Ask HN: Do you look angry while you work?

Also, my 9-year-old daughter makes the same face when she is focusing.

So, I have trained myself turn around suddenly with a big smile and cheerfully say "How are you doing :-) :-) :-)

It seems ridiculous, but better that the alternative.

I didn't want to get deep wrinkles (female vanity) or hold angry look (stress headaches/blood flow) because i think that posture towards work is damaging and subconsciously enforces notions from culture/childhood that doing/learning is "hard" "battle" "tough" etc, and

this starts the cascade of physical effects that those states would, like "bracing myself", changing breathing patterns to shallow and stiff, rigid muscles etc, leaning head forward a stupid degree, adrenaline/ anxiety chemicals, harming eyesight with needless strain etc.

Also increases procrastination because you've decided everything is difficult and risky and dangerous, which your ego wants to avoid at all costs.

I reprogrammed myself with thoughts about "childs mind" "how would a kid savant see this puzzle" and "what if this is super easy???" regardless of evidence haha...just mimicking the face and mannerisms and sounds like some form of method acting. Face muscles are like a curious zen baby buddha now lol, open and relaxed but wide eyed, and I have a set of funny/curious gestures too lighten my own mood during long sessions, exaggerated hmmmmmmmmm????, "curiouser and curiouser!!!" type stuff I stole from movies and happy memes

(and the muscle movements I remapped to ones that aid vanity (girls know this as facial yoga lol, work cheekbone muscles etc instead of furrowing brow)

beware of differences between home/office tho,

I literally gave myself 'Tourette's' when i reprogrammed myself to say a certain thing (OUT! and related easy to say exclamations) when upsetting negative/thoughts/memories intruded on my mind during a difficult time, and it worked wonderfully to dispel thought immediately and stay on task/positive when I'm working on work/hobbies at home.

Bad thing is I realized I kept doing it on outside on walks I was using to think thru problems, and a few times someone actually turned their head when I was talking to myself. Just pretended to be on a phone call/blue tooth haha... So I re-mapped the more common ones to deep breath exhalation and more subtle "tics" that have no social cost in public.

I also use the "talking to self out loud" for heavy stuff that only comes up sometimes. If you're working thru mental baggage, you can literally say stuff like "get out of my head ghost of shitty father" when you catch yourself ruminating on the past or feeling criticized or becoming like a bad parent etc. This "externalizing" is really effective for me. I also renamed certain recurrent baggage, such as calling father issues "Iago" as short hand (evil Shakespeare ref), or memories of harmless yet cringey stuff I map as dopey cartoon characters that fail in same ways. This really helps me create emotional distance and feel more in control, I guess that ultimately depends on how imaginative you are.

(I don't have any family history of schizophrenia and never use drugs, so I guess I'm not worried about this getting out of hand, shrug. And in the privacy of your own home, who cares?)

All these are ways to just keeping your mental landscape clear, maybe ten years of meditation would do the same but this suits me just fine for now.

I prevent doom scrolling sometimes by saying out loud "nice try culture war ya almost got me!" when I feel outrage. Catching your own mental reactions becomes easier as you practice the muscle.

In the kingdom of your skull you can think anything you want and create your own tools. Life is a state of mind.

I don't know if this helps most or if you need a certain temperament. My mindset is somehow both extremely open AND extremely judgmental at the same time, so I'm very friendly to all woo that may help yet feel zero loyalty to the media source/guru that developed it, just steal what works and dip haha

More 'rational' folks I've tried to share with are allergic to this mental-DIY stuff, yet casually harp on about potentials of nootropics or amphetamines or shrooms, eyeroll...

I require no evidence to try anything that has essentially no harms / costs / cults and just take the good, cut out the bad, and tailor it to myself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I actually recognize that line of reasoning myself. But since losing weight and working on myself (e.g. going to a therapist) I feel much better.

My point is: There was bigger issues at play for me when I didn't want to work from an office...