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To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

bellmar.medium.com

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Re: To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

#61

Acknowledge problem. Accept problem. Attempt to solve problem. Accept outcome. Rinse and repeat. Don’t waste cycles on the emotions of having problems. (not saying that emotions don’t matter, often times they distract one from making progress)

My initial reaction to the idea that emotions can distract one from making progress is that there may be unaddressed issues present. Emotions are bodily signals. You could say they are the result of information processing. They don’t come from nowhere. Emotions need to be processed and responded to. Maybe we can find common ground with the idea that some emotional issues take a long time to resolve, and, in the meant…

Look into “somatic psychotherapy”: healing the mind through the body

Re: To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My initial reaction to the idea that emotions can distract one from making progress is that there may be unaddressed issues present. Emotions are bodily signals. You could say they are the result of information processing. They don’t come from nowhere. Emotions need to be processed and responded to. Maybe we can find common ground with the idea that some emotional issues take a long time to resolve, and, in the meant…

Not OP, but I would hope the original comment was intended to imply that emotions should be _responded_ to (as you noted) and not _reacted_ to. Responding involves understanding, "naming your enemy," and contextual consideration. Reacting is thoughtless, immediate, animalistic.

You say thoughtless, immediate, and animalistic as if it’s a bad thing;)

Sometimes it’s exactly the right strategy for decision making and almost always for creativity and play.

Re: To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

#63
post #11

Is everyone an ‘eccentric genius’ with some magical disorder these days? Or just bloggers? And where’s the source for the white matter structural deformity “delaying” signal processing by “a fraction of a second”, I’m very interested in how that works since it makes no sense that a signaling channel in the brain would suffer a large delay like that.

I too am tired of reading about self-proclaimed geniuses on Substack/Medium, calling out to their (oftentimes paying) followers, and throwing up another invisible goalpost that represents intellegence.

It's all so tiring.

Re: To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

#64
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Please don't fulminate. " " Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. " " Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. " " When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html If we control…

Fair enough, feedback taken.

Appreciated!

Re: To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

#65
post #41

In case anyone is wondering, there is no way to boost IQ. Whatsoever. You can obviously remove things harming cognitive ability, but that's the extent of it.

True, but almost a tautology: IQ tests are designed to be a metric of intelligence that is stable over time. They indeed have that property. Other correlates of intelligence are less stable. The everyday things by which one's intelligence is judged, like ability in tasks, can clearly be increased.

Re: To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

#66
Honest question: does "sensory perception disorder" come out of evidence-based science? Is it diagnosed just based on symptoms, or can they actually tell something's going on with the brain specifically? I ask because isn't it possible that this could be a sort of "vanity disorder"? Not saying it's good to have it, but people might be tempted to think they do.

Re: To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

#67
post #42

Acknowledge problem. Accept problem. Attempt to solve problem. Accept outcome. Rinse and repeat. Don’t waste cycles on the emotions of having problems. (not saying that emotions don’t matter, often times they distract one from making progress)

She is saying more than that. She is saying learn to confront discomfort/pain with self-soothing. Once you know how to address the pain associated with being seen as an inexperienced/disabled person, you can confront it in many situations. Be it in learning from another or from a book. Distracting emotions are part of you and have to be addressed eventually. Soothing yourself reinforces the motivation for progress an…

So the way to self-soothe is with self-talk? Are there any other ways?

Re: To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

#68

Acknowledge problem. Accept problem. Attempt to solve problem. Accept outcome. Rinse and repeat. Don’t waste cycles on the emotions of having problems. (not saying that emotions don’t matter, often times they distract one from making progress)

If you view life as a series of problems to be solved, then life will become a bleak series of problems needing to be solved. The approach outlined in the parent comment here would fail to solve any essential human needs beyond a few of the most basic ones. Finding purpose, not burning out, nurturing family, communicating with others- even in professional settings- and so many other parts of being human require us to…

I don't think anybody is arguing against querying your emotions as part of choosing how to solve a problem. What OP specifically advised against was "wast[ing] cycles on the emotions of having problems". You will always have problems. Some worse, some nicer. Sometimes more, sometimes fewer. But your feelings about that fact won't help you move forward.

That's why approaching problems with an unemotional mindset is very effective. I can be mad that the bus was too early, or that my shipment wasn't delivered, or that I received a rejection. It's fine and healthy to feel those emotions. But they just tell you that something is wrong, without putting you any closer to fixing what's wrong.

> Finding purpose

Finding purpose comes from choosing which series of problems you are going to solve. Happiness isn't some final resting state you reach, it's more or less directly tied to solving problems. So framing is really important for making sure you actually face problems that can be solved.

Re: To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

#69

Acknowledge problem. Accept problem. Attempt to solve problem. Accept outcome. Rinse and repeat. Don’t waste cycles on the emotions of having problems. (not saying that emotions don’t matter, often times they distract one from making progress)

>Rinse and repeat. Don’t waste cycles on the emotions of having problems. > >(not saying that emotions don’t matter, often times they distract one from making progress) You got it, but then you missed it. Every single one of those great, useful, true steps is hindered by emotions. There are well-known cognitive biases and behavioral patterns (Dunning-Kreuger, Motivated Reasoning, Confirmation Bias, Learned Helplessne…

Seems a bit weird to conflate emotion with cognitive biases.

Sure emotions aren't particularly intelligent, in particular they almost entirely ignore consequence, but that doesn't mean you should ignore them, it just means you should not use your current emotion to plan the future. You should however use your future emotions to plan your current course of action, because otherwise what's the point?

Re: To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you view life as a series of problems to be solved, then life will become a bleak series of problems needing to be solved. I disagree with this, conditionally. It depends on how you perceive "Problems" and "Solve", as pedantic and Clinton-esque as that comes across. Perceiving your "problems" not as barriers that hinder your progress, but identifying winnable opportunities in your own capabilities is a hallmark o…

Any choice we make that is grounded in subjective decision making suffers from this reframing. And, i'd posit that the vast majority of choices are fundamentally subjective. Just take a moment when engaged in "problem solving" and ask yourself "why?", then question that answer again. You get to motivation, identity , "needs" (and not just the basic food and shelter needs) or some other emotion very quickly this way.…

The growth mindset can be summed up in one sentence: "I can become good at anything."
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