Ask HN: Tips for handling chronic stess? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Tips for handling chronic stess?

#61

Post by axljjn » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:18 PM UTC

axljjn wrote: post #21

ntlk wrote: post #18

There’s some good advice here on sleep, exercise etc. which is likely to start being helpful straight away. The impact of exercise can be especially quick. But for me starting therapy provided a way to address the reasons behind the chronic stress in the first place. For example, it might be worth asking yourself why you feel guilt when you take time to rest.

I used to not believe in therapy because of the two sessions I had in the past, but it has started to sound like the way to go when I realized they were probably just bad therapists. I did reach out to a psychotherapist I know. Unfortunately, it’s a conflict of interest or something because I know her? I gave up after that, but will definitely go that route if things get worse or I come across someone reputable. EDIT…

Never mind, learned that there's a time limit for editing.

Re: Ask HN: Tips for handling chronic stess?

#62

Post by rojeee » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 12:27 PM UTC

axljjn wrote: post #59

rojeee wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah good stuff! Ok so this is heart rate variability. It’s a measure of the time in milliseconds between each heart beat interval and is a good indicator for measuring stress - mental or physical - on the body. HRV is influenced by the autonomic nervous system which has two elements; parasympathetic and sympathetic. Parasympathetic controls the “rest and digest” side of things and sympathetic controls “flight or fight…

Very informative. I got an Oura ring on the way because someone else recommended it here, so I should be able to get some data points soon. I was thinking about the relationship between stress and performance on my walk today. Isn't stress necessary to get better performance/results? For example, the stress of beating your mile time by one second. Is there good and bad stress? I'm seeing some hits on google, but I'm…

no worries dude. Ah great, I'm sure you'll find the Oura ring really useful to lead a balanced lifestyle. You are right, _managed_ stress - or, exercise - is necessary to improve fitness and resilience. I guess the trick is to stress your body enough to elicit improvements but not too much so that you end up in a chronic stress situation through over-training. E.g. I over trained last week and my HRV crashed the start of this week. I need to rest for 3-4 days, to get it back to baseline. If I continued to train I'd veer further into over-training territory and be more susceptible to illness, injury, become more irritable, less patient, etc.

If you want to learn more about HRV, the Whoop Blog [1] and Whoop podcasts [2] are great resources.

[1] https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/

[2] https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/whoop-podcast-all-episodes/

Re: Ask HN: Tips for handling chronic stess?

#63

Post by nickd2001 » Wed, Apr 28, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

axljjn wrote: post #60

nickd2001 wrote: post #58

It gets better with age, because, over time, things you worry about actually happen (and other disasters you couldn't imagine too ;) ) and the world doesn't end. "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". e:g losing your job , this sometimes can be in the long-term a great thing to happen. To fight daily stress consider daily (moderate, nothing crazy) exercise such as walking or swimming, as essential. Treat missing…

Okay, that's reassuring. I'm starting to think I'm trying to do everything too well. I agree with your broader sense of productivity. I'm hitting most of my needs/wants everywhere else. It's mainly my work that seems to lag behind. It might be a combination of putting too many things on my plate and overestimating myself. I got my stress under control this last week thanks to following most of the tips given here. I'…

Ah, I really hope it works out for you :)