
Anxiety, Depression, Technology, and Me - tiredandempty
http://anxious-tec.blogspot.com/2007/04/anxiety-depression-technology-and-me.html
======
gcheong
The one thing I've found that has helped me the most is exercise. I wouldn't
have believed it myself and most of the evidence I have is just my own
subjective experience, but there is one incident that stands out where one day
my boss mentioned that my attitude had completely changed for the better at
some point. I didn't think it had, but apparently there was enough of a change
for him to mention the observation. Of course, I can't say for sure it was the
result of exercise, but I couldn't place it on anything else I had been doing
at that point. It was enough to convince me that exercise is something I just
need to do regularly.

~~~
pxlpshr
I'll third this. However, I've always had a challenge of mixing work (which i
do a lot of), and finding time for things like going to a gym, etc. I'm also
not one looking to bulk up w/ weights, and when I'm away from work I like
meditative things. Using the computer 12+ hours a day is an intense amount of
information / brain processing. I think thats why tech people get depressed —
they're often mentally exhausted and therefore vulnerable.

Yoga <3 combined with an exercise app I made for the iPhone is working great
for me. I'm making this app for myself, and trying to productize it for
hackers, life hackers, travelers, etc. It's available on the store now but
we've got another few major iterations before it's where we'd like it to be.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
_I'm also not one looking to bulk up w/ weights, and when I'm away from work I
like meditative things_

I find it a bit funny you say that because I used to be "bulked up with
weights" (now I mostly walk/run with a little weightlifting added) and I found
it to be a very meditative experience. The euphoria of pushing a barbell off
your chest, the total physical drain at the end of a set of heavy squats led
me to a place where I was completely focused inward and totally at peace.

In fact I think it was that mental relaxation that kept me doing it for all
those years.

~~~
rjurney
I was the same way for several years, but nowadays I find lifting quite boring
and not relaxing, so I had to find other activities.

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abstractbill
I can definitely empathize with this. I don't know exactly when I stopped
feeling the way the author describes, but it happened somehow.

I think living in California has been good for me - there's definitely an
emphasis on living well here. I find it easier to take pleasure in the simple
things now - hiking especially. Also I often get this "wow, I'm living in the
future" feeling these days, which always makes me very happy.

~~~
logicalmind
I find this interesting. Like many I can relate to the article too. I live in
the midwest and some of my problem is seasonal. My doctor specifically told me
that I should consider moving to a more sunny climate. I have toyed with the
idea of moving somewhere more sunny like CA for years. I always wondered if it
would actually make a real difference.

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ruby_roo
I think most tech nerds can understand and appreciate the place this person is
in. I know I do. If you're an INTP, I can almost guarantee that you have this
problem.

Although I haven't conquered my own demons here, life becomes much easier when
you know know that this is actually very common amongst intelligent people. In
other words, this is only natural.

Accepting that the anxiety and depression are natural side effects of being a
rabid thinker has actually helped me deal with it better. The anxiety and
depression is still there, and I have my moments, but knowing that it is a
natural phenomenon gives me a peace I would not have had otherwise.

It's not surprising to me that many programmers and deep thinkers end up
practicing some form of Buddhism; getting away from the _now_ is what our egos
are trying to do constantly. Feeding your head with information is the geek's
way of hiding from the present moment.

It seems as if I am always _there_ ; never _here_. And that is the origin of
my depression/anxiety problems.

~~~
Prikrutil
I agree that some kind of anxiety is often (don't want to say "always") near
to those who are said to be "rabid thinker". But is depression what I should
think of a "natural side effect" of being such a man? If so, my would-be
future (yeah, I want to be "rabid thinker"!) is going to be full of
depressions :/

What I beleive is that any depression has a cause which can be (and should be)
eliminated if you are going to be happy. If you _really_ know what the problem
is, you probably know what to do with this (it's harder when there are so many
problems that it becomes impossible to find out the one-and-only root of all
evil).

It may seem as if I'm trying to say that depressions are unusual. Not really,
I think that is a stage which should be overstepped (but what if there are
some such stages?)

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bprater
I tend to be anxious and depressed like the author, but I've improved over the
years. Things that have helped me:

There are 3 kinds of books I read: business, programming and spirituality. (I
don't read fiction.)

It's a challenge to keep up to speed on all three, but when I start pouring
myself into the latter (spirituality), I find myself feeling much lighter,
living more in the moment and enjoying whatever momentary mess I'm currently
into.

(Spirituality isn't about religion. It's about figuring out how to go deeper
inside of yourself to make life-altering discoveries. "Whoa, that's why I
react like that when she ...")

I've also found that consciousness-expanding drugs have helped me too. I can
get outside my own reality and see things a bit more clearly. (I lived in
Amsterdam for a time.)

~~~
Hexstream
How do you tell the great spirituality books from the bullshit ones? Are there
spirituality books that an hardcore atheist such as myself can read? Lack of
religious terminology would be a start.

