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Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

blogs.scientificamerican.com

71–80 of 83 posts

Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

#71

I 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…

Is meditation (the simple notion) effective for you ?

Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

#72
post #39

Fascinating 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…

This is the exact reason I failed my driving test 7 times before finally passing (pass rate in UK is ~60%). It's hard to describe to people that it's not that you're necessarily bad at the task, just the anxiety causes you to react in a bad way.

Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a tough time making choices now, I think because of anxiety and obsession. I just bought a snow blower (of all things) and the process wss torturous. Do I get the 24" that is easier to maneuver and is cheaper? Or the 26" that is more powerful? This one brand has history of breaking shear pins. This other brand clogs easily. Before you know it I've spent a few hours watching youtube reviews and it's 60 degrees…

I recommend the book "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock. He does a great job at explaining what goes on in your head on a given day, for a given decision. https://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Work-Strategies-Distractio...

Cool, added to my cart. Thanks!

Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

#74
post #53
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, I have had severe anxiety and depression for quite some time. I was prescribed a few SSRI's bet, but my doctor was a dick and pretty much state I need to just get out and do more, get my mind off shit. So on trying to improve my mental health I started taking nootropics. Some of them people SWARE BY, yet I never experienced any noticeable effect. But by chance I ordered a batch of Magnesium L-Threonate and…

Can you tell me the advantage of L-Threonate? Choosing magnesium (and dosage) opens up a world of options and examine.com doesn't help a huge amount...

Here's a pretty decent explanation from NootropicsDepot: http://nootropicsdepot.com/articles/magnesium-glycinate-vs-l...

Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

#75

I 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…

Is meditation (the simple notion) effective for you ?

It has not been. Regular exercise is probably the most helpful.

During an attack, very controlled deep breathing and taking my shirt off to walk around in circles.

Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

chains are predictable. less risky: your expectations are stable and accurate.

Expectations are more stable, but that doesn't mean the underlying product is at all stable and consistent.

Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

chains are predictable. less risky: your expectations are stable and accurate.

My experience with coffee chains is the chains are predictably mediocre or bad, and the small shops are less predictable but on average generally much better than the chains (with the occasional place that's a lot worse than the chains, but this is rare from my experience).

Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is meditation (the simple notion) effective for you ?

It has not been. Regular exercise is probably the most helpful. During an attack, very controlled deep breathing and taking my shirt off to walk around in circles.

Exercise is neat indeed, and IMO it has similar mechanisms regarding meditation but since meditation is invisible and quite fuzzy.. exercise is easier to use.

If I may, keep the meditation thing in mind, it really changed how I approached my own anxiety and how I could restore a balanced state of mind. Maybe one day it will click for you, I hope.

Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

chains are predictable. less risky: your expectations are stable and accurate.

Expectations are more stable, but that doesn't mean the underlying product is at all stable and consistent.

I've a friend, a high end foodie. he proposes to use the big Mac as the international standard/reference point for burger quality. that would t be possible unless the big Mac basically tasted the same at pretty much every mc Ds

Re: Is Chronic Anxiety a Learning Disorder?

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

chains are predictable. less risky: your expectations are stable and accurate.

And if those expectations are predictably and accurately poor?

it's just math. you have your typical concave risk averse utility function, and you measure the difference in expected utilities between a low variance option and a high variance option, feed into softmax hoila
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