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ajb 16 hours ago

I have heard two theories on how to treat anxiety:

1) Paul Gilbert's theory that the brain's 'threat system' is overdeveloped and the 'soothing system' underdeveloped, and the right treatment is to stimulate the 'soothing system'.

2) Steven Quartz' theory that the brain's evaluation of risk has become distorted, and that the right treatment is any form of 'risky play' that you can tolerate; with an emphasis on being able to feel you've achieved something after taking (reasonable) risks.

(Both of these are about how you reduce anxiety in the long term, not how you cope with it if you're overwhelmed in the moment).

Video games could in theory work for either - but not the same ones. Under the second theory, coziness may work in the moment, but seeking coziness could inhibit long term reduction of anxiety.

I don't know which theory has the more evidence. ( Also I'm not an expert and the consensus theory might be something else entirely. )

prox 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I haven’t seen those theories before. The first one seems intuitively apt.

If you are overwhelmed the first thing that goes is your leisure and creativity. Say if you used to play piano or did any hobby, and you stopped, it means you lacking bandwidth to relax. After that, and you don’t correct your brain starts changing until it breaks : a burn out, or even further along : PTSD.

So to counter it, is to bring back leisure and your hobbies.

If someone burns out right next to you (I have had that happen to a colleague) is a couple of things : you can ask them if possible to focus on deep breaths, or ask them to call out the name of objects and ask them to describe them. Another strategy is deprive them of sensory overload. Have them put the hands on their face and hunch over so they are in their own cocoon. Stay with them and soothe them until you get a professional over.

I am not sure if this is the most current view, but this is from my direct experience.

ajb 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is good advice. One thing to note is that deep breathing needs to be slow. If you over oxygenate you may get weird sensations which can cause more anxiety. The standard advice seems to be 'square breathing': In for count of four, hold count of four, out for count of four, hold again for four.

Sensory overload sounds specific to some neuro divergent conditions, might not help with other people.

lloeki 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This excerpt has resonated deeply:

But, parallel to this political phenomenon, we observe the disappearance of free time. Free space and free time are now just memories. The free time in question is not leisure as commonly understood. Apparent leisure still exists, and even this apparent leisure defends itself and becomes more widespread through legal measures and mechanical improvements against the conquest of hours by activity.

Workdays are measured and their hours counted by law. But I say that inner leisure, which is something entirely different from chronometric leisure, is being lost. We are losing that essential peace in the depths of our being, that priceless absence, during which the most delicate elements of life refresh and comfort themselves, during which being, in a way, cleanses itself of past and future, of present consciousness, of suspended obligations and ambushed expectations. No worry, no tomorrow, no internal pressure; but a kind of rest in absence, a beneficial vacancy, which returns the mind to its own freedom. It then concerns itself only with itself. It is freed from its duties toward practical knowledge and unburdened from the care of immediate things: it can produce pure formations like crystals. But now the rigor, tension, and rush of our modern existence disturb or squander this precious rest. Look within yourself and around you! The progress of insomnia is remarkable and follows exactly all other forms of progress.

How many people in the world now sleep only with synthetic sleep, and provide themselves with nothingness from the learned industry of organic chemistry! Perhaps new arrangements of more or less barbituric molecules will give us the meditation that existence increasingly forbids us from obtaining naturally. Pharmacology will someday offer us depth. But, in the meantime, fatigue and mental confusion are sometimes such that one naively finds oneself longing for Tahitis, paradises of simplicity and laziness, lives of slow and inexact form that we have never known. Primitives are unaware of the necessity of finely divided time.

There were no minutes or seconds for the ancients. Artists like Stevenson, like Gauguin, fled Europe and went to islands without clocks. Neither mail nor telephone harassed Plato. The train schedule did not rush Virgil. Descartes could lose himself in thought on the quays of Amsterdam. But our movements today are regulated by exact fractions of time. Even the twentieth of a second is beginning to be no longer negligible in certain domains of practice.

No doubt, the organism is admirable in its flexibility. It has so far resisted increasingly inhuman treatments, but, ultimately, will it always sustain this constraint.

- Le bilan de l'intelligence, Paul Valéry, 1935

amelius 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have a third approach for you:

3) spend time with friends, drastically reduce screen time, have people around you most of the time, never have dinner alone, etc.

Trasmatta 12 hours ago | parent [-]

Nah not at all, spending time alone is crucially important to me for managing anxiety. Solo dinner is great. Being surrounded by people constantly is a way for my anxiety to greatly increase.

amelius 11 hours ago | parent [-]

It is important to make a distinction between close friends and people you don't know. Also, being alone may feel good but it is not a lasting solution as ultimately humans evolved as social creatures, and you can't rationalize that away.

Try spending e.g. a weekend or a week with close friends or family (if you have a good relationship with them), and see what it does for your anxiety.

9 hours ago | parent | next [-]
[deleted]
Trasmatta 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The important thing is having a balance. Never being comfortable alone can be an issue just as spending all of your time alone can be.

amelius 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes but my main point is that it's very easy to get stuck in a local optimum without ever realizing that there can be a significant social component to one's anxiety issues that can be easily explored.

Trasmatta 9 hours ago | parent [-]

The social component of anxiety cuts deeply in both directions

amelius 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Glad you understand it! ;)

hliyan 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

(1) is entirely believable because our brains evolved as a prediction engine that can help increase the survivability of its owner. So it's understandable that it over-indexes on threats.

kavith 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is very interesting! I enjoy playing Gran Turismo 7 and often find it very calming; especially when I'm in a flow state and can get through a tricky part of the track very quickly without any mistakes.

I wonder if this is a case where both theories apply - the rhythmic, controlled driving stimulates the 'soothing system' while the challenge of maintaining control at high speeds provides that 'risky play' element.