I'm not going to try to minimize what you're experiencing. They could be serious issues that need to be dealt with. Lack of desire to eat and not wanting to spend time with friends seem concerning at the very least.
But I will say the following behavior you have described is one of my biggest problems and I would give almost anything for a tool that solved that:
>When I'm sick I struggle to maintain focus on what I need to, I get distracted (small dopamine hits from social media are the worst)
In my humble opinion, a set of people here have this "no focus problem." (depending on my form on the day - me included). One can see it more positively as Too Many Aptitudes problem, which gives it a significantly better viewpoint, as elaborated here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1486708]. Actually, I think the previous #1 article [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5616786] reflects this by reaching #1 on HN!
You all are smart people. Else these essays/articles wouldn't exist!
But, as edw519 pointed out:
The single most important thing I do to "achieve laser focus
and concentration" is to work in such a way that I don't need
"laser focus and concentration" to get my work done.
This has to be done the night before.
David Kadavy wrote about his related approach here [http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/mind-management-intro] what was reposted a few days ago, as far as I remember. I really like this viewpoint. Take note of David's words, especially:
If you can’t meditate for 2 minutes, you have bigger problems than being “too busy.”
There is a significant difference between being dispersed and having a disease.
I feel like I could have written this post myself. Patterns like this are also something I've notice in my life but have yet to get a handle on them. There is like a catch 22 with exercise. You skip exercise so that makes you feel tired or lazy. That laziness makes it even harder to get back into the exercise phase. Rinse. Repeat until you pretty much give up.
The most productive times in my life were when I was lifting 4-5 days a week and able to run 2-5 miles every other day or so. There is something about exercise (serotonin release?) that offset much of the natural imbalances I have. The problems seem to start when I let outside influences get in the way. Working late one night, wifey telling me we nee to get something done around the house, family commitments, etc. All of these lead to a downward spiral.
I don't know why I'm typing a wall of text. I guess I just want you to know that this is something very interesting to me and I can't wait to see what you come up with.
> My brain works a little differently than most people’s. My body doesn't balance chemicals like serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine well and as a result I get “sick”, my label for my particular mix of anxiety, depression and general mental health issues.
Chemicals like serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine? So neurotransmitters? And what does balance have to do with it? Do you lack dopaminergic neurons? Do you have an over expression of serotonin? I'm not asking for you to go into detail about your problems but that sounds a little too wishy washy.
A lot of these issues sound exactly like what many other people also suffer from every day. So it's hard to not think that on some level this is psychosomatic.
I was trying to simplify it, admittedly a lot, I was just trying to illustrate that really in the end behaviour and affect is just chemistry, effected by various different stimulus. (i also should've added as a footnote, i studied psychology for several years)
And sure these are all things that people suffer day-to-day, what makes it more is that an episode can go days, weeks and (thankfully not recently for me) months.
OK. I understand what you were trying to put across. But ultimately what you described was a set of symptoms of a disorder that you didn't fully explain, so I found it confusing reading the essay with vague hints of the underlying issue.
I'm just saying this as cognitive scientists spend a lot of effort working out which mechanisms and pathways are malfunctioning for a specific disorder, and a generalised statement listing 3 neurotransmitters didn't sit well with me.
From a neuroscience perspective, there is a major issue with self diagnosis, its very hard to be objective when you're examining yourself and once you begin to notice something, you tend to 'fix' the evidence in your mind. Psychosomatic symptoms are surprisingly common. However I don't want to sound like I'm questioning your diagnosis, so if you are aware of a deficit on a functional level please ignore me.
Oh no no, I completely understand how it could "not sit well" with someone, I over-simplified it for the audience and it was only supposed to be illustrative in the purpose of what I was writing.
(Obviously I'm more a believer/subscriber/fan of cognitive approaches to psychology, and why I wanted to be a psychologist and not a psychiatrist.)
I suggest ignoring experiment0's comments in this thread.
At any rate, your article has convinced me that you're not just engaging in self-fulfilling prophecies or theorizing as he seems to imply when he writes "psychosomatic".
