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Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

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Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#221

Post by podgaj »

stronglikedan wrote: post #216
podgaj wrote: post #152

I do not know how many people here have "Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders" but I am on disability for all three and it runs in my family on my mother's side. So what is this article saying? Me and my family just do not have perseverance? That we lack the "will" not to be depressed and anxious? That I just need to "Aspir[e] toward personal and career goals"? HA! No, it's not true. You see, they found we all have a…

> some medications that a psychiatrist could not give me Curious, were these medications for the symptoms you mentioned in general (Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders), or specific to the genetic disorder that caused those symptoms? (I assume the latter, but I hate to assume.)

Both. The drug is called Kuvan and it is a BH4 replacement. I helps me metabolize the amino acids.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrobiopterin_deficiency...

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#222

Post by cheeko1234 »

lvturner wrote: post #161
aspaviento wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on how those goals have become massively easier to progress on? is it because your mood and energy are better/greater?

Yes, and I apologise if I veer off topic a bit, but I find all of these things below inter-related. I've found that creating more space in my brain (I am prone to suffering anxiety) removes the friction I have in starting tasks and increases the enjoyment I get out of them. Not only have goals become easier to progress on, but I've found that I can take on more. All of this is a work in progress though, some days/wee…

Your comment was very helpful. Some questions if your comfortable answering:

How did you change your mindset? Books, articles, techniques?

I currently employ THC to help with my baseline anxiety but that has been going downhill for me recently. May give CBD oil a shot. Do you just vape it?

When you say Wim Hof Method, do you include the cold therapy or just the breathing?

I wonder how much does lack of healthy relationships (romantic or otherwise) plays a role? That has been my biggest problem.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#223

Post by kerkeslager »

burntoutfire wrote: post #217
kerkeslager wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So far, we've had dozens of implementations of communism all over the world and 100% of them ended up being authoritarian (i.e. if you disagree with the ruling party, you go to jail) or straight up murderous. sigh You read a post saying that "but look at these skulls!"-type arguments are naive and arrogant, and your response is a "but look at these skulls!"-type argument? Really? Which of these[1] pacifist[2] commu…

All of these examples are not societies implementing communism, but just merely small groups of people who do so, in a safe bubble provided by a non-communist society (US or Israel) which surrounds them. They benefit immensely from the wealth and protection coming from the surrounding non-communist society. These conditions do not translate in any way to larger scale implementation and it's not what majority of peopl…

> All of these examples are not societies implementing communism

How so?

> but just merely small groups of people who do so, in a safe bubble provided by a non-communist society (US or Israel) which surrounds them. They benefit immensely from the wealth and protection coming from the surrounding non-communist society.

If you talk to communists, I think you'll find a lot of communists agree with this.

EDIT: That said, I think you may be underestimating the degree of independence these communes have. Keep in mind, Maoz Haim was founded in 1937, before Israel existed, which makes it a bit hard to argue that it's dependent on Israel. All three of these communes have a high degree of food and energy independence.

> These conditions do not translate in any way to larger scale implementation

So what? I think if you talk to communists, you'll find a lot of communists agree with this as well.

Sometimes solutions don't have to scale. A famous communist once said, "Growth for the sake of growth is the idea of a cancer cell." (Okay, maybe it's a bit of a stretch to call Edward Abbey a communist).

> it's not what majority of people mean when they discuss communism.

So what? The majority of people don't get to tell communists what communists believe. A straw man argument doesn't become valid because the majority of people believe the straw man is real.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#224

Post by hrktb »

anbende wrote: post #208
hrktb wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the article is not far from parent's reading. For instance these quotes: > We wanted to understand what specific coping strategies would be helpful in reducing rates of depression, anxiety and panic attacks. > Our findings suggest that people can improve their mental health by raising or maintaining high levels of tenacity, resilience and optimism,” she said. “Aspiring toward personal and career goals can make…

The second quote does not imply that all depressed people are such because they are lacking perseverance. There are several issues with this interpretation. The first is that because something is on average true does not mean it is always true. There are cases where perseverance does not help depression. There are many where it does. On average it helps, which is the claim. Next, it it is not fair to presume that bec…

I agree with your take as what the article is really meaning.

I think what trips me is that the article is not expliciting these caveats either. I fail to find a good analogy, perhaps it would be like explaining how sitting around is bad for your health to an audience including wheelchair users.

