A very long article saying little
It definitely could be at least two times shorter, but it does explain a lot of my anxious behaviours. A lot of people here think the same, so I wouldn't say that it says "little".
Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
41–50 of 83 posts
Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
#42Fascinating that Behrens reward game showed that humans were able to mentally model volatility at the level of an "ideal learner". But in the variation of the game where there was punishment instead of reward, non-anxious people still performed as "ideal learners" whereas anxious people's predictions became totally out of whack. In other words, the overly anxious mind temporarily lost its capacity to correctly formul…
This happened to me at Amazon the first time I visited HQ. The interviewer was standing about six feet away intently watching for every mark I made, which made me freeze up and start rambling about stars shining, or something equally nonsensical.
Could that have been the dreaded 'stress interview'?
Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
#43Fascinating that Behrens reward game showed that humans were able to mentally model volatility at the level of an "ideal learner". But in the variation of the game where there was punishment instead of reward, non-anxious people still performed as "ideal learners" whereas anxious people's predictions became totally out of whack. In other words, the overly anxious mind temporarily lost its capacity to correctly formul…
I can remember interviewing at Google on a whiteboard, with an employee who was: disinterested, overly specific, and antagonistic. Left that building wondering which was less healthy: my anxiety or their culture.
Was that the culture or part of the test?
Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
#44I think they are looking in the wrong place. This is related to intestinal health and microbiome. So it is closely related to diet. But, I also suspect it is habitual. Some creatures in the body get "drunk" by the chemicals released when the body is in the state of anxiety. One such chemical may be histamine. This is the reason I believe why such trivial things as choosing train seats can cause anxiety. These internal creature can "paint" a perfectly normal process as catastrophic to get their feed. These are guesses from observation of what happens in myself. But I'm sure anxiety is caused by issues in the gut.
Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
#45[deleted]
Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
#46Fascinating that Behrens reward game showed that humans were able to mentally model volatility at the level of an "ideal learner". But in the variation of the game where there was punishment instead of reward, non-anxious people still performed as "ideal learners" whereas anxious people's predictions became totally out of whack. In other words, the overly anxious mind temporarily lost its capacity to correctly formul…
>In the face of extreme anxiety, I literally become stupid. You don't need to experience "extreme anxiety", or even have a diagnosis, to experience this effect. Most people that are just learning how to drive a car will at some point experience how acute stress causes you to fail even the most basic tasks, things you would never predict that you would fail doing before you actually do. When I was learning how to driv…
I failed my first driving test for similar reasons! In fact, driving is the elephant in the room when it comes to common stressful activities. Even if you follow the rules, not everyone else will and you always need to be ready. In addition, the stakes are high... Lifetime odds of dying in a car crash are 1/102 (source: https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-o...)
Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
#47I haven’t read the article but as someone who has suffered from generalized anxiety (primarily manifested through hypochondria) for a vast portion of my life, I can conclude most definitely yes.
It’s hard to pay attention when your mind is telling you that you need to go to the hospital for some random reason at all times.
For the most part I’ve learned to keep it in check. But it took 30 years so it greatly affected my learning years, I believe. I also always make sure to carry around Xanax just in case.
Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
#48How much has Big Magnesium paid you to write these comments?
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18206442 and marked it off-topic.
Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
#49We already know that too many choices is a bad thing. For some apparently, taken to an extreme, it becomes anxiety. Toss in neuroplasticity and for a subset that becomes chronic.
Evolution is an infinite process. There's no reason to believe humans are no longer evolving. Survival is relative to current conditions. Some of us are, naturally, just not wired for the "amenities" of modern life.
Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?
#50I had a girlfriend who when faced with the choice of Chain-Coffee v Small-Shop-Coffee she’d at first choose the Chain-Coffee but as days passed she’d choose the SmallShop-Coffee more and more. When I asked her why she chose the one with clearly no particular expertise in coffee making(they were also right next to one another) she’d tell me that she wanted to support the independent small player and not the big corpor…
When someone changes a decision like that after multiple experiences with the outcome, they are overriding a natural human bias for consistency. That likely indicates a strong reason. Maybe the coffee or atmosphere was actually consistently better?
The article example is pretty dumb honestly. Chains are a mental shortcut for making decisions, but truthfully, there is much more variation between two Starbucks than they would like to admit.