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I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in

I noticed as young adult that I didn’t really worry or consciously stress, but my body had somewhat predictable reactions to situations that I would realize, in hindsight, were highly stressful. Those physical reactions sucked, and as they got worse over time, it really concerned me. At some point I was encouraged to go to CBT, which I did, but honestly it made things worse. I became hyper aware of how anxious I was at any moment, and the more I noticed the more it worried me. Years later I tried mindfulness meditation and found that it helped. But also, I finally hit a kind of turning point where I just realized that there was nothing I could really do about anxiety or the physical symptoms that came along with it. I decided to mostly try to quit noticing and thinking about it. And that really helped. I still feel stress and anxiety symptoms sometimes. They still suck. My conscious mind is still the last to recognize what’s going on. But, overall, I feel I can handle a lot more stress now than I could ten years ago without it ruining my quality of life, and more importantly I can recognize the stress, not worry too much about it so I can get through it, and then rest and recuperate (as soon as possible) and recover much quicker than when I was younger. I’ve concluded that the best advice is to learn not to worry about things. Unfortunately that’s easier said than done, and I’m not sure I have any advice on how to learn to do that :/

danlugo92 6y ago
Interesting. I've been reaching a similar conclusion recently.
bamboozled 6y ago
> I just realized that there was nothing I could really do about anxiety or the physical symptoms that came along with it. I decided to mostly try to quit noticing and thinking about it. And that really helped. I think this is mission accomplished from your mindfulness practice, you realized that you're not really doing anything and that anxiety just appears, you accepted it and it felt better.
- osacial 6y ago
  There are some problems with that type of approach - there are some things that won't vanish, if you stop thinking about them.
  - weird-eye-issue 6y ago
    There is a big difference between having anxiety about something and the thing itself. Your anxiety can go away without the thing you are worrying about going away or not. So it doesn't matter whether or not something goes away, you can still lessen your anxiety about it.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - rover0 6y ago
    It won't vanish. Acceptance just makes it hurt much less.
  - bamboozled 6y ago
    One can either become the anxiety (you're wrapped up in it), or be conscious of it's presence as an observer (more like a third party observer). Personally, I prefer the latter.
  - jmcqk6 6y ago
    There are major differences between attempting to forcefully stop thinking about something, and accepting that you're thinking about something and then able to move on to something else. In the first case, you're working against your brain, and getting it to behave is more likely to require some kind of violence and cause some sort of damage. The other way, where you accept and then can move on, is more like moving with your brain. Instead of trying to stop the river, you redirect it.
- natenatenate3 6y ago
  I had work related anxiety for awhile, and then one day I realized I could co-op that energy to go faster, by body and mind eventually decided they didn't like that mind hack and the anxiety subsided.
osacial 6y ago
Recent mentions of mindfulness have made it obsolete as it is something that akkktually does not work and it should not be advised as something that works(for everyone). Well, the reason here is that I tried mindfulness(because I was probably extremelly stressed out from what was going on around me at that time) and it was not working and here is why(from REAL expert): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-right-thing/201904/the-trouble-mindfulness https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-right-thing/2... Even though, some of the things mentioned in THIS article(by Emma Pattee) are written with right words, it should be mentioned, that Emma Pattee has not presented them as a medical expert on anxiety, but as a writer, so anything that is written in article should be taken as a (wishful) literature - not medical help. It is best advice to not to worry about things - and the main thing here is that for everyone there is different path on how to achieve that... though, it is quite impossible task for really stressed out human, where even normal social reactions can be interpreted as hostile, that will add more cycles to stress and postpone getting out of worries.
- tern 6y ago
  I think mindfulness here is meant as a synonym for a particular type of meditation. This article is broadly correct from my perspective—we should approach meditation with some caution, because it is not a well-defined self-therapy modality. It's quite possible, with the wrong practice instruction, to end up hurting yourself, or just getting nowhere. Meditation—and even just mindfulness meditation—is a domain of practice as broad as "exercise." If you are interested in engaging with this type of practice, I recommend working with a qualified teacher in a spiritual tradition. These practitioners will have extensive training (at least decades) and will be drawing from a few thousand years of careful study of the effects of meditation (as found in Buddhist and Yogic/Hindu documents and oral traditions). For working on emotional issues without dedicating years to practice, therapeutic modalities developed in the West are faster, more reliable, and safer.
  - zepto 6y ago
    > I recommend working with a qualified teacher in a spiritual tradition. These practitioners will have extensive training (at least decades) and will be drawing from a few thousand years of careful study of the effects of meditation (as found in Buddhist and Yogic/Hindu documents and oral traditions). How many teachers actually have this, and how can one know that the one you’ve chosen is one of them?
moneywoes 6y ago
>I’ve concluded that the best advice is to learn not to worry about things Any tips with doing this? The thoughts I try to avoid end up in my dreams even if I try my best to distract myself during the day
- smhost 6y ago
  you're not supposed to repress your thoughts, just change your relationship with them, like john nash at the end of a beautiful mind.
- burlesona 6y ago