(And experiment0, you can't have gotten far in your study of neuroscience if you think there are just 3 neurotransmitters.)
Why would you suggest to ignore me when I was aiming to promote discussion. I was primarily questioning the science behind the post as there's a lot of questionable reporting on topics like these and so if it looks dubious, then I'm set to promote clarification. As it turns out oliyoung does seem to know what he's talking about, so I guess I needn't have worried.
And the snark at the bottom of your reply is really quite unnecessary.
Most of the cardinal signs of major depression, and some of anxiety disorder, are mentioned in this article. The Internet is no place to make a diagnosis, but I hope it's a reasonable place to make a friendly suggestion to consider seeing a physician.
Thanks! As someone that is right now deep inside a such hole I can relate.
This autopilot you mention is what cracks me time and time again. If you are not somewhat relaxed after days or weeks of heavy exercise you fail to accomplish the most simple tasks you actually want to do.
This effectivly kills my self-esteem and self-worth every time again.
It was different in school to me, then I rode my bike to school 20km a day and did martial arts 2-3 times a week. Actually failing to "perform" in academics and life in general is at least for me heavily correlated with having hard workouts.
If you skip workout, pull an all nighter you feel that you set yourself up for bad things again and It's incredible hard to get your feed on the ground again.
Just one data point: Medition never worked well for me (even did a 10 days sit-in) but progressive muscle relaxation on the other hand worked quite well. I also had good experience with the whole "Qi" concept from Aikido* (focus on a point in your lower abdomen). But nothing really works too well without the basic exercise you outlined.
Do you have any more information related to this condition?
* Qi is pseudo-science. I'm aware of that. However the idea is a powerful concept to focus.
I wanted to focus in on the exercise aspect of this piece:
In my experience, exercise is vital to my mental well-being, just as the author of this piece found it to be for him, until he hit a slump.
We all hit slumps.
I hit a major slump when our child was born. Prior to that, I had been hitting the gym consistently (4 days per week), but my life changed and I had to re-prioritize.
However, where I failed myself is that I quit exercising entirely, because my "exercising world view", if you will, was gym-centric; that is, I had programmed myself to need a gym to be successful in working out.
I realized that I needed to change. After some research, I found P90X [1]. This is an exercise system (presented on DVD) that utilizes body-weight techniques (e.g., pull-ups, push-ups), yoga, plyometrics [2] and resistance exercises (you can use dumbbells or resistance bands - they demonstrate both techniques).
I also found a used Nordic Track ski machine [3] online for $100. This is not part of the P90X system, but I find it to be a fantastic cardio machine, and it allows me to change things up a bit... plus, the skiing action is fun.
The advantage here is that you can do all of this without going to a gym. Also, there is minimal equipment required; here is a picture of what is used in the system [4] (note the "Description" of the image that identifies all of the required pieces).
The system is fairly intense, but as with most things in life, you start very slowly and just work through what you can do, at your own pace.
I just wanted to share this experience, because I know we all struggle to find our routines, especially with exercise. I have found that one of the biggest challenges with finding an exercise routine is time: time to pack for the gym, get there, workout, shower up and head out. With a home-based system, you have essentially instant availability, no travel time and you never have to wait for a machine or piece of equipment.
If you can join a sports club. Be it soccer, martial arts or whatever fits you needs. You learn more and meet new people. If you need more workout you can go running or do body weight exercices.
You also don't need any machines. Body weight exercices should be more than enough. Push-ups and chins can go a long way.
Sports Club are not for everyone. I've been through a lot (tennis, soccer, volley, badminton, ping pong (competition), fencing, taekwondo, judo, kungfu, karate, climbing...) and I never really enjoyed it fully.
I figured it was because I didn't like having a teacher in some case (I hate having to follow directions) and also I didn't like the mentality of some sports (soccer, if you suck people will just hate you).
Going to the gym is one of the thing I really like in my life right now. It's like quitting life for an hour. I don't have anyone to talk to or to follow, I can do sport on my own, by myself. It's refreshing.
