Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?

In my opinion, this never goes away and you can only learn coping strategies. I never had this issue with classwork though, but checking my email/dealing with DevOps problems/filing taxes.

For me, I can see when I'm getting into that cycle (e.g. haven't checked my email in a few days) and one way to break it is to use medication. I don't like benzos, but I'm sure they work. Instead, I take a full dose of Benadryl and that can sometimes help me get rid of the anxiety long enough to get through the initial part.

Drinking alcohol works too, but obviously only works when you're at home. Shouting or high intensity dancing to loud music can help.

Basically, just knock yourself out of it just enough to actually start doing the work. Once you start, you'll realize it wasn't so bad.

Just picture Michael Burry having to read this emails in The Big Short during the most stressful scenes.

A lot of good advice here which you can try to implement, but at the the end of the day if this is affecting your day to day life then this is a mental health issue.

I would recommend therapy. They'll give you some similar advice as this thread, and also help you implement it, help keep you accountable, and help find if there's a further underlying cause.

For me the issue was external factors. Don't ignore your social and romantic needs, don't try to do more than it is required of you to impress. Don't define yourself purely through your academic abilities, as annoying as that might be.

Do the bare minimum, but do it, and do it now. Try to collaborate with others, it will help you understand you are on the same level as them and you don't need to turn every lab report to a thesis-like endeavor.

Therapists can be hit or miss, but I think it might help you to talk to someone if that's a possibility. Some times in life you don't have level-headed impartial friends to give you good advice, and imo a good therapist would do just that. Help you see more clearly from a different perspective.

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 where they stack up as they are essentially in a microcosm of reality. I take it that OP is in advanced studies and did well in their prior years. With high probability they did too well in school for their own good and didn't have to learn how to be consistent and do the work.

Again speaking from experience on the latter.

Cognitive behavior therapy, and maybe medication. See some specialists