101–110 of 115 posts
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Milk? Why's that?
In the US and Canada, milk is often fortified with Vitamin D. Not sure what it's like in the rest of the world.
Thanks for the hint.
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I took the quiz from that book -- boy that was depressing. It showed that I had a habit of explaining all good things as temporary, specific, and external, while bad things as permanent, pervasive, and personal. I'm well aware that this inconsistency defies logic. But that doesn't stop it from disrupting my life :(
I spent 6 months reading every book I could find on self-esteem, depression, etc. The Amazon Top 50 and then some. It was porn: I liked the idea of self-improvement, but lacked the motivation to do it, and after a while, reading the books just made me feel worse and sustained the depression.
Do you have a wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend? Are you tied down to anything? Do you have money to travel? I'm going to assume you're a single male between the age of 25 and 35. The right ideas will slowly come to you, but getting some perspective is essential and that's not going to come from sitting in your apartment staring at your laptop. The two things I suggest are: * Exercise. Mens sana in corpore sano. Lift…
Do you have a wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend? Are you tied down to anything? Do you have money to travel? I'm going to assume you're a single male between the age of 25 and 35. Correct on all counts -- nothing tying me down, and my rainy day fund can keep me fed, clothed, and sheltered for years. I actually get a decent amount of exercise -- minimum 40 minutes per day, I'd estimate. It certainly has plenty of bene…
Try travelling to China without a backpack/suitcase, only what you can fit in your pockets (toiletries left pocket, camera/passport/wallet right pocket). Buy other things when you get there, just liberate yourself from most things you would've taken with you.
This sounds really stupid on its face, but try taking Vitamin D. While it certainly won't fix any of these problems, I found it helped my mood a bit and generally made me feel better, health-wise. And worst-case scenario, it does nothing and you're out $10.
Hmmm... you've just reminded me that I ought to be drinking more milk...
1. Travel is overrated. I hate the airports, taxis, traffic, annoyances, inconveniences, etc when I'm trying to relax.
2. Get a dog?
I have read the great suggestions written so far - exercise, travel, etc. Great, I hope something hits the mark. I have two things to suggest. I hope they help. If I'm being blunt, I apologise. 1. Simplify your thinking. If you have a habit of overly abstract thought, you can make problems more complicated than they need to be. You could say it's a bit like spiritual java programming. For instance, aims such as "beco…
Please do be blunt! I'm more than willing to have my feelings hurt to learn something that may be helpful here. That said, I did give a very long and audible sigh when reading your post. It feels like a cop out, but perhaps one day I'll have to accept my own mediocrity.
To me it seems like you have a Mastermind personality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTJ), one which is pretty hard to deal with. Execute your plans, not your imagination.
I've taken two. The first one (10 months) I met my boyfriend, spent a couple weeks in Paris, and generally did nothing of importance. It's exactly what I needed. That's okay! The second one (8 months), I tried a startup but didn't get far. (I am not the type for a large solo project.) I spent two months in Turkey. I wrote a third of a novel (that I'm still working on.) I worked on learning Turkish. Honestly, I'm not…
did nothing of importance
I'm 27. I was burned out from June 2009 to January 2011. I made it out of that funk, and will never go back. - Drop all timelines for recovery. You didn't go into burnout overnight, so you're not coming out of it overnight. I saw the warning signs of my "batteries" getting low in early 2009, but I kept pressing on at full speed because I wanted to get ahead of the workload, and kept hoping that relief would come. The…
One more important tip that I'd like to add:
After all those years of stress, I had basically retrained my body to be chronically hyperventilating, something I didn't directly noticed when I was trying to recover.
Basically everyone has this idea of hyperventilation with someone holding a paper/plastic bag and gasping for air.. but it doesn't have to be that way.
You can be hyperventilating all the time, feel tired as h#ll, dizzy, stressed, anxiety etc.. without really noticing that you're breathing too fast because of a retrained/'stuck' breathing center!
Really, I was breathing like 20-25 times a minute in rest ..crazy, it's like riding a bicycle at >20 KM/h all day long!
It's very easy to check your breathing though. E.g. via the 'Control Pause' test from the Buteyko Method:
http://knol.google.com/k/buteyko-control-pause-cp#
It takes determination and time to learn how to breath properly again and unwind all that stored stress.
Currently back to breathing 6-14 times/min. at rest and already feeling sooo much better, happier, more energetic, sleep is much much better etc.
Proper breathing is wayyyyyy underrated. Every GP seems to follow the "you're stressed out? psychosomatic complaints? here have some $neurotransmitter_modifying_medicine" route without looking at the _real_ cause(s).
I can't think (memory still goes and comes..it sucks) of the famous ancient Greek who said it, but paraphrased:
"You cannot fix/heal anything if you don't know the underlying cause."
The rest is just the suppression of symptoms..
I have read the great suggestions written so far - exercise, travel, etc. Great, I hope something hits the mark. I have two things to suggest. I hope they help. If I'm being blunt, I apologise. 1. Simplify your thinking. If you have a habit of overly abstract thought, you can make problems more complicated than they need to be. You could say it's a bit like spiritual java programming. For instance, aims such as "beco…
Please do be blunt! I'm more than willing to have my feelings hurt to learn something that may be helpful here. That said, I did give a very long and audible sigh when reading your post. It feels like a cop out, but perhaps one day I'll have to accept my own mediocrity.
I hazard a guess that it's failing to live up to what you imagine. And then you feel like a failure. Mediocre. And when you give up, you feel like it's a cop-out.
It seems that you interpreted what I wrote through a filter of that sort of thinking. When I suggested that you give up on your current pattern of thinking you tell me it feels like a cop-out. It's the same pattern, as far as I can tell.
What you're dreaming up are intangible, speculative things with no basis in reality. That's fine if you feel good about it. But I don't think you do. You seem to be rejecting it on various levels.
What I am saying is link your thinking to tangibles. Test your ideation against reality. Stop pondering monks on misty mountain tops for a while. If you could imagine those monks with any clarity, you would already have had the experience. Instead - go and talk to monks. Go and visit mountain tops. Fill your mind with new experience.
Don't ponder this any further. Just take the first steps to seeking out new experiences.
Hopefully that makes some sense.
Again - all the best.