~~~
mixmax
I'll second that - I find the subject interesting, but must admit that almost
all of the books I have picked up on spirituality start blabbering about
force-fields and qantum mechanics without having a clue what they're talking
about.

I have yet to find a good book on the subject - if someone from this forum can
recommend anything it would definitely be appreciated.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning>

------
donna
A feral kitten came to a friend of mine after asking the universe to help her
get rid of the voles in her garden. She name the kitten Quito, befriended him,
showed him how to get in and out of the house through the doggy doors.
Introduced him to the other animals in the house. This took about 2 months.
Quito vole hunts during the day, and comes inside to sleep on a tower pole of
carpet at night. He watches with a proud smile on his face, full of himself
after doing a marvelous job vole hunting in the garden. The other day I
visited my friend. I watched Quito hunt and amuse himself during the day, and
at night I would walk by him and whisper to him stories. The night before i
was leaving, Quito was laying in the chair I usually sat in. I sat beside him,
he turned belly up, like a U, tail between his legs, paws wrapped around his
tail.. GAWD.. soo cute. I told him the story of his beautiful successful day
with this one particular special moment, about a hole in the tree. Quito was
up in the tree eating the bark, and noticed a hole. The hole said, "Quito eat
me". Quito replied, "I cannot eat you, you are a hole, you are empty...it will
not fill me up." The hole replied.. but, I am infinitely filled-up inside...
eat me." I made sounds of popping the hole into my mouth, and Quito took his
paw and quickly tapped my lips, awww Quito tried to eat the hole, but he could
not. The story distracted and satisfied Quito, he jumped down back to his
tower and slept, most likely dreaming of the hole that is infinitely filled-
up.

~~~
donna
It is unfortunate re the negative point. My story shared was to expose a
distraction from focusing on being depressed.. find a another point-of-view. I
intended to share the possibility of how one can focus on the negative or the
positive aspects of one's day in every moment. Reflect and find balance during
your day. Start by noticing and articulating the positive moments in your day,
what did fill you up? Start with simple things. Did that toast for breakfast
taste wonderful. Did you look out the window and see the sky.. beautiful or
amazing. Learn a new language. Re-program your thought patterns. Re-compile
how you see your day. It is not always about the BIG goals and changes. Aiming
for BIG all the time will deplete you and leave you emptied. Take the time to
find balance in seeing life, life has tiny moments too. Like writing code one
character at a time... just might add up to a more fulling life.

~~~
swombat
I think because of the rambling style and punctuation, and lack of paragraphs,
it looks like some sort of spam comment.

Try using paragraphs more, and your posts will be more likely to be upvoted.

~~~
donna
I appreciate the paragraph, and punctuation suggestions. ;-D

------
jjames
Article is from 04/07. Is there any followup? It's not clear from all the
commentary whether the author learned something from the anonymous
solicitation of advice or if it served primarily as catharsis.

For anyone else living like this individual, I particularly agree with the
commenters who mention taking up photography to get you out into the world
creating art without abandoning a detail/tech-centric tendency.

~~~
ealar
I have found that any art does the trick for me. Over my life I've played
Viola, crafted pottery, attempted to paint, and done photography. Of those two
were wildly expensive (photography, oil painting), and the others were
cheaper. I think the main draw of modern photography for programmers is that a
great deal of our technical skill transfers into every part of photography
except taking a good picture -- so we don't feel baffled when we first start.

That said, if you want to take up music or some other art, it's never too
late. Music lessons are fairly cheap and honestly indispensable (I held my
viola wrong for six months of practice before I started lessons). Painting is
a much freer art and you can produce decent works on your own without
instruction. If you do painting, I personally found oil painting an amazing
medium because it allowed me to constantly improve my paintings no matter how
bad they started =p.

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jawngee
Great article.

I suffer from PTSD, GAD and mild depression. Having been involved in a fairly
violent street gang in high school, I had seen a lot of violence and just
plain f*cked up stuff. People getting shot in front of me, a lot of situations
that forced me to confront my own mortality, etc.

It really didn't hit me until about 10 years ago. I was getting off the F
train at 23rd street and had an overwhelming feeling I was going to pass out,
which I then interpreted as my imminent death. It was frightening because it
was so out of the blue and so intense. Who wants to pass out on a subway
platform? Or worse, die on a subway platform?

For the next two years I tried to find a medical reason behind that first
massive panic attack, but never found one despite spending several tens of
thousands of dollars on medical bills. I finally had to accept that I had
these certain mental conditions.

I used to reign it in through a variety of meds; anti-depressants, klonopin,
ativan, xanax. I went to a cognitive behavioral therapist to figure out how to
change my thinking and learn to control it.