  I don’t really have any advice, but what I can say is it’s not really about distracting myself or avoiding thoughts, it’s more like changing how I think about things. For example, when I get some random aches and pains, it worries me a little. But in the past I would fixate on things, try to treat them, see a doctor etc. After a certain amount of grappling with my own mortality, I kind of realized that sometimes my body will just hurt, and there’s nothing I can do about it, and so I have to sort of say, “ok, I have this pain, that’s fine,” and then just move on to whatever else I need to do. Although sometimes it may mean the opposite, accepting that I can’t just power through. “I’m just not going to be able to do all the things I wish I could do today, I need to rest instead. That’s fine.” It’s still hard for me. But I think the biggest difference is that I have shifted my focus more towards the things that are here and now, and that I can actually control, and focusing attention on those things naturally means spending less time thinking about things that are far away or beyond my control. (Ie, applying attention elsewhere is not the same as distraction.) Not super coherent, but I hope some part of that is helpful.
  - osullip 6y ago
    I read Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. Written around 2000, it is surprising how many of his verses are relevant today. These are translations of the original, so have picked up some contemporary interpretation. "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts." "You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/31010 https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/31010
graderjs 6y ago
That's why you need to do yoga. Relaxing the body is so important and Meditation, without yoga, can be harmful. Simple, long holding, hatha yoga, beginning with deep part by part body relaxation and pranayama prepares you for meditation and allows you to handle the energies that can be released during mediation. So much stress is held in the body. Western productization of more eastern traditional practices unfortunately often seems to divide them up into small consumable pieces and deliver them stripped of an awareness of both their larger context, their interactions and the importance of how you need to do some together. It also seems to teach people advanced techniques as if they were nothing, which can be extremely dangerous. I meant to make this comment on that story about a woman who had committed suicide after a mediation retreat. Yoga is required if you're going to do mediation. Unfortunately, much of the yoga practiced in the west is nothing more than sort of an aerobic mindset, like pilates or calisthenics. Even when teachers stick to traditional sequences and focus on breath, they seem to miss the point of how important relaxation and only going to your limit is. I was lucky that i had a fantastic teacher from India when i started yoga in Sydney 20 years ago. The difference an excellent teacher makes is amazing. I watch videos on Gaia and see teachers doing advanced locks and hand positions, combined with meditative practices... These things can be extremely dangerous because you're unlocking and accessing all sorts of energies you're not used to. Doing advanced stuff before you're ready, or doing any stuff without a solid grounding in hatha yoga to allow your body to handle it, is toxic and unhealthy. In the productization of the yoga and meditation industry in the west people have forgot to focus on the basics, and have forgotten the advanced knowledge that allows you to do advanced techniques safely. Practices have been divided up, stripped of awareness of how to do them safely, and delivered in little consumable pieces. It's fucking dangerous, but everyone's out there practicing yoga and meditation like it's calisthenics or pilates or a warm up for rugby, and even the teachers who aren't mostly don't have the awareness or knowledge of the energies they're accessing to do it safely, or to do it with the most benefit. This probably came across as saying yoga will cure your anxiety. I'm not saying that, just that if you do mediation, you also need yoga. But doing yoga well will probably make your anxiety better... Maybe an actual psych therapist can help unravel any beliefs and stories you have that you're reacting to but aren't actually true, or maybe if your fear has a rational basis (ie, you are actually in danger or at risk in some way, and the things you fear keep happening and you keep getting hurt) then you can adopt some practical strategies to create better boundaries for yourself so you feel safer and are safer.
siquick 6y ago
Reminded me of a passage from Sapiens on Buddah. "...Gautama Buddah found that there was a way to exit this vicious circle. If, when the mind experiences something pleasant or unpleasant, it simply understand things as they are, then there is no suffering. If you experience sadness without craving that the sadness go away, you continue to feel sadness but you do not suffer from it. There can actually be richness in the sadness. If you experience joy without craving that the joy linger and intensify, you continue to feel joy without losing your peace of mind.”
- hnick 6y ago
  I wonder if that is why we like music. We can experience emotions without worrying that they are permanent or need to be resolved.
  - fergal 6y ago
    This is along the lines of how I've come to think of music; music is a temporary emotional stimulant.
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    If there's something sacred to me it's music (or harmony). It's weird because it's not as foundational as smell or vision but it revives my soul like nothing else. That's the closest substitute to drug I know of. I have no idea why our emotions are so tangled with it and how comes it can untie knots in our minds like this.
    - throwaway_kufu 6y ago
      > it revives my soul like nothing else. Beautifully said. I have numerous sayings about music, for example I used to do 20 mile runs every Saturday and Sunday and 10 miles every weekday. No David goggins but people always ask question, I tend to tell them I don’t run, I listen to music and the miles run themselves. And I used to tell people that the music allows me to feel every single cell in my body and the music makes them happy. And truthfully I think there is something to that down to the quantum level, where the music causes your atoms to vibrate putting them in higher states of energy.
Swizec 6y ago
> I’ve concluded that the best advice is to learn not to worry about things If you can do something about it, go do it. No need to worry, act. If you can’t ... well it’s out of your hands anyway, why worry about it.
