It is not really "not thinking", but not using your conscious mind, which can only focus on a single thing. You think with your subconscious mind too. But this can do multiple things at the same time, way faster than the logical mind. The harder you focus on a single thing, the more you ignore the entire system and the slower you perform. It is not just instinct as the article say, a tennis player does not play by in…
There is a word that is missing from the language or at least common usage, and that is differentiating something done with conscious effort of every little detail, and something you just do without thinking about it. (there are probably lots of words which somewhat fit the bill) The hardest way to do something is complete conscious control of every step, the easiest way is something you can do perfectly on autopilot…
Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
61–70 of 257 posts
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#62Being already known by my friends and family to be an "overthinker" and prone to "analysis paralysis", I sometimes wonder why I'm still a SWE. I've slowly started to realize over time that my profession is filled with overthinking and over-engineering, and that our interview process can even select for it. IMO its hard to be the person that aces the technical interview gauntlet then walks out of the building and turn…
As someone who's been programming for years, one of my biggest complaints in software is over-engineering. It's so universally prevalent, I literally expect to get downvoted for even making this comment. I strongly advocate for simplicity in software implementation, allowing for maintainability and flexibility... the cleanest solution that reaches the goal and doesn't lock us too far into a narrow approach that may b…
Wholeheartedly agree. The best system is no system at all - problem is it doesn't really satisfy any requirements. Anything added beyond that is extra room where fragility creeps in & the tradeoff shouldn't ever be taken lightly.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
If we model tennis points as random (let's say, accounting only for service), would we not expect people to occasionally lose when they had a match point? We'd expect this to happen more often when playing an opponent of comparable skill. It's not obvious to me that it's psychological at all, and it seems to me that it's only reported as such because it makes a good news story.
Yes, of course it's going to happen. The point is that it there is a significant difference between the players. Here are some stats on this (collected by other people): https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/habvu8/big_3_matche... https://www.quora.com/How-often-has-Nadal-lost-after-holding... https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads%2Fmatch-po... According the most recent of these threads Federer's lose-…
I don't find this super convincing.
If you want to convince yourself that choking is a thing, then this is a stat you might look at.
But, this stat is just as likely to be more influenced by how close your opponent's skill was on that day (how often you play opponents at a similar skill level), your and your opponent's relative stamina, whether those match points appeared in a regular service game or a tiebreak (how often your style of play goes to a tiebreak), and perhaps even pure luck - out of thousands of tour players, some are going to have incredible luck.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#64"The only reliable cure for overthinking seems to be enjoyment, something that both success and analysis can dull." This point at the end seems a bit forced without any support beyond the author's assertion. The feeling I get is someone who has mastered this unthinking is "enlightened" of sorts with an ability to get to satisfaction with a humility that can be mistaken for smugness. From fiction, I might refer to the…
aka meditation
Not exactly. Meditation is a solitary activity where one can train the mind to emptiness. What the article and I'm referring to is getting to that state while still being in the moment. Meditation might be the ability to sharpen the sword but this is about being able to use it in battle.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
aka meditation
Not exactly. Meditation is a solitary activity where one can train the mind to emptiness. What the article and I'm referring to is getting to that state while still being in the moment. Meditation might be the ability to sharpen the sword but this is about being able to use it in battle.
Upvoted; I like your analogy. IMHO (and IME as a daily practitioner of zazen meditation), mindfulness is entirely about being in the present moment. Ideally, you simply stay there all the time at which point the "sword" is already sharp and always swinging, whether there's a "battle" or not. (shrug)
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#66Thinking keeps me awake. It's getting worse as I get older.
Maybe it's anxiety or something related, and sometimes it's worried thoughts, but often it's just running through scenarios. Video games, media plots, what I need to do next week. My brain is far more active after 10pm, and I am personally more motivated. I get a burst of energy but it's not really the right time to clean the house so lying in bed has it all go to my head.
I've come to the conclusion I can't sleep with an active train of thought going on. It sounds like meditation should help but I haven't had much luck there. Maybe I just need to try more often until it becomes second nature.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#67Thinking keeps me awake. It's getting worse as I get older. Maybe it's anxiety or something related, and sometimes it's worried thoughts, but often it's just running through scenarios. Video games, media plots, what I need to do next week. My brain is far more active after 10pm, and I am personally more motivated. I get a burst of energy but it's not really the right time to clean the house so lying in bed has it all…
I'm a night owl living on a 9-5 schedule, and I have the same problem. Most of the day I'm a little tired, then at night I get a burst of energy. It's frustrating. I think the ideal solution would be to find a good job that lets me work my ideal hours, but barring that I've found a useful strategy. After my wife goes to bed, I'll go downstairs for an hour or two and read, write, and think. By letting my brain burn off some of its energy, I find myself naturally drifting into a healthy calm tired. I'm never exactly wiped to the point where I can just fall asleep, but I calm down enough that I can still get to sleep at a semi-decent hour. Combined with WFH I actually get close to 8.5 hours by sleeping in later, so it's not bad.
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#68Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#69Thinking keeps me awake. It's getting worse as I get older. Maybe it's anxiety or something related, and sometimes it's worried thoughts, but often it's just running through scenarios. Video games, media plots, what I need to do next week. My brain is far more active after 10pm, and I am personally more motivated. I get a burst of energy but it's not really the right time to clean the house so lying in bed has it all…
I'm exactly the same, only I've done it ever since I was very little and it simply never went away (I'm in my early 20s now).
Usually I'm awake in my bed for at least an hour. Sometimes two. I just really can't stop thinking. It's not anxiety in my case.
Any people here who were in a similar situation and were able to get rid of it, or make significant improvement?
Re: Thinking too much can be bad for you (2012)
#70After only skimming and searching, it seems a bit weird to open an article on this topic with an example from tennis and _not_ reference The Inner Game of Tennis. It's a pretty good book that can be applied to lots of things; conscious thought and verbalizing can make you worse at learning and executing a task.