Stress

[Analti_Calte_Equity]

@purealpha

@Analti\_Calte\_Equity

Meditation involves the process of clearing your mind of a lot of … let’s call it junk. If you don’t know the source of this junk, meditation is ineffective.

This is untrue. There is no requirement for knowing the source of “the junk”, you might learn the source of the junk while meditating, or you might not. It’s irrelevant to mediation being effective in reducing stress.

yeah I phrased that badly at the very least I don’t like that word ‘ineffective’, as at least small bits of meditation can help but, on the long term, finding these sources of the stressors and allieviating them will provide not only more profound meditations, but the ability to enter them in nearly any state of life.

[krnyc2008]

@rawraw

^Sounds like new age hippie stuff to me.

And no, I never took structured classes. I was exposed to the research of the benefits and was like, well who am I to argue with science? I’ve seen some interesting contradicting research lately, but by and large a lot of the research suggests those Buddhists knew what they were talking about. You’d be starting at Phase 1 of this guide (the learning to watch step): http://www.dhammaloka.org.au/articles/item/576-the-basic-method-of-meditation.html

A lot of these ‘hip’ researchers have how to guides on their website. Jon Kabat Zin is one of these new age kinda researchers. This guy may have stuff too: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2015/05/26/harvard-neuroscientist-meditation-not-only-reduces-stress-it-literally-changes-your-brain/ His study says it takes 8 weeks or so to start improving stress.

Incidentally I learned that even as an “athiest” (be careful using that word on here), I found a lot of benefit in Buddhism ways of reframing thinking (but there is a still a lot of nonsense accumulated over the years in Buddhism, which I ignore). I think meditation without those cognitive perspectives would be less effective.

Thanks! I am going through the first link - makes a lot of sense to me

[system]

Bloody White people.

STOP BASTARDIZING OUR CULTURE!

[ltj]

@whatsyourgovt

Gym helps a lot for me. I also like to take a step back sometimes and think of the worst case scenario of my problem and realise it’s not as bad as I’m making it out.

I like this post and concur. Anticipation anxiety was my enemy for a long time.

[hei.so]

@Analti\_Calte\_Equity

However, there is behavioral therapy and chemical therapy to allievate stress. Most believe in at least behavioral therapy (the things I posted above), but depending on your situation you could try chemical therapy to assist as well if you wanted (drugs). Most believe that behavioral therapy is a must; chemical therapy is only required in certain situations.

Has anyone here been to therapy? How has it worked out for you? I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I’m interested in having someone to talk to, not taking drugs.

[ltj]

I’ve been going every other week for about a year now. It has been tremendously effective. I’ve been on anti-anxiety meds in the past (Celexa) and I did not enjoy the side effects. This course of action has proved much more effective than meds ever did, and sustainable to boot. Everyone’s mileage may vary of course, but I’d recommend at least trying it out if you’ve been mulling the decision for awhile now.

[Galli]

First step is to log out of AF…

[Marathon_runner]

Go for a run

[S2000magician]

@mk17

whisky.

Fixed that for you.

[el_macca17]

@S2000magician

@mk17

whisky.

Fixed that for you.

While the majority of my preferreds are scotch single malts, I don’t discriminate. Sometimes you need a simple whiskey like Writer’s Tears.

[bchad]

@hei.so

@Analti\_Calte\_Equity

However, there is behavioral therapy and chemical therapy to allievate stress. Most believe in at least behavioral therapy (the things I posted above), but depending on your situation you could try chemical therapy to assist as well if you wanted (drugs). Most believe that behavioral therapy is a must; chemical therapy is only required in certain situations.

Has anyone here been to therapy? How has it worked out for you? I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I’m interested in having someone to talk to, not taking drugs.

My mother was mentally ill. Someone who almost certainly had what today would be called “Borderline Personality Disorder.” It had a lot of nasty effects on me and my self confidence that were pretty destructive.

I worked with a therapist for about 18 months to deal with this when I finally figured out that there was a name for my mother’s craziness and that there were ways to deal with it. It helped a lot although would have helped a heck of a lot more if I had done it ten years earlier.

This guy was a licensed social worker, so wasn’t able to prescribe drugs. The technique he used was called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and it’s been known to be especially helpful for things like what I was dealing with, and is one of the more effective methods more generally: it basically has you identify how you would like to behave vs how you do behave and analyzes what emotional states are pushing you to into actions you’ve decided are not desirable, then tries to create strategies for you to reduce the impact of those emtional states.

[zxfmontreal]

@Galli

First step is to log out of AF…

I know…I come to AF when I am either bored or stressed at work.

Now I am stressed out. OMG so many things to dooooooooo!