These days I don't take any meds and though I still have massive panic attacks
now and again, they mostly don't phase me as they're so common place now and
you sort of grow to accept that these things aren't going away and it's your
lot in life.

The most damning aspects of anxiety disorder aren't the panic attacks, by the
way. It's all the passive shit that comes with it. Hyper-vigilance and
derealization have to be the worst. Hyper-vigilance means that you are so
focused on your physical well being that the slightest pain, discomfort, etc.
gets misinterpreted as a major medical calamity. A cough becomes lung cancer,
a mild pain in your armpit becomes non-hodgkin's lymphoma, etc. With
derealization, you'll have entire spans of time where nothing seems real to
you at all, familiar things become unfamiliar, etc. If you've read anything by
Camus, you'll have some understanding what derealization is all about. It's
pretty scary shit.

But despite all of that, I have what I consider a fairly successful career. I
believe that is partially due to the CBT therapy, and part to my stubbornness
to not be a victim.

I do think depression and anxiety are endemic to this current generation of
technologists (late 20's and up). This new generation, seems more balanced
though, so maybe it's a generational thing? Not sure.

One controversial thing that has helped me, as well as hurt me, is marijuana.
Most times it helps me to get out of my head, specifically on days when the
anxiety is thickest. On the flip side, sometimes imbuing too much brings the
anxiety like nothing else. But most times, it's been more helpful than
harmful.

~~~
maxawaytoolong
I developed most of the symptoms of GAD last summer after having a panic
attack where I ended up in the hospital. It was weird because I'm in my early
30s and have never had any anxiety symptoms before. I guess I was probably
mildly depressed, but no prior history of panic attacks or other GAD symptoms.
I believe the panic attack was brought on because I got food poisoning during
a time period with a lot of uncertain work-related stress.

I find the hyper vigilance the most obnoxious thing about this. The other
things I can't stand are various weird chest tensions and growling stomach
issues, which are related to the hyper-vigilance thing. I'd probably not even
notice them usually, but now they freak me out.

I've not tried any drugs but have used the "Linden Method" which was suggested
by a friend. It was relatively useful but there's not much too it. Mostly: get
an engrossing hobby like photography and learn some deep breathing exercises.

Other things that have helped:

\- exercise, specifically outdoor exercise like running or surfing

\- more social time with friends

\- avoiding caffeine... this is a bummer since I really like coffee.

\- one glass of wine seems to help, but drinking to excess makes it worse the
next day

\- regular sleep schedule seems to help

\- spending less time using computer-mediated communication helps

\- avoiding certain foods seems to help. I think indigestion triggers the
hyper-vigilance response.

Out of all of these things, exercise seems to be helping the most. Thanks YC
for the previous suggestions. I kind of knew that exercise would be the most
beneficial, but it took some external prompting to actually get started
running again.

I am interested in CBT. How do you go about getting into it? Just ask my
primary care physician?

~~~
gcheong
Your primary care physician can probably refer you to someone. It would be a
good place to start. "Feeling Good" (Burns) is a good source of CBT
information and exercises. I would also recommend "Managing Your Mind" (Butler
and Hope). Another approach called "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy" has
showed some promise in research. The book "Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your
Life" (Hayes) was written by the person who developed ACT. Another good
workbook on the subject is "The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for
Anxiety" (Forsyth and Eifert).

~~~
Prikrutil
It sounds like you have already read some of these books and find them useful
to find possible "bugs" in your mind making you anxious. If so, maybe you'll
find my comment a bit naive.

What I've decided is that the only way to find out all the "bugs" to
annihilate is by ignoring all the easy to get suggestions made by other
peoples (who are smart enough to do that without any assistance). It's
important that you should find out where the roots of your problems actually
are and how to get rid of them _by yourself_. I beleive that no one knows
about you more than you do.

Why don't I consider such books as a good point to start from? In fact, I'm a
bit afraid of such books... They look like ones about patterns: they don't
always turn you into a good programmer, but there is a chance that after
reading you won't be able to think in terms other than you have already read
about (that is actually what I'm afraid of).

Anyways, I'm going to take a look at books you've mentioned (with care :).
Thanks!

------
apstuff
Exercise + Cognitive Restructuring Therapy helps a lot.

It's hard not to feel anxiety and depression in today's world and some events
can't be controlled. But how we perceive those events can definitiely be
controlled by analyzing and challenging them for correctness.

Vilayanur Ramachandran's talk at TED on phantom limb pain addresses this idea
very well.

[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html)

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keeptrying
Kitesurfing or snowboarding. You need a physical outlet.

Exercise will give you peace. It worked for me.

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old-gregg
This story (and discussion) is so American... When translated into other
languages I doubt it can be taken seriously by anyone.

Here, around 15:40 