zests 6y ago
I've realized a lot of the same things. My understanding now is that it is the physical feelings themselves that are the stress. Managing stress is about learning to identify it and then learning how to best take care of it (which you can only do when you are first aware of the stress and the toll it is having on you.)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
whalesalad 6y ago
Buddhism. Psilocybin.
- pstuart 6y ago
  Psilocybin is a powerful tool but it seems counter to the adage of "set and setting" to use it when beset by anxiety. As a prophylactic for it is of course a different story.
- askonomm 6y ago
  I really wouldn't blindly recommend Psilocybin to people. I got the idea of trying to fix my health anxiety with it from HN about a year ago. Took half a dose, had a pretty good time for around 2 hours and then the worst panic-attack meltdown of my entire life. I started sweating all over, dripping sweat from my head, being 100% sure that I'm going to die - in the end ambulance fixed me up with an IV. My anxiety disorder only got worse since then. Every time I see an ambulance I still get flashbacks and instant anxiety.
  - whalesalad 6y ago
    The drug isn’t gonna fix you by itself. It facilitates a state where you can fix your brain. I’m sorry you had a bad experience. Perhaps it is worth trying again in the company of a guide or others. It’s also worth preparing for your trip by determining what kinds of things you want to try and accomplish while you’re on it.
mguerville 6y ago
Same story here, and when the physical symptoms get bad enough to induce fear (am I having a heart attack, is this constant pain in my stomach a bigger medical issue, etc.) you just also accept it because you can’t change it. “It’s probably not a heart attack, but if it is... oh well, worrying about it won’t help”
- sgtnoodle 6y ago
  Last year my heart's AV nerves progressively stopped working, causing my ventricles to slow and decouple from my sinus node. Before figuring that out, I was getting panic attacks from relatively benign technical disagreements with coworkers. It was very much a visceral fight-or-flight response. A few days before I ended up in the hospital, I tried playing a level of Tomb Raider and 5 minutes in I had a notable feeling of dread from it, like I was going to vomit and lose consciousness. Good times!
  - XargonEnder 6y ago
    Can you elaborate on your hearts AV nerves? I don't really get it, but I sometimes wonder if my vagus nerve is damaged and your situation has some familiarity to me.
    - sgtnoodle 6y ago
      Sure. There was inflammation on my heart around those nerves, causing them to cease working. There are three nerves there, that propagate the impulse from your atriums to your ventricles in a controlled manner. When those nerves don't work, some of the impulse still indirectly makes it to the ventricles through the muscle tissue, but it's significantly delayed. So the ventricles beat, but at a significantly slower rate. It seemed to go 2:1 then 3:1, and even 4:1 at times. I had to get a pacemaker to solve the immediate issue of my heart not beating normally. With the inflammation taken care of a few months later, my nerves eventually started working again and my heart beats normally enough. They aren't 100%, but they're probably good enough that the pacemaker isn't necessary anymore.
BobbyJo 6y ago
I have an extremely similar arc with regard to stress and anxiety. I've found exercise helped, but purely because it made my body better able to manage the physical symptoms. In talking things out with my therapist I eventually came to the conclusion that ignoring problems can actually be a very effective solution, despite what everyone tells you.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
andrei_says_ 6y ago
You may find it productive to speak with your therapist about EMDR approach. It has shown to work with trauma, ptsd, anxiety.
kneel 6y ago
Microdose mushrooms. Seems silly but you can break your thought patterns by disconnecting your brain from well trodden paths. I think Michael Pollan is onto something
- bluewalt 6y ago
  This makes me curious, can you elaborate a bit please? How exactly would it work on anxiety? Does taking stuff produce a temporary relief or does it change the structure of your brain for a longer period? There is definitely things we still don't know about this, and it seems promising.
  - kneel 6y ago
    It's an active area of research, plenty of anecdotal evidence has been posted on the net. Psychedelics can open up your senses to new experiences and methods of thinking. Over time this MAY help with troublesome thought patterns, which is prevalent in the depression/anxiety cycle. There are therapies involving this if you dig around, or if you're brave you can experiment on yourself. Don't dive in too deep to start off :)
jasfi 6y ago
Try Cissus, it blocks cortisol (the stress hormone).
andoofthewoods 6y ago
Have you checked out the book "When Panic Attacks" by Dr David Burns? It's a book that's helped a few friends of mine with severe social anxiety. It's CBT, but you may benefit from a book more tailored towards anxiety, as opposed to more generalised negative thoughts.
grupthink 6y ago
For relaxation, see: post nut clarity
- packetslave 6y ago
  go back to reddit
  - grupthink 6y ago
    Sorry if discussing normal human bodily function is offensive to your religion/beliefs. The brain releases oxytocin and dopamine, which induces relaxation and reduces anxiety.
kingant 6y ago
Did you try medication?
valyagolev 6y ago
"Meditation helps with just about anything. Therapy helps you with figuring out why the hell you don't meditate"
arnoooooo 6y ago
It works even for physical pain. The way I see it, wanting the pain (or the anxiety) to go a away creates tension, which adds to the existing issue. You then want the tension and original pain to go away, so add on more tension… and it gets worse and worse. Not only does tension itself lead to pain in the long run, but if you tense around a painful place, you also immediately make it more painful. By accepting the original issue, you are left with it only, and not all the added tension, which is much more bearable.
robin21 6y ago
This is the reason I don’t like this whole “everyone should do therapy” movement and also the “mindfulness/meditation” movement. It creates this hyper-awareness which creates more problems by making everyone over-analyze each other and overly-sensitive to things. This over-sensitivity is such a negative for US culture. If you think long enough about things you can find everything triggering in some way.

