Quit my job to read and code for shits and giggles.
Real hero
I’ve convinced two friends (who were also disenchanted with their jobs) to do the same. They’ve never been happier.
Ask HN: How did you manage your stress or recover from depression?
11–20 of 32 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you manage your stress or recover from depression?
#12Quit my job to read and code for shits and giggles.
Serious question: How are you keeping body and soul together?
Re: Ask HN: How did you manage your stress or recover from depression?
#13Wellbutrin
Re: Ask HN: How did you manage your stress or recover from depression?
#14Quit my job to read and code for shits and giggles.
Serious question: How are you keeping body and soul together?
In what sense? I keep improving as a programmer (a lot, like my skills have gotten so much better since quitting). You contribute to open source. You read shit from your reading list. You can make time to meet people if you feel like talking to someone. The possibilities are infinite.
Re: Ask HN: How did you manage your stress or recover from depression?
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Serious question: How are you keeping body and soul together?
In what sense? I keep improving as a programmer (a lot, like my skills have gotten so much better since quitting). You contribute to open source. You read shit from your reading list. You can make time to meet people if you feel like talking to someone. The possibilities are infinite.
In the sense of making money to pay the bills. I'm sure all of us would love to just do stuff for shits and grins, but most of us aren't independently wealthy.
Re: Ask HN: How did you manage your stress or recover from depression?
#16I was very depressed for a very long time. Here is my philosophy.
First, I have learned to define depression as “A captulation to loss of control.” By that I mean, to be depressed you must (a) feel like your life sucks and (b) believe you can’t do anything about it.
This is effectively the story of the elephant who spent it’s life chained to a wall who, when the chain was removed, still acted like it was chained to the wall.
The cure to feeling out of control is to systematically start controlling small things and then working up to large things.
My method to get out of depression goes like this:
Wake up. Get out of bed. Make my bed (easy to control). Brush my teeth. Take a shower. Get coffee. Clean my room. Clean & vacuum my house. ...(other stuff). Address the thing that is actually bothering me.
After that point I add more and more challenging things. It is a ramp, from small and local to prove to myself I control my environment up to things that are really bothering me.
I call this my “stop being anxious and depressed plan” and I do the plan. By the time I am up to item 5 I start to feel better.
Life is very, very complicated. Depression is very hard because it is frequently the result of multiple things at once that create a self fulfilling feedback loop.
The most important thing I ever learned was “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.” This is effectively the practice of arguing yourself out of limiting or negative beliefs.
If you are as depressed as I used to be, you are infested with lots of negative beliefs that are preprogrammed. To stop being depressed you need to trap and eliminate all these little beliefs.
CBT was the turning point for me, after that I stopped being depressed forever.
Re: Ask HN: How did you manage your stress or recover from depression?
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
In what sense? I keep improving as a programmer (a lot, like my skills have gotten so much better since quitting). You contribute to open source. You read shit from your reading list. You can make time to meet people if you feel like talking to someone. The possibilities are infinite.
In the sense of making money to pay the bills. I'm sure all of us would love to just do stuff for shits and grins, but most of us aren't independently wealthy.
I’m not independently wealthy. I saved a lot, and invested a bit. I’ll run out of money eventually unless I launch something (which I’m in the process of).
Re: Ask HN: How did you manage your stress or recover from depression?
#18Exercise and socializing. Find yourself a new woman and you'll be out of the hole in no time!
May not apply to everyone. For me, more socializing means I feel worse. I’m happiest when I can spend as much time alone as possible. If I spend too much time around people and in social situations it immediately affects my stress levels.
Re: Ask HN: How did you manage your stress or recover from depression?
#19As the question right uses the word 'manage' the stress, the key is to managing it. Removing stress from our lives is not possible; we can only 'manage' it. How well we manage it is what leads to meaningful and peaceful life.
In my case, i began to feel stressed out last year. There was a lot of anxiety and stress for the kind of work i was doing. What began to surprise me was that the same kind of work that i have been doing for years began to create stress for me.
I began to reflect upon the what was causing it. By careful analysis, i realized that it was my ambition to stuff my day with a lot of near-impossible goals that created this stress. This tendency was also because of the overall ambition to achieve in 2 years which would otherwise take 5. Therefore, my first response was to become realistic, accept that there is only this much that i can humanly attempt and accomplish. I began to de-clutter my to-do list and place only the most important tasks. This would allow me to do my work without the unnecessary stress.
I also began to follow a healthy lifestyle. Working chained to a desk and sitting in front of a computer is not healthy by any standard. So i would go for long walks, tune out and tune into something entirely different like reading a book or watching a film. I began to stand up from my desk every hour or so and took a stroll.
I began to wake up early and go for a walk. Morning walks can take away a lot of noise that surrounds our heads. I also began to do something that i would love to do and spend time on other than my work. So i would paint a little, learn to play a musical instrument, do a bit of gardening and spend time with friends.
Stress is a result of the same kind of work, over-ambitious schedule, and little care for yourself.
I revamped my life style, removed the noise and clutter and added healthy things vital for my health and well-being.
I hope this helps.
Re: Ask HN: How did you manage your stress or recover from depression?
#20Recovering from depression: seeing a phycologist, starting on sertralin(antidepressants) and getting peace of mind by removing a big project that was waiting for me for "when I recovered".
Managing stress: through the above journey I learned to better identify when im getting and why I'm getting stressed, and act on it.
And generally ive become better at distancing myself emotionally from project.