7 ms·

Would you mind elaborating a bit on the "took every advantage I could to compensate for the damage caused by stress." In a similar position and would be good t

by stevanl 10y ago

Would you mind elaborating a bit on the "took every advantage I could to compensate for the damage caused by stress." In a similar position and would be good to learn what worked for you.

kingmanaz 10y ago
Suggestions: Epictetus' Enchiridion. A cheap, used Dover Editions copy off Ebay is all one needs. Also, if a Christian, morning and evening prayers by candlelight using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.
- peller 10y ago
  Enchiridion is free online: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109
- treehau5 10y ago
  hesychasm -- the most underrated aspect of christian spirituality, sadly expelled by most reformation and counter-reformation traditions. A good exercise is to just sit quietly in a dark room, and completely empty your mind. Think no thoughts -- whether you believe them to be good or bad. This simple thing turns out to be so incredibly difficult, that many monks on the Holy Mountain have mastered. I myself can barely go a minute before a stress or a worry about my day or job or family comes into my head, but cool thing is you do eventually get better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm
  - thedaemon 10y ago
    That's called meditation these days, but it's not about thinking no thoughts. It's about sorting your thoughts until there are no more worries. Everyone should be doing this.
    - treehau5 10y ago
      Not quite, it's so much different from meditation. What you are referring to is more of the western concept of "quietism" which is pretty synonymous with meditation. But in either case, I agree, everyone should be practicing this.
      - neltnerb 10y ago
        Meditation is so broad that it includes what both of you are talking about. It certainly sounds like one of you is talking about the meditating by using your thoughts as an object (sorting thoughts obviously makes no sense once you stop identifying them as "yours"), while the other is talking about simply doing it object-free. Both are taught by many of the same traditions, with neither being necessarily better or worse, though usually the object-free version is taught later because it's hard to do without something to focus on when you're first starting. I personally find the prior more useful when I'm trying to process a specific problem or stressor and the latter to be more useful after I've done some preprocessing. They are often done sequentially for this reason, as well as because meditating briefly with a specific focus helps prepare you mentally for the more general focus-free meditation where you simply rest in the experience of existence. But other preparation meditations with focuses can also be used to help you mentally prepare, such as focusing on body sensations, breath, vision, sounds, etc. Thoughts are just another thing you can observe. EDIT: I'd note that the Wikipedia article on Hesychasm describes it as asceticism and "blocking off", so in retrospect I'd describe it as a different class of meditation than those that involve resting in experience. More like visualization practice or some of the scarier death practices. But they're talking about the "advanced" version there, and such things are easy to misconstrue because the language for describing it is poor. But I'd still call it a meditation.
        treehau5 10y ago
        > with neither being necessarily better or worse sorry, I think this is where the confusion is coming from. My original expansion on the comment with heyschasm was in response to kingmanaz. If you are a Christian, the heyechastic practice is markedly better than simply meditating. I was trying to differentiate between modern renditions of what meditation looks like, with the christian ascetical discipline of heyschasm, and I concluded by saying both are beneficial in any case, to someone who is under extreme long term stress.
  - stefantalpalaru 10y ago
    > hesychasm -- the most underrated aspect of christian spirituality, sadly expelled by most reformation and counter-reformation traditions. Hesychasm is alive and well in the Orthodox Church. Mostly practised by monks, but well known outside monasteries.
  - summarite 10y ago
    You'd love vipassana meditation.
thro3212 10y ago
At start I dropped everything non essential, then fixed it one thing at a time. Key was to establish routine and patterns, which does not drain mental energy and time from me. For example I have simple exercise routine I do every evening. It is just stuff I do before shower and bed. I also stopped driving in narrow city roads, I leave a car at motorway exit and walk last mile. Forget self-help stuff. It is really just basics; fix your sleep, health, sex, community you live in... For programming I follow simple TDD routine (and other simple best practices). And I do not do anything else at computer except making money. Today is an exception, I have 2 hours a week for facebook and news ;-)
- jyriand 10y ago
  This is something I would really like to read more about. No pressure, but this would be excellent subject for a blog post.
  - throw345343 10y ago
    I second this, I would love to hear more
    - peller 10y ago
      Not the person you're asking to hear from, but, there was a good Ask HN thread recently on the topic of routines/habits that you might be interested in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13095595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13095595 Specific books mentioned in the thread I can vouch for: The Power of Habit (popular science) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12609433-the-power-of-habit http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12609433-the-power-of-hab... Superhuman by Habit (actionable, no-bull, if somewhat introductory) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23206969-superhuman-by-habit http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23206969-superhuman-by-ha...
- throw345343 10y ago
  as someone that's suffering from these symptoms rightnow, I'd be happy to listen to any advice you could offer. My memory used to be very very good, but these days I forget things easily and have a hard time recalling details from stories that may have happened years ago. For me, i bootstrapped a startup for a long time (4 years) and ultimately failed and walked away from it and have been picking myself up since then.