danlugo92 6y ago

Interesting. I've been reaching a similar conclusion recently.

bamboozled 6y ago

> I just realized that there was nothing I could really do about anxiety or the physical symptoms that came along with it. I decided to mostly try to quit noticing and thinking about it. And that really helped. I think this is mission accomplished from your mindfulness practice, you realized that you're not really doing anything and that anxiety just appears, you accepted it and it felt better.

osacial 6y ago
There are some problems with that type of approach - there are some things that won't vanish, if you stop thinking about them.
- weird-eye-issue 6y ago
  There is a big difference between having anxiety about something and the thing itself. Your anxiety can go away without the thing you are worrying about going away or not. So it doesn't matter whether or not something goes away, you can still lessen your anxiety about it.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rover0 6y ago
  It won't vanish. Acceptance just makes it hurt much less.
- bamboozled 6y ago
  One can either become the anxiety (you're wrapped up in it), or be conscious of it's presence as an observer (more like a third party observer). Personally, I prefer the latter.
- jmcqk6 6y ago
  There are major differences between attempting to forcefully stop thinking about something, and accepting that you're thinking about something and then able to move on to something else. In the first case, you're working against your brain, and getting it to behave is more likely to require some kind of violence and cause some sort of damage. The other way, where you accept and then can move on, is more like moving with your brain. Instead of trying to stop the river, you redirect it.
natenatenate3 6y ago
I had work related anxiety for awhile, and then one day I realized I could co-op that energy to go faster, by body and mind eventually decided they didn't like that mind hack and the anxiety subsided.

