I highly recommend reading Daring Greatly by Brene Brown (after completing your assignments). The book covers this topic among others.
Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
21–30 of 240 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#22The best solution to getting past the anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle is to take small, manageable actions while accepting the feelings that go along with those actions. Start with the smallest steps possible. Maybe that means opening the assignment and saving it to your computer. Then put it down and walk away. Come back in a little while and take another small step, such as reading over the assignment or making an out…
I found the same thing work the best for me, but not always.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#23I’m exactly the same, turned my 3 year degree into a 5 year slog because I’d get too anxious to do assignments or even exams. Took me a long time (decades) to learn about anxiety and it’s impacts, so you’re doing well to be aware of it earlier. Therapy & mindfulness has been a huge help for me. It’s helped me be more aware of how I’m feeling, and to take steps when I’m feeling anxious. For example, I’ve got a regular…
>3 year degree into a 5 year slog
Same here. It took me 7 years. I would usually vomit before every exam.
The horrible thing was that my grades were 98th percentile and my study method was very effective for me. I've never had this problem until the end semester of the first year of University. I don't really know what happened given that that first semester ended perfectly: two exam with a 100% and one with a 93%; such are mental tribulations like anxiety
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#24walks in nature helps
I’ve struggled with this as well and only doing things that interest me helped. Over time those things were profitable enough; took a long time to find.
good luck and hang in there
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#25Listen to John Danaher (world famous BJJ coach interviewed by Lex Fridman).
He talks about that the greatest fighters pick their battles very well, and they often get submitted in the gym because they intentionally put themselves in handicapped positions so that they can learn how to get out (and sometimes that doesn't work out, of course). So life situations where stakes are not high should be used to run high-risk experiments so that we can learn from them. He takes about risk taking a lot, and how confidence building is important for high performers. First, you learn how to recover from bad situations. You train this a lot. Then you need to learn and experience that even if you make a mistake you're good enough to recover from it. If you know that you can recover from your mistakes you're suddenly free to take large risks. As an extension: if you're new to a field and you're looking to acquire skills then learn how to recover from bad situations first, so that you can then keep exploring without the fear of getting into bad situations.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#26The best solution to getting past the anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle is to take small, manageable actions while accepting the feelings that go along with those actions. Start with the smallest steps possible. Maybe that means opening the assignment and saving it to your computer. Then put it down and walk away. Come back in a little while and take another small step, such as reading over the assignment or making an out…
I wish someone had given me this pièce of advice early in life instead of finding that out at 25.
I call it the foot-in-the-door method, it makes wonders.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#27Get some exercise and then immediately (while still sweating) sit back down at your desk and try to start. For some reason, that was a very effective way to start my homework assignments (the hardest part) in grad school.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#28Listen to John Danaher (world famous BJJ coach interviewed by Lex Fridman). He talks about that the greatest fighters pick their battles very well, and they often get submitted in the gym because they intentionally put themselves in handicapped positions so that they can learn how to get out (and sometimes that doesn't work out, of course). So life situations where stakes are not high should be used to run high-risk…
Unexpected Danaher
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#29This is not a simple "do this", except to say you need to see a doctor. You are not alone! Many suffer with anxiety for their whole life. What helps is therapy to learn to train your brain that many are anxious too and that you are normal. The ones who don't have chronic anxiety are people you can learn from. When you figure it out you'll have superpowers that most would kill for.
You may choose medication to help you with that initial training, you may have a completely different diagnosis.
No one here should diagnose you, because a doctor wouldn't diagnose over the internet.
A helpful book: "Brain Lock" by Jeffrey Schwartz. It's about OCD but in my experience all these things are connected.
Re: Ask HN: How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?
#30You are not trying to avoid failure, you are giving yourself a cushion to avoid confronting the fact that you may not be as good as you think that you are. The cushion is that you didn't apply yourself to the maximum because you procrastinated and ergo it isn't you who failed, but a you who did not apply themselves. Why do we do it? Out of self preservation. Confronting the fact that the reality does not match our id…
> You are not trying to avoid failure, you are giving yourself a cushion to avoid confronting the fact that you may not be as good as you think that you are.
...
>In reality, there is only one self, you that is choosing not to do what you have to because you are trying to protect a fragile ego.
This is something that when I was growing up, we learned to deal with through sports. Sports teach kids to confront winning and losing early on and how to better handle their egos.
I wonder if these issues are becoming more common as sports participation has dropped?