Sure, it wouldn’t be a false statement, but you’d try to address the elephant in the room somehow. I just wish people don’t get weird advice ideas for depressed people in their life reading the post.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#225

Post by JamesBarney »

anbende wrote: post #213
mirimir wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, correlation causality.

In general, you're right of course. The article in question used a lagged design, using temporally prior markers to predict later change. This is not fully causal, but it's not fully correlative either. In the field, it's consider to provide preliminary causal evidence. Still needs additional research to be sure.

It's better than straight correlation, but given the historical track records of these studies turning into a reproducible intervention of clinical significance I'd say the chances are low. The article event mentions this with

> Unlike in previous research, Zainal and Newman did not find that self-mastery, or feeling in control of one’s fate, had an effect on the mental health of participants across the 18-year period.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#226

Post by mensetmanusman »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #162
podgaj wrote: post #152

I do not know how many people here have "Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders" but I am on disability for all three and it runs in my family on my mother's side. So what is this article saying? Me and my family just do not have perseverance? That we lack the "will" not to be depressed and anxious? That I just need to "Aspir[e] toward personal and career goals"? HA! No, it's not true. You see, they found we all have a…

The more I am unfortunately exposed to this after catching ME/CFS the more I realise medicine has a huge professionalism problem. Maybe a better term is a religious problem. Anything they cant currently explain is the patients fault. Having chronic energy fatigue issues is just me being lazy apparently and the enormous crashes I get after exercise are me doing wrong. The hundreds of thousands of c19 patients that dev…

To be fair, it is not the doctor’s fault entirely, it is an institutional problem.

We have far too few doctors per capita to have enough time to treat people. This is mostly because we have institutions set up that reduce the number of doctors that are output (e.g. we have about the same number of medical schools as 100 years ago).

tl;dr doctors have no time, there are lots of knock on effects to this.

more doctors, less income though...

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#227

Post by santoshalper »

podgaj wrote: post #196
gfodor wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I empathize with your frustration, but you're letting your personal experience override logic. You've made a simple logical error: a study claiming that people who have goals can fend off depression does not imply that those with depression have it because they do not have goals. It means that some people who don't have goals, but do have depression, may remedy it by getting goals. But not everyone. If the research a…

That was my point. This study tells us nothing. The problem is not with people or the doctors, it is with these idiotic studies. From the study: "People who showed more goal persistence and optimism during the first assessment in the mid-1990s had greater reductions in depression, anxiety and panic disorders across the 18 years, according to the authors. And throughout those years, people who began with fewer mental…

Your emotion is clouding your ability to be reasonable about this. Saying that certain behavior can have treatment value does not imply that not doing that behavior was the cause.

If they said a heating pad could help me fix my muscle strain, does that mean they are saying that I caused a muscle strain by not using a heating pad? That's absurd of course.

They are saying that focusing on achievement of life goals (as opposed to focusing on "fixing" yourself) can have therapeutic value.

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#228

Post by helicalspiral »

maybelsyrup wrote: post #26
maybelsyrup wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a therapist, and I'm also an ACT practitioner. You're on the money here, though I'd encourage you to think even bigger. To use your example about travel: extend it further. In ACT, goals and values couldn't be more different, and we spend a lot of time helping patients distinguish between the two. "Traveling" is a goal - the value would be found in "why travel?", what does it get you? If the answer to that is the…

To both of you who replied: yes, I absolutely use these things in my own life. Before I say some of mine, it's important to allow these things to be mutable -- the "values" you, um, value, can change over the course of your life and that's okay. The best ones probably won't -- maybe you'll just shift in emphasis or priority -- but by really chewing on this topic regularly, it's possible to arrive at values that reall…

I'm trying to run through this exercise right now. Is it bad to have too many adverbs at one time? Whatabout adverbs that might contradict? Or is it fine to just get a few, no matter the contradictions and not overthink it?

Re: Perseverance Toward Life Goals Can Fend Off Depression, Anxiety, Panic Disorders

#230

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #32
nickff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perseverance often leads to a type of pseudo-meditation. When you work very hard towards a goal such as weight loss through exercise, you have to focus on one thing, and this can be almost meditative. This is one reason people find things like running or swimming to be 'relaxing', even though they're also 'tiring'.

This only works if the feedback loop is closed - as in you see a trend line, correlation, something (anything) that allows you to see value in your perseverance. If you get no feedback after years on end... watch out There are too many religions that glorify martyrdom where destruction of self can be seen as a honorable end. This when coupled with these grit narratives, make for very scary things. The internal dialog…

"Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer."
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