osacial 6y ago

Recent mentions of mindfulness have made it obsolete as it is something that akkktually does not work and it should not be advised as something that works(for everyone). Well, the reason here is that I tried mindfulness(because I was probably extremelly stressed out from what was going on around me at that time) and it was not working and here is why(from REAL expert): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-right-thing/201904/the-trouble-mindfulness https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/do-the-right-thing/2... Even though, some of the things mentioned in THIS article(by Emma Pattee) are written with right words, it should be mentioned, that Emma Pattee has not presented them as a medical expert on anxiety, but as a writer, so anything that is written in article should be taken as a (wishful) literature - not medical help. It is best advice to not to worry about things - and the main thing here is that for everyone there is different path on how to achieve that... though, it is quite impossible task for really stressed out human, where even normal social reactions can be interpreted as hostile, that will add more cycles to stress and postpone getting out of worries.

tern 6y ago
I think mindfulness here is meant as a synonym for a particular type of meditation. This article is broadly correct from my perspective—we should approach meditation with some caution, because it is not a well-defined self-therapy modality. It's quite possible, with the wrong practice instruction, to end up hurting yourself, or just getting nowhere. Meditation—and even just mindfulness meditation—is a domain of practice as broad as "exercise." If you are interested in engaging with this type of practice, I recommend working with a qualified teacher in a spiritual tradition. These practitioners will have extensive training (at least decades) and will be drawing from a few thousand years of careful study of the effects of meditation (as found in Buddhist and Yogic/Hindu documents and oral traditions). For working on emotional issues without dedicating years to practice, therapeutic modalities developed in the West are faster, more reliable, and safer.
- zepto 6y ago
  > I recommend working with a qualified teacher in a spiritual tradition. These practitioners will have extensive training (at least decades) and will be drawing from a few thousand years of careful study of the effects of meditation (as found in Buddhist and Yogic/Hindu documents and oral traditions). How many teachers actually have this, and how can one know that the one you’ve chosen is one of them?

moneywoes 6y ago

>I’ve concluded that the best advice is to learn not to worry about things Any tips with doing this? The thoughts I try to avoid end up in my dreams even if I try my best to distract myself during the day

smhost 6y ago
you're not supposed to repress your thoughts, just change your relationship with them, like john nash at the end of a beautiful mind.
burlesona 6y ago
I don’t really have any advice, but what I can say is it’s not really about distracting myself or avoiding thoughts, it’s more like changing how I think about things. For example, when I get some random aches and pains, it worries me a little. But in the past I would fixate on things, try to treat them, see a doctor etc. After a certain amount of grappling with my own mortality, I kind of realized that sometimes my body will just hurt, and there’s nothing I can do about it, and so I have to sort of say, “ok, I have this pain, that’s fine,” and then just move on to whatever else I need to do. Although sometimes it may mean the opposite, accepting that I can’t just power through. “I’m just not going to be able to do all the things I wish I could do today, I need to rest instead. That’s fine.” It’s still hard for me. But I think the biggest difference is that I have shifted my focus more towards the things that are here and now, and that I can actually control, and focusing attention on those things naturally means spending less time thinking about things that are far away or beyond my control. (Ie, applying attention elsewhere is not the same as distraction.) Not super coherent, but I hope some part of that is helpful.
- osullip 6y ago
  I read Marcus Aurelius, Meditations. Written around 2000, it is surprising how many of his verses are relevant today. These are translations of the original, so have picked up some contemporary interpretation. "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment." "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts." "You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/31010 https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/31010