If you're reading it for entertainment, maybe. Otherwise it'll just turn you into a bitter, self-absorbed, selfish asshole like the rest of the objectivists.
Second the join-a-club notion. Having something else except "exercise is good for me", like winning a match, to motivate yourself goes a long way. I started playing rugby last year and find myself actually looking forward to regular practice.
Your post pretty much summarizes my life concisely but I am still struggling to get the exercise part down. I'll be looking forward to see what you churn out!
Unsolicited Advice:
For exercise, I found that yoga has worked extremely well for me. I started in January and it has been going great!
A few factors have really kept me motivated to go:
1) For the first 10 weeks, it was run like a college school class. The roster was fixed. Attendance was taken.
2) It is expensive. When I pay this much for something, I feel obligated to use it. In this case, the first 10 weeks were a Christmas gift so I really felt obligated.
3) I can practice outside of class literally everywhere. This is impossible for a lot of gym workouts.
4) It is hard. I feel seriously challenged.
I did Tae Kwon Do in high school. A lot of the above points also apply to martial arts. Plus if you do martial arts you get extra style points according to http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
What are you struggling with in terms of exercise, if you don't mind me asking? I had a lot of trouble getting into an exercise routine until recently, so I might have some tips, but different people struggle with different things.
Really just following through consistently. Recently I was trying to start out slow and do 30-45 minutes of brisk walking several days per week. I did it for 2 weeks before something came up and I missed a couple of days and I never got back into it.
Until today (yayy) I have been working the graveyard shift at work. I'm going to give it another go with a more sane schedule and focus on being consistent on the times I do go exercise.
Diet and exercise are critical for mental wellness (I do OK on the diet and horrible on the exercise, but I'm better than I was last year on both counts). Ketogenic diets (e.g. "low carb") have shown to have a significant positive effect on schizophrenics[1] as well as being a long-known treatment for epilepsy[2] for people for whom drugs don't work or are too dangerous and is showing initial signs it might have positive impact on autism[3].
My point is this: Diet has a huge impact on mental health. My personal belief (based on research, not faith :) is that sugar is toxic, but even if you don't believe that, it is clear that sugar has an impact on the brain[4].
This is the $64,000 question. Either we're all acutely aware of ourselves and we're just feeling the normal human condition multiplied through that awareness, or we really aren't functioning correctly. I've yet to work that out myself.
All I do know is when I do things that literature has said will reduce symptoms of well known and well documented behavioural issues, my own go away a little bit.
Did you read the GP? It says either some people are uniquely hyper-self aware, or everybody is the same. All you've done is state one side of that argument in the form of a maxim.
As far as I understand - no. However it's not like other people don't get sad, and always stay happy and motivated, they are just able to break out of their bad moods quickly enough.
Depression is very widespread though. Up to one third of population will suffer from major depressive episode atvleast once in their lifetime(Major depression is the most serious subtype of depression). And around 10%-15% of population currently suffer from various types of depression.
I know in our community here its easy to jump to try create a technical solution for both identifying and solving our issues. I've found that meditation is the mental tool you might be seeing. The main goal of meditation is to make what is unconscious conscious. And simply by making it conscious it brings it to the level where you can start to address it.
It looks like that is what you have been doing though without the benefit of an explicit meditation practice, keep it up.
You know, I'm really happy to know that I'm not alone. I experience the _exact_ same cycle and problems mentioned in the article.
I started crossfit last fall, and I felt great. I finally kicked my perma-funk and I was LIVING life. Unfortunately, I was injured (not related to going to the gym) and I haven't been able to workout except for pushups and situps. Now I'm stuck in a hard place: I physically cannot work out, and I absolutely need it to maintain a healthy mental state.
My friends don't understand my behavior and why I'm happy, then when I need to hide from them so they don't run into my 'down' state. I had a wonderful relationship with a beautiful girl, which ended with her leaving me, partly because communication broke down when my pendulum swung between metal states. I try really hard to not put my friends through my issues, but you can't be close to anyone without them eventually learning who you actually are. Like the guy in the article, I've developed the same defense mechanisms to appear normal.