by stevanl 10y ago

Would you mind elaborating a bit on the "took every advantage I could to compensate for the damage caused by stress." In a similar position and would be good to learn what worked for you.

kingmanaz 10y ago

Suggestions: Epictetus' Enchiridion. A cheap, used Dover Editions copy off Ebay is all one needs. Also, if a Christian, morning and evening prayers by candlelight using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

peller 10y ago
Enchiridion is free online: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45109
treehau5 10y ago
hesychasm -- the most underrated aspect of christian spirituality, sadly expelled by most reformation and counter-reformation traditions. A good exercise is to just sit quietly in a dark room, and completely empty your mind. Think no thoughts -- whether you believe them to be good or bad. This simple thing turns out to be so incredibly difficult, that many monks on the Holy Mountain have mastered. I myself can barely go a minute before a stress or a worry about my day or job or family comes into my head, but cool thing is you do eventually get better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm
- thedaemon 10y ago
  That's called meditation these days, but it's not about thinking no thoughts. It's about sorting your thoughts until there are no more worries. Everyone should be doing this.
  - treehau5 10y ago
    Not quite, it's so much different from meditation. What you are referring to is more of the western concept of "quietism" which is pretty synonymous with meditation. But in either case, I agree, everyone should be practicing this.
    - neltnerb 10y ago
      Meditation is so broad that it includes what both of you are talking about. It certainly sounds like one of you is talking about the meditating by using your thoughts as an object (sorting thoughts obviously makes no sense once you stop identifying them as "yours"), while the other is talking about simply doing it object-free. Both are taught by many of the same traditions, with neither being necessarily better or worse, though usually the object-free version is taught later because it's hard to do without something to focus on when you're first starting. I personally find the prior more useful when I'm trying to process a specific problem or stressor and the latter to be more useful after I've done some preprocessing. They are often done sequentially for this reason, as well as because meditating briefly with a specific focus helps prepare you mentally for the more general focus-free meditation where you simply rest in the experience of existence. But other preparation meditations with focuses can also be used to help you mentally prepare, such as focusing on body sensations, breath, vision, sounds, etc. Thoughts are just another thing you can observe. EDIT: I'd note that the Wikipedia article on Hesychasm describes it as asceticism and "blocking off", so in retrospect I'd describe it as a different class of meditation than those that involve resting in experience. More like visualization practice or some of the scarier death practices. But they're talking about the "advanced" version there, and such things are easy to misconstrue because the language for describing it is poor. But I'd still call it a meditation.
      - treehau5 10y ago
        > with neither being necessarily better or worse sorry, I think this is where the confusion is coming from. My original expansion on the comment with heyschasm was in response to kingmanaz. If you are a Christian, the heyechastic practice is markedly better than simply meditating. I was trying to differentiate between modern renditions of what meditation looks like, with the christian ascetical discipline of heyschasm, and I concluded by saying both are beneficial in any case, to someone who is under extreme long term stress.
- stefantalpalaru 10y ago
  > hesychasm -- the most underrated aspect of christian spirituality, sadly expelled by most reformation and counter-reformation traditions. Hesychasm is alive and well in the Orthodox Church. Mostly practised by monks, but well known outside monasteries.
- summarite 10y ago
  You'd love vipassana meditation.

thro3212 10y ago

At start I dropped everything non essential, then fixed it one thing at a time. Key was to establish routine and patterns, which does not drain mental energy and time from me. For example I have simple exercise routine I do every evening. It is just stuff I do before shower and bed. I also stopped driving in narrow city roads, I leave a car at motorway exit and walk last mile. Forget self-help stuff. It is really just basics; fix your sleep, health, sex, community you live in... For programming I follow simple TDD routine (and other simple best practices). And I do not do anything else at computer except making money. Today is an exception, I have 2 hours a week for facebook and news ;-)

jyriand 10y ago
This is something I would really like to read more about. No pressure, but this would be excellent subject for a blog post.
- throw345343 10y ago
  I second this, I would love to hear more
  - peller 10y ago
    Not the person you're asking to hear from, but, there was a good Ask HN thread recently on the topic of routines/habits that you might be interested in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13095595 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13095595 Specific books mentioned in the thread I can vouch for: The Power of Habit (popular science) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12609433-the-power-of-habit http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12609433-the-power-of-hab... Superhuman by Habit (actionable, no-bull, if somewhat introductory) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23206969-superhuman-by-habit http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23206969-superhuman-by-ha...
throw345343 10y ago
as someone that's suffering from these symptoms rightnow, I'd be happy to listen to any advice you could offer. My memory used to be very very good, but these days I forget things easily and have a hard time recalling details from stories that may have happened years ago. For me, i bootstrapped a startup for a long time (4 years) and ultimately failed and walked away from it and have been picking myself up since then.