graderjs 6y ago

That's why you need to do yoga. Relaxing the body is so important and Meditation, without yoga, can be harmful. Simple, long holding, hatha yoga, beginning with deep part by part body relaxation and pranayama prepares you for meditation and allows you to handle the energies that can be released during mediation. So much stress is held in the body. Western productization of more eastern traditional practices unfortunately often seems to divide them up into small consumable pieces and deliver them stripped of an awareness of both their larger context, their interactions and the importance of how you need to do some together. It also seems to teach people advanced techniques as if they were nothing, which can be extremely dangerous. I meant to make this comment on that story about a woman who had committed suicide after a mediation retreat. Yoga is required if you're going to do mediation. Unfortunately, much of the yoga practiced in the west is nothing more than sort of an aerobic mindset, like pilates or calisthenics. Even when teachers stick to traditional sequences and focus on breath, they seem to miss the point of how important relaxation and only going to your limit is. I was lucky that i had a fantastic teacher from India when i started yoga in Sydney 20 years ago. The difference an excellent teacher makes is amazing. I watch videos on Gaia and see teachers doing advanced locks and hand positions, combined with meditative practices... These things can be extremely dangerous because you're unlocking and accessing all sorts of energies you're not used to. Doing advanced stuff before you're ready, or doing any stuff without a solid grounding in hatha yoga to allow your body to handle it, is toxic and unhealthy. In the productization of the yoga and meditation industry in the west people have forgot to focus on the basics, and have forgotten the advanced knowledge that allows you to do advanced techniques safely. Practices have been divided up, stripped of awareness of how to do them safely, and delivered in little consumable pieces. It's fucking dangerous, but everyone's out there practicing yoga and meditation like it's calisthenics or pilates or a warm up for rugby, and even the teachers who aren't mostly don't have the awareness or knowledge of the energies they're accessing to do it safely, or to do it with the most benefit. This probably came across as saying yoga will cure your anxiety. I'm not saying that, just that if you do mediation, you also need yoga. But doing yoga well will probably make your anxiety better... Maybe an actual psych therapist can help unravel any beliefs and stories you have that you're reacting to but aren't actually true, or maybe if your fear has a rational basis (ie, you are actually in danger or at risk in some way, and the things you fear keep happening and you keep getting hurt) then you can adopt some practical strategies to create better boundaries for yourself so you feel safer and are safer.

siquick 6y ago

Reminded me of a passage from Sapiens on Buddah. "...Gautama Buddah found that there was a way to exit this vicious circle. If, when the mind experiences something pleasant or unpleasant, it simply understand things as they are, then there is no suffering. If you experience sadness without craving that the sadness go away, you continue to feel sadness but you do not suffer from it. There can actually be richness in the sadness. If you experience joy without craving that the joy linger and intensify, you continue to feel joy without losing your peace of mind.”

hnick 6y ago
I wonder if that is why we like music. We can experience emotions without worrying that they are permanent or need to be resolved.
- fergal 6y ago
  This is along the lines of how I've come to think of music; music is a temporary emotional stimulant.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  If there's something sacred to me it's music (or harmony). It's weird because it's not as foundational as smell or vision but it revives my soul like nothing else. That's the closest substitute to drug I know of. I have no idea why our emotions are so tangled with it and how comes it can untie knots in our minds like this.
  - throwaway_kufu 6y ago
    > it revives my soul like nothing else. Beautifully said. I have numerous sayings about music, for example I used to do 20 mile runs every Saturday and Sunday and 10 miles every weekday. No David goggins but people always ask question, I tend to tell them I don’t run, I listen to music and the miles run themselves. And I used to tell people that the music allows me to feel every single cell in my body and the music makes them happy. And truthfully I think there is something to that down to the quantum level, where the music causes your atoms to vibrate putting them in higher states of energy.

Swizec 6y ago

> I’ve concluded that the best advice is to learn not to worry about things If you can do something about it, go do it. No need to worry, act. If you can’t ... well it’s out of your hands anyway, why worry about it.

zests 6y ago

I've realized a lot of the same things. My understanding now is that it is the physical feelings themselves that are the stress. Managing stress is about learning to identify it and then learning how to best take care of it (which you can only do when you are first aware of the stress and the toll it is having on you.)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

whalesalad 6y ago

Buddhism. Psilocybin.

pstuart 6y ago
Psilocybin is a powerful tool but it seems counter to the adage of "set and setting" to use it when beset by anxiety. As a prophylactic for it is of course a different story.
askonomm 6y ago
I really wouldn't blindly recommend Psilocybin to people. I got the idea of trying to fix my health anxiety with it from HN about a year ago. Took half a dose, had a pretty good time for around 2 hours and then the worst panic-attack meltdown of my entire life. I started sweating all over, dripping sweat from my head, being 100% sure that I'm going to die - in the end ambulance fixed me up with an IV. My anxiety disorder only got worse since then. Every time I see an ambulance I still get flashbacks and instant anxiety.
- whalesalad 6y ago
  The drug isn’t gonna fix you by itself. It facilitates a state where you can fix your brain. I’m sorry you had a bad experience. Perhaps it is worth trying again in the company of a guide or others. It’s also worth preparing for your trip by determining what kinds of things you want to try and accomplish while you’re on it.