One thing I'm starting to observe is that this condition of anxiety, which when not managed leads to despair/depression, kinda runs with the territory of being a software developer. I guess maybe it's just how our brains are wired.
I wish there was just an easier way to manage this, or at least explain to 'normal' people that I won't always be normal, and it's ok.
I like the author of the article had my own vices, I used to be bullied in highschool I was one of those smart kids, They would always cheat off of me and ask for my help in turn I would be condescending. This trait soon bled into my life and turned me into someone that people could not get along with. I eventuality sat down one day and stepped out into a third person perspective and saw why. Now I hold mental barriers that prevent this trait from exposing its self.
1) Even if there are drugs(antidepressants, stimulants, etc) which can relieve depression by interacting with dopaminergic, serotoninergic or noradrenergic neuronal systems, it doesn't mean that depression was caused by lack of specific neurotransmitters.
It's like making implication that if reboot solves a problem with your laptop, than this problem was caused by infrequent reboots.
Simple lack of one(or even several) neurotransmitter is an old hypothesis. Modern "neuronal" theories are more complicated and elaborate.
2) I'm going to give advice other than exercising, sleeping and eating well. These things are great, typical HN depression thread contains lots of advice on that by more knowledgeable people than me.
So.
OP and other depressed or anxious people, there are self-help books by David Burns: "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" and "When Panic Attacks". Both are available on amazon kindle: http://amzn.com/0380810336 and http://amzn.com/076792083X
What's good about them?
First, they contain various scales for deprssion and anxiety. If you like to quantify things like OP, get this book, and measure your score 1-2 times per week.
Second, Burns features cognitive model for depression. It is considered that depression(and anxiety) is caused by unrealistic distorted thoughts, which you often think automatically and may not even notice such thoughts. They have vast impact on your mood though. So, literally, you feel the way you think. Change your thoughts and your moods improves. (easier to say than done, I agree)
Third, these books describe a great amount of cognitive tools, which will help you to think rationaly and realisticaly(and consequently - feel better).
Even if you aren't depressed, you may find awesome tools which will help you to beat procrastination(Anti-procrastination sheet and daily activity schedule are my favourites).
Fourth, they are well-written and helpful on its own. The main power of these books is technics though. Reading + Using Tools > Just Reading.
3) If you're having difficulty fighting depression on your own - get professional help. Find a good CBT therapist, CBT shouldn't be very long, so you won't waste a lot of money.
You described how my daily life goes to the t. As someone else has stated, I feel like I could have written this myself. The app you are talking about would be of tremendous help in analyzing my issues/habits, but I also lack the willpower to complete such a task lol. If you ever do make the program, I'll be the first to download. Thank you as well for the good read, I don't as alone anymore now ha.
Somehow, I keep thinking that what we lack, is what our elders used to do back then (and I'm not just talking about our dads/mothers and grand parents here).
Whenever I read about a famous writer like Jack London or others, It seems like one of the most common traits between them is their attitude towards learning.
They exercise, read the classics of those that lived before them, but they also write (much like we do today with our blogs and such). And they write about their own self, their journey.
Essentially, they were already keeping track of themselves, in order to better themselves without outside judgement.
It seems to me we kinda skipped some part and are just beginning to re learn what was common back then...
In the end, the most helpful thing you can do about your mental health is to question your own self, on paper.
I wrote a blog post about why exercise is important to mental health and I think the title sums up how I feel about why exercise is so necessary: "The Body is a Distraction for the Mind" - http://felixthea.com/the-body-is-a-distraction-for-the-mind
I like the concept (and I like the name a lot, excellent find). As the comments here make clear, many people experience the same "funk" and would be interested in paying for such a product. Hope you get to raise money and make progress on this very soon. Much sillier ideas have been funded before..
Would like to reply, but not in public. Doesn't seem possible... Empty HN profile, nothing to find on the site, etc.
