91–100 of 243 posts
What a pleasant surprise to find this article at the top of HN! Minutes ago I finished a workshop on a somatic therapy technique. It's a relief to see these ideas gaining mainstream attention after so many years of making little progress on my own anxiety, depression, and procrastination. For other relevant scientific perspectives, I recommend looking into the theory around "memory reconsolidation." - Kaj Sotala does…
If you’re going to go counter to a large body of scientific evidence (re efficacy of CBT), ya need something stronger than the thoughts of some people trying to hawk products, ya know?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reminded me of a passage from Sapiens on Buddah. "...Gautama Buddah found that there was a way to exit this vicious circle. If, when the mind experiences something pleasant or unpleasant, it simply understand things as they are, then there is no suffering. If you experience sadness without craving that the sadness go away, you continue to feel sadness but you do not suffer from it. There can actually be richness in t…
I wonder if that is why we like music. We can experience emotions without worrying that they are permanent or need to be resolved.
I was almost 30 when I had my first ever panic attack. I was alone and convinced it was a heart attack, called 911, and felt fine by the time the ambulance reached the hospital. Embarrassed, I was ready to brush it off, but instead saw a therapist for the first time. She took out a stopwatch and had me breathe through a narrow straw. Within seconds, my face and limbs went completely numb; I couldn't move, and was ama…
Why did breathing through the straw cause that reaction?
> Klein is a professor of psychiatry who studies the delightful field of “experimental panicogens”, ie chemicals that cause panic attacks if you inject them in someone. These include lactate, bicarbonate, and carbon dioxide, all of which naturally occur in the body under conditions of decreased respiration.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/05/the-case-of-the-suffoc...
Who in their right mind would take their psychological advice from a fiction writer?!? First, no, anxiety is not in your body. Fear, just like any other emotion is in your brain. You might get physiological responses in the form of chemicals in your body. That is an effect, not a cause. Second, neocortex is not "thinking brain," its role is to manage social interactions. Cognition is a small part of that. Third, mind…
This is simply not true. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) are two evidence-based, heavily researched forms of therapy that are intimately connected with mindfulness.
Second, I encourage you to cite the studies that back your claim that mindfulness is detrimental to people suffering from anxiety and depression. I'm not saying your claim is untrue, but such a claim does warrant backing.
> when you have an anxiety attack, the only thing you can do is to perform the grounding exercises.
Also not true. There are many things you can do in addition to or instead of grounding exercises. One is to simply allow it to happen or even try to make the panic worse. Paradoxically, that has been shown to ease the panic attack. I have personally experienced this multiple times. It takes a little practice but it is very effective.
I was almost 30 when I had my first ever panic attack. I was alone and convinced it was a heart attack, called 911, and felt fine by the time the ambulance reached the hospital. Embarrassed, I was ready to brush it off, but instead saw a therapist for the first time. She took out a stopwatch and had me breathe through a narrow straw. Within seconds, my face and limbs went completely numb; I couldn't move, and was ama…
I think the advice of focusing on how to turn anxiety symptoms down and moderate physical responses are fine, but it's kind of missing the point, at least for serious cases of anxiety. I suffered pretty badly from it in my early 20s (apparently typical age for this kind of stuff), and you go very quickly from particular anxiety attacks being the issue, to fear of anxiety itself being the bigger issue. An anxiety/pani…
Remember friend, things aren’t happening to you, you’re happening to things.
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> I just realized that there was nothing I could really do about anxiety or the physical symptoms that came along with it. I decided to mostly try to quit noticing and thinking about it. And that really helped. I think this is mission accomplished from your mindfulness practice, you realized that you're not really doing anything and that anxiety just appears, you accepted it and it felt better.
There are some problems with that type of approach - there are some things that won't vanish, if you stop thinking about them.
Personally, I prefer the latter.
Personal anecdote. Just a few days ago, when I was feeling anxious, I just stayed firm at my desk, and firmly approaching the situation without the thought of giving up, even if I couldn't solve the problem, I felt, I could control my anxiety a little better.
Worse still is I'm the age my grandfather and his son (my uncle) died.
I've read how people who have major stress in their lives develop a reduced ability to cope with stress. That seems like a terrible spiral downward.