I'm in a similar situation like you and started reading the Book "Self-Discipline in 10 days: How To Go From Thinking to Doing" by Theodore Bryant. I haven't completed the book yet so i can't tell you that it worked in the long run but the section about selftalk and fears already changed my way of thinking significantly and i learned a lot about my self.
So definitely a recommendation.
Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
121–130 of 240 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#122What’s your average screen time over a week/month?
In my discussion among friends and family, excessive mobile usage has turned out to be the #1 cause for anxiety issues. (especially among self employed people)
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#123I occasionally suffer from this pattern, although not as gravely as you describe it.
Something that I found helped me with the "bigger" manifestations of it, i.e. not a small homework assignment but larger projects in life, is: Stop psychologically evading failure.
That is, the instinct is to try not to think about what happens if you fail, since that's terrible; and maybe trying to convince yourself that you won't fail (and indeed maybe you're unlikely to fail). I say, do the opposite of that. Try to work through that worst-case scenario. This often brings up fears such as "What is my life about if I am unable to do XYZ?" Or "My self-perception is of a 'doer of X'; who am I, as a person, if I don't successfully do X?" If you are willing to face those questions and provide answers which you can conceivably live with, the fear of tackling X may subside somewhat.
Hope that helps.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#124I've watched dozens of videos on procrastination and by far the best one is this one by Tim Pychyl: [1] It's aimed at helping graduate students overcome procrastination, but it's actually useful for just about anyone. It's chock full of very practical tips, and Pychyl's main point is that procrastination is not a time management problem, but a problem with managing negative emotions. So it sounds like it would be rig…
> I've watched dozens of videos on procrastination
But perhaps not that many videos on irony? :-P
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#125I was going through something similar and took me a while to recognize it was anxiety. It's good that you have recognized it so early. When nothing seemed to work, I tried Zembrin as an OTC experiment if it was "just chemistry". It really worked for me, takes a few weeks to work, and it wasn't anything obvious - in fact I didn't think it was working until I forgot to take it for a few days and felt anxiety creeping b…
I can second the Zembrin recommendation.
It got mentioned to me by a friend last year, so I decided to give it a go.
It took around a week to 10 days and then I wasn't feeling the pressure as much anymore.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#126I would strongly recommend seeing a therapist. This is the exact kind of "thought pattern" that therapists are incredibly good at helping you sort through.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#127Watching interviews from Jordan Peterson on youtube did help me a lot recently.
One good advice is that you are paralyzed because you fear what is before you. You don't know how to manage it, and your instinct to facing danger is "don't move". What you have to do is to think about the danger of not moving, and the cost associated. You use one fear to mitigate the other.
There is also something that I can't really explain about changing your vision and "Take responsibility for your life. Accept the burden that come with it".
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
With the prevalence of player-vs-player (PvP) games with global leaderboards I'd argue that it could be the opposite, i.e. kids have a better grasp of where they stack on the larger scheme of things. I too played sports competitively as a child and that eventually fueled interest in PvP games. It was about proving one's self. In contrast, when one is limited to just academia/school, they have a poor understanding of…
PvP games are a good point, though I do think there is something different than IRL sports. Even PvP game competitions in person I think have a different level of lesson than online. Interesting thought about global leaderboards. I wonder if they are so big, that it's easy to dismiss though. I feel like there is an optimal size in between, sort of like what's happened in sports in the past. As a kid got better, they…
I can tell you from experience that it is very, very embarrassing to be low ranked when your friends are not ranked.
A friend of mine was top 100 in a region with 10 million players, and I could barely get to top 10% without help. Granted my friend is absolutely brilliant and has played competitively in all the games he played (e.g. WoW, League of legends, hearthstone, and so on). I wish he could find something in real life that gave him the same rush as "being one of the best".
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I absolutely don't buy into either of these views. As a person in long term recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, and someone that has been to thousands of support meetings, and known many many people that have recovered from horrible circumstances, my advice is, ignore these two posts. It just is not true.
> As a person in long term recovery from alcohol and drug addiction What has this got to do with anything? Dysthymia isn't an addiction or "horrible circumstances". It isn't even particularly severe, it's just moderately meh all the time. Most people don't seek treatment because they assume it's just part of their personality: "I'm just a negative person" or "I just don't like making friends" etc. You don't have a cl…
No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#130The best solution to getting past the anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle is to take small, manageable actions while accepting the feelings that go along with those actions. Start with the smallest steps possible. Maybe that means opening the assignment and saving it to your computer. Then put it down and walk away. Come back in a little while and take another small step, such as reading over the assignment or making an out…
I wish someone had given me this pièce of advice early in life instead of finding that out at 25. I call it the foot-in-the-door method, it makes wonders.
Yup. Starting is the hardest part. It's easy to be overwhelmed by the whole thing you have to do. It's much easier to say, "Okay I'm going to open the document and title it. That's it". Often once you do that its much easier to do the next step.
The other piece of advice I'd give is break tasks down. Write a paper is hard. Open a document is easy. Title the document is easy. Write a thesis is harder than those two but easier than writing an entire paper. Writing the first paragraph based on your thesis statement is easier than writing a paper.
If you have things broken down into steps its much easier to have a clear step by step plan on how to move forward.