mguerville 6y ago

Same story here, and when the physical symptoms get bad enough to induce fear (am I having a heart attack, is this constant pain in my stomach a bigger medical issue, etc.) you just also accept it because you can’t change it. “It’s probably not a heart attack, but if it is... oh well, worrying about it won’t help”

sgtnoodle 6y ago
Last year my heart's AV nerves progressively stopped working, causing my ventricles to slow and decouple from my sinus node. Before figuring that out, I was getting panic attacks from relatively benign technical disagreements with coworkers. It was very much a visceral fight-or-flight response. A few days before I ended up in the hospital, I tried playing a level of Tomb Raider and 5 minutes in I had a notable feeling of dread from it, like I was going to vomit and lose consciousness. Good times!
- XargonEnder 6y ago
  Can you elaborate on your hearts AV nerves? I don't really get it, but I sometimes wonder if my vagus nerve is damaged and your situation has some familiarity to me.
  - sgtnoodle 6y ago
    Sure. There was inflammation on my heart around those nerves, causing them to cease working. There are three nerves there, that propagate the impulse from your atriums to your ventricles in a controlled manner. When those nerves don't work, some of the impulse still indirectly makes it to the ventricles through the muscle tissue, but it's significantly delayed. So the ventricles beat, but at a significantly slower rate. It seemed to go 2:1 then 3:1, and even 4:1 at times. I had to get a pacemaker to solve the immediate issue of my heart not beating normally. With the inflammation taken care of a few months later, my nerves eventually started working again and my heart beats normally enough. They aren't 100%, but they're probably good enough that the pacemaker isn't necessary anymore.

BobbyJo 6y ago

I have an extremely similar arc with regard to stress and anxiety. I've found exercise helped, but purely because it made my body better able to manage the physical symptoms. In talking things out with my therapist I eventually came to the conclusion that ignoring problems can actually be a very effective solution, despite what everyone tells you.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

andrei_says_ 6y ago

You may find it productive to speak with your therapist about EMDR approach. It has shown to work with trauma, ptsd, anxiety.

kneel 6y ago

Microdose mushrooms. Seems silly but you can break your thought patterns by disconnecting your brain from well trodden paths. I think Michael Pollan is onto something

bluewalt 6y ago
This makes me curious, can you elaborate a bit please? How exactly would it work on anxiety? Does taking stuff produce a temporary relief or does it change the structure of your brain for a longer period? There is definitely things we still don't know about this, and it seems promising.
- kneel 6y ago
  It's an active area of research, plenty of anecdotal evidence has been posted on the net. Psychedelics can open up your senses to new experiences and methods of thinking. Over time this MAY help with troublesome thought patterns, which is prevalent in the depression/anxiety cycle. There are therapies involving this if you dig around, or if you're brave you can experiment on yourself. Don't dive in too deep to start off :)

jasfi 6y ago

Try Cissus, it blocks cortisol (the stress hormone).

andoofthewoods 6y ago

Have you checked out the book "When Panic Attacks" by Dr David Burns? It's a book that's helped a few friends of mine with severe social anxiety. It's CBT, but you may benefit from a book more tailored towards anxiety, as opposed to more generalised negative thoughts.

grupthink 6y ago

For relaxation, see: post nut clarity

packetslave 6y ago
go back to reddit
- grupthink 6y ago
  Sorry if discussing normal human bodily function is offensive to your religion/beliefs. The brain releases oxytocin and dopamine, which induces relaxation and reduces anxiety.

kingant 6y ago

Did you try medication?

valyagolev 6y ago

"Meditation helps with just about anything. Therapy helps you with figuring out why the hell you don't meditate"

arnoooooo 6y ago

It works even for physical pain. The way I see it, wanting the pain (or the anxiety) to go a away creates tension, which adds to the existing issue. You then want the tension and original pain to go away, so add on more tension… and it gets worse and worse. Not only does tension itself lead to pain in the long run, but if you tense around a painful place, you also immediately make it more painful. By accepting the original issue, you are left with it only, and not all the added tension, which is much more bearable.

robin21 6y ago

This is the reason I don’t like this whole “everyone should do therapy” movement and also the “mindfulness/meditation” movement. It creates this hyper-awareness which creates more problems by making everyone over-analyze each other and overly-sensitive to things. This over-sensitivity is such a negative for US culture. If you think long enough about things you can find everything triggering in some way.