Didn't have that much to say, it's not really worth emailing me so that I have your email address (or something), but it's annoying to have no contact info whatsoever.
"Sleep, it seems, is a massive part of my behavioural defense mechanism."
Not to suggest that one is more important than another, but sleep is critical for me own depression. Turning off my brain and meditating before bed is possibly the most important part if my day.
I created a calendar to try to manually discern the patterns in my own life, and it's been quite effective. Found your repo (0 watchers, haha), definitely a project that has piqued my interest. Keep us informed.
For anyone struggling to get into an exercise routine, I've ran into a potential solution because it doesn't require lots of time and effort.
Exercise 10 minutes daily (or at least 3-5x a week) as soon as you wake up and before you hit the shower. Do intervals. Out of the 10 minutes, two have to be all out and intense. You can do a treadmill, elliptical, or as I often do at home: jumping jacks and running in place (no, seriously). Also, listen to your favorite, upbeat music.
Benefits:
* exercise is generally good for the frontal cortex, what helps you focus and get things done [1]
* exercising in the morning will put you in a more positive mood, helping to reduce stress; by reducing stress, you feel more energetic, you feel less hungry and crave less crappy food, therefore you prevent the systematic downward spiral that comes with it and you lose weight.
* because you exercise in the morning, you burn more fat [2]
* adding music is great for your dopamine levels: [3]
* intensity (anaerobic exercise) is more important than duration and frequency [4]
I ran into this routine because I always have a hard time waking up in the morning (not so much anymore) and was always late to work. But knowing from previous experience that working out intensely in the morning helped with my energy level and focus, I did 10-15 minutes and found that it's all that I needed. In a bit over a month I've lost like 9lbs, I eat better, get less tired at work and can focus for longer periods of time.
I hope to put my experiences into a blog post series soon.
What about listening to music ALL THE TIME. Do you know if that might fuck with Dopamine? I know smoking weed too much does screw the level at which Dopamine is enough to enjoy life.
I just stopped listening to the music I was at the moment. I might just be freaking out for nothing though.
EDIT : just talked to a friend doing medical studies and he told me this : When you eat chocolate, take drugs, etc... you ingest something and the body have to deal with it. Stuff happens and you can't really control it. But when you listen to music, you activate something through your sense, so the brain can regulate it (for example when you start listening to a song and you love it, then the more you listen to it the more it annoys you until you just ignore it when listenning to it. Brain regulated).
I don't know, but I doubt that music can do that as it's not some substance that's throwing off your brain chemistry.
I listen to music at work all the time to avoid distractions.
When I do my 10 minute routine, I listen to music that gives me a dopamine rush during the intense part of it to help boost my performance. I can replicate the rush most of the time, but I do believe that finding new songs after a few weeks is good.
When I listen to my workout playlist at any other time of the day, it actually helps boost my productivity and motivation level because my brain has learned to associate such songs with pushing myself. So I actually do this when I'm feeling a bit tired to get another boost.
Also, invest in great headphones. The new EarPods really enhance my workout experience, so much so, that I now look forward to my early morning workout when I wake up to get over my grogginess.
What you did was create an anchor. I do self-hypnosis as well but just telling myself stuff like "the more you run, the better you feel, the more you run, the better you feel" (repetition matters).
Also is it inner-ear? A doctor told me you should never put anything in your ears. I don't know how those things are legal actually.
Your friend is right; the brain has a beautiful system called neural/sensory adaptation which eventually leads to the same patterns being less stimulating and even ignored.
Off-topic, but I wonder if some people with autism lack this mechanism and are therefore constantly overwhelmed by sensory input.
The brain is such a beautiful, but delicate hack of evolution.
I actually listen to music far more often than anyone I know and your friend's explanation gels with my experience. For me, it ranges from that tunnel-vision-inducing type background noise to distracting to active listening (ex: analyzing a technically proficient musician).
But I will say the following behavior you have described is one of my biggest problems and I would give almost anything for a tool that solved that:
>When I'm sick I struggle to maintain focus on what I need to, I get distracted (small dopamine hits from social media are the worst)