Ask HN: Tips for handling chronic stess?

Funnily enough this resonates with me a lot. I definitely suffer from overthinking. This one time I saw a pregnant woman get pepper sprayed during the HK protests on Reddit and was so mad I couldn’t sleep till 3 am. I’m not Chinese and I know there’s nothing significant I can do about what happened, but things like that stick with me for way too long. Long enough for me to bring it up now and I don’t know how to handle it sometimes.

What does the feet shaking do for you?

Three most important things for reducing stress: 1. Sleep 2. Diet 3. Resilience

You can improve them with the below:

* Start monitoring your heart rate variability (HRV). You can use HRV to help you understand the triggers for your stress. There’s loads of articles on the web about it. I monitor HRV through the night with Oura ring. Low usually means you are stressed or not recovered.

* Try to go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every day. This is incredibly important and really works.

* If you struggle sleeping, use blue light blocking glasses and try to not use screens which emit blue light after sundown. Also try to get exposure to morning light everyday.

* Don’t eat at least 3 hours before bed!!

* Have your last alcoholic drink 3-4 hours before bed. Don’t drink a lot or cut it out entirely.

* Ensure you remain hydrated throughout the day

* If you can, take cold showers

* Try to meditate for 10-15 mins a day

* Make sure you start relaxing a few hours before bed

* Very important: Try to only eat whole foods. No sugar. No refined carbs. Lots of vegetables. Food has a massive impact on stress levels.

* Eating food you are intolerant to will increase your stress levels. Keep a rough diary of what you eat. If something makes you feel a bit off then make a note and try to narrow down what good it was. Once you know what it is... stop eating that food. You can gradually reintroduce with experiments.

* Exercise is good for stress reduction and resilience. Go running or cycling but.... This is very important: you NEED to monitor your heart rate. If you are not fit or new to exercise then you don’t want to go over 140 bpm. Eg I’ve been running since I was 10 and 80% of my runs are done at 145bpm. I rarely go over 170 bpm because it stresses the body a lot. If you are out of breath then you need to stop or walk. If you keep doing this you will get faster as the same HR (if you care!).

* Don’t read or watch the news.

* Go and sit in a park. Green spaces like parks help to reduce stress. Good luck dude!

Are you sure you actually sleep well? Not trying to wind you up but usually if people sleep well they can handle stress much better - sleep builds resilience for us. I'd try a "good" sleep tracker if you don't already have one to see how performant your sleep actually is. If your sleep _is_ good then I would focus on improving resilience through meditation, exercise and mindfulness (live in the moment, recognise you cannot control some situations etc). Cheers

Antidepressants. Venlafaxine is quite good - there are no initial side effects. You might try a herb - St. John’s Wort but for me, it wasn't strong enough. Lifestyle changes can help but sometimes they aren't enough.

Have you ever had a couple of sleepless nights in a row? Do you remember how tired, unproductive you were? In that state, would you rather exercise/sunbath/eat healthier/...? No, you would go sleep. The next day, you'll feel much better and then you would apply all those good advice.

It is neither good nor bad that you need to rest (mentally or physically), it's just how your body and mind function. Blaming yourself, adding judgement in this won't help, quite the contrary. Sometimes we have energy and we go forward, sometimes we're all stressed out, not feeling well, tired, you name it, and we need to rest. We all have theses cycles, only their duration and intensity varies for each person and it's totally okay. You are legitimate in needing some time off to feel better, the sooner you take some the sooner you'll be able to function again.

Don't put rigor and severity in this but rather self love. Have empathy for yourself in the same way you would if you saw a child in this condition. That's for the immediate term, but in the long run there's no better advice than to see a mental health professional. No book, no youtube video, no HN comment will equal the benefits of professional accompaniment.

Edit: resting can take many shapes. Sleeping, temporarily isolating yourself from your family, practicing an activity you enjoy, traveling, etc. Authorize yourself to do what you want to do without any "I should" / "I shouldn't" judgement.