsided. I've taken up audiobooks, which incidentally jacked up my books-read numbers a lot (household chores are also much more engaging for the brain now). Dunno about exercise, as I couldn't do intensive exercise then, and light didn't work as well, even if prolonged. ----------------------- I'll also back the others on the topic of meditation in that it should show at least some result. I suspect, though, that you might've tried meditation with some spiritual flavor or something oriented purely towards the awareness and self-control aspect. Personally I've come to meditation from the body angle instead, and that's when it clicked for me. I detailed the workings here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20960513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20960513 One point of meditation is that you aren't really ‘doing nothing’: the brain still needs to be occupied at first—but the attention is redirected from whatever it's hung up on at the moment, to breathing deeply and listening to the body, and the guide's voice also helps. This breaks the loop of anxiety and physical tenseness, which then lets you set the mind loose. Frankly this sounds like it should work for your exact case.

eof 7y ago

I believe you tried meditation but I don’t buy the “it doesn’t work for me” That’s like saying exercise doesn’t work for you. Maybe you are going too hard too fast and getting injured or any number of things that make it difficult. But meditation works, even if it’s (like exercise) a difficult habit to pick up.

hogFeast 7y ago
Meditation is different because it requires sitting still and doing nothing for a period of time. I have probably gone months without doing this to any degree. I don't sleep without listening to something. I can rarely sit down and just watch TV. Etc. I am fairly sure the issue isn't medical: I can code, drive, and read for hours at a time without losing focus. But meditation is still torture (as is having to sit down and watch TV). I have tried several times, I have done it every day for up to two or three weeks (willpower is not really an issue) but every time, after a while, I ended up feeling more trepidation and anxiety about doing it. In addition though, I think there are good reasons to prefer exercise in certain cases (YMMV, and this is just my experience): Stressing your cardiovascular system mimics the physical effect of a panic attack. And part of the reason that panic attacks occur is because something is wrong with the link between the physical and mental parts of the system. You can't solve it with looking at one side alone but it is useful to experience the physical sensation of panic without the mental side (hopefully, it can set things off). I don't meditation is as effective on the physical side, it may be effective on the mental side but not for me. This is not going to be relevant for 95% of people. But it has been my experience of it. I also think it is pretty unwise to say it should work for everyone. If you get the impression that should work for everyone, and then you try and it doesn't work...you feel terrible (if you have a disorder, it is worse...you might feel shame). Unf, in my experience, this is fairly common within psychology too which has endless "universal"-sounding solutions with weak effect. It just isn't that simple. Try stuff. See what works. Again, hopefully this will help someone. The number of times that I have tried meditation should suggest that I was convinced, past the point of logic, that I was the issue...not meditation...unsurprisingly, that belief elicited little progress. It makes more sense to just do what works.
- eof 7y ago
  With all due respect your exact same line of reasoning would work for exercising. Why would it be unwise to think it works for everyone? Does doing sit-ups make everyone’s core stronger? Does doing squats make everyone’s legs stronger? I have no idea what you were doing when you were meditating, but having anxiety about it is certainly not proof that it doesn’t work. Maybe you didn’t have good guidance? Maybe you were having some benefit you didn’t notice or measure? Preferring exercise over meditation doesn’t really make any sense? Exercise and meditation do not serve the same purpose. It would be best to do both with a good plan, it’s essentially impossible to do zero of either of them. If someone told me exercise didn’t work for them, I’d simply say the same as I would to you, you must be doing it wrong (for your situation), or it is working, and it’s not at a fast enough pace for your liking. What I would guess is going on would be loosely similar to someone who starts to exercise and does it with bad form and not enough conditioning for the exercises they try. So they get hurt or too sore and just think it won’t work.
  - joelx 7y ago
    The scientific research supporting exercise is vastly stronger than the scientific research supporting meditation. The proven benefits of exercise are in order of magnitude different than the benefits of meditation.
- honzzz 7y ago
  I am not saying meditation works for everyone. However, I would suggest that if you decide to give meditation another shot, try to approach it differently. You say that "it requires sitting still and doing nothing for a period of time" - I don't understand it that way, at least if we talk about mindfulness meditation. I am no expert but I would say the point is non-judgemental observation of what occurs in your mind. If what occurs in your mind is anxiety or restlessness, try to observe it without trying to control it or escape it and see what happens. You might be surprised. If you do not approach it with some preconceptions of what it "should" do and just try to accept what comes, it might make you feel better - it seems like a paradox but human psyche sometime works in surprising ways. BTW, that is also why methods like paradoxical intention (Viktor Frankl) work - when you feel anxiety attack coming, you don't try to calm yourself down. You try to be even more anxious... and surprisingly, anxiety subsides.
taneq 7y ago
No. Meditation does not "work for everyone" no matter how hard you no-true-scotsman it and I'm sick and tired of reading this. Source: Dad was massively into all that woo, spent my whole teens trying, even spent a week at an ashram in India. No, meditation is not for everyone.
- eof 7y ago
  30 minutes of cardio everyday isn’t for everyone. But anyone who does it will have adaptations as a result.
  - taneq 7y ago
    All 30 minutes of attempted meditation per day does for me is dramatically increases my desire to punch someone. If that counts as an adaptation then sure.
    - maxmunzel 7y ago
      I can recommend you to start with 5 minutes (set a timer), increase to 10. After some practice you can omit the timer, but it really helps you getting started.
- aasasd 7y ago
  IMO ‘woo’ and ‘ashram’ is exactly the wrong way to go about mediation, for westerners. I'm automatically revolted by most kinds of spiritual stuff, but people I respect kept saying meditation helps to control the brain's attempts to wind itself up with drama. So finally I found the app ‘Headspace’ where a guy mumbles into my ear, with zero spiritual load and no cheesy music. What it does for me is I relax muscles including those I don't even feel otherwise, and which are all constantly tense due to bad posture. Only then, the mind calms down―tenseness and anxiety are normally in a feedback loop, and I have to break it. Can't relax as deep and fast without the mumble―takes three times as long and still not the same. Also I don't think that in the teens you feel your bodily and mental states as acutely, at least I didn't until almost thirty―because in youth you're more active and feel alright most of the time. Took me several years of paying attention to my body and mood (before taking up meditation), to learn to recognize when I'm getting worked up for no reason. So yeah, in this sense it's probably not for everyone.

aasasd 7y ago

BTW, when I had a bad anxiety problem, what really worked for me is walking. Really long walks, two hours minimum just wandering around the city. Three or four hours were better. The shitty feeling really subsided. I've taken up audiobooks, which incidentally jacked up my books-read numbers a lot (household chores are also much more engaging for the brain now). Dunno about exercise, as I couldn't do intensive exercise then, and light didn't work as well, even if prolonged. ----------------------- I'll also back the others on the topic of meditation in that it should show at least some result. I suspect, though, that you might've tried meditation with some spiritual flavor or something oriented purely towards the awareness and self-control aspect. Personally I've come to meditation from the body angle instead, and that's when it clicked for me. I detailed the workings here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20960513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20960513 One point of meditation is that you aren't really ‘doing nothing’: the brain still needs to be occupied at first—but the attention is redirected from whatever it's hung up on at the moment, to breathing deeply and listening to the body, and the guide's voice also helps. This breaks the loop of anxiety and physical tenseness, which then lets you set the mind loose. Frankly this sounds like it should work for your exact case.