Maybe not that many. My mind just isn’t able to take too much… OMG

Breath…

[zxfmontreal]

@hei.so

@Analti\_Calte\_Equity

However, there is behavioral therapy and chemical therapy to allievate stress. Most believe in at least behavioral therapy (the things I posted above), but depending on your situation you could try chemical therapy to assist as well if you wanted (drugs). Most believe that behavioral therapy is a must; chemical therapy is only required in certain situations.

Has anyone here been to therapy? How has it worked out for you? I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I’m interested in having someone to talk to, not taking drugs.

Stop thinking about it. Just do it!! It must have been a long time that you have been thinking about it. Time to act on it.

[zxfmontreal]

@bchad

@hei.so

@Analti\_Calte\_Equity

However, there is behavioral therapy and chemical therapy to allievate stress. Most believe in at least behavioral therapy (the things I posted above), but depending on your situation you could try chemical therapy to assist as well if you wanted (drugs). Most believe that behavioral therapy is a must; chemical therapy is only required in certain situations.

Has anyone here been to therapy? How has it worked out for you? I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I’m interested in having someone to talk to, not taking drugs.

My mother was mentally ill. Someone who almost certainly had what today would be called “Borderline Personality Disorder.” It had a lot of nasty effects on me and my self confidence that were pretty destructive.

I worked with a therapist for about 18 months to deal with this when I finally figured out that there were ways to deal with it. It helped a lot although would have helped a heck of a lot more if I had done it ten years earlier. This guy was a licensed social worker, so wasn’t able to prescribe drugs. The technique he used was called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and it’s been known to be especially helpful for things like what I was dealing with, and is one of the more effective methods more generally.

What were your problems/Symptoms? Were you anxious/Depressed? Did you have low self-esteeme? Were you a perfectionist?

[GorillaNerd]

they have pills for everything nowadays. why bother with therapy. one is 20 bucsk a month, the other is 100 bucks an hour. lets be economic about this.

[Analti_Calte_Equity]

@Neryblop

they have pills for everything nowadays. why bother with therapy. one is 20 bucsk a month, the other is 100 bucks an hour. lets be economic about this.

ok sure but you usually have to see a psych 1 / mo or 2 / yr depending on the drug and dosage to get refills. If it is a controlled substance it is probably 1/mo in your state. Non-controlled, sure you can get prescribed for 6mo or 1yr depending on the situation.

[system]

@Neryblop

they have pills for everything nowadays.

See all the mental illness and violence in the USA, the “magic” pills aren’t curing it, they are causing it.

Don’t do drugs.

[geo]

@purealpha

@Neryblop

they have pills for everything nowadays.

See all the mental illness and violence in the USA, the “magic” pills aren’t curing it, they are causing it.

Don’t do drugs.

That’s just Americans, not drugs.

[ltj]

@Neryblop

they have pills for everything nowadays. why bother with therapy. one is 20 bucsk a month, the other is 100 bucks an hour. lets be economic about this.

I’m guessing this was mostly in jest but as I stated earlier - those medications have some unpleasant side effects and basically have to be taken the rest of your life, whereas therapy can be tapered down over years or even months to the point of not needing it at all anymore. So your economic theory doesn’t even work.

[bchad]

@zxfmontreal

@bchad

@hei.so

@Analti\_Calte\_Equity

However, there is behavioral therapy and chemical therapy to allievate stress. Most believe in at least behavioral therapy (the things I posted above), but depending on your situation you could try chemical therapy to assist as well if you wanted (drugs). Most believe that behavioral therapy is a must; chemical therapy is only required in certain situations.

Has anyone here been to therapy? How has it worked out for you? I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I’m interested in having someone to talk to, not taking drugs.

My mother was mentally ill. Someone who almost certainly had what today would be called “Borderline Personality Disorder.” It had a lot of nasty effects on me and my self confidence that were pretty destructive.

I worked with a therapist for about 18 months to deal with this when I finally figured out that there were ways to deal with it. It helped a lot although would have helped a heck of a lot more if I had done it ten years earlier. This guy was a licensed social worker, so wasn’t able to prescribe drugs. The technique he used was called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and it’s been known to be especially helpful for things like what I was dealing with, and is one of the more effective methods more generally.

What were your problems/Symptoms? Were you anxious/Depressed? Did you have low self-esteeme? Were you a perfectionist?

Yeah, perfectionism was an issue, and a lot of self confidence problems (likely owing to the fact that perfectionists often rate them self as not perfect, i.e. human). I was overly sensitive to other people’s emotional states and not able to say “this is not my problem” because of childhood history of being blamed for problems that a sane person wouldn’t blame a child for. I also tended to be attracted to other people with this disorder, since there was a part of me that thought that loving relationships necessarily involved that kind of extreme on-again-off-again emotions, and so a really useful part of the therapy was learning to recognize this behavior in others before getting involved with them and learning to stay away and set more reliable boundaries.

At some level, the issues never fully go away, but a good therapist teaches you to manage them so that they don’t become debilitating. Then, after a while, they start not to bother you as much.

At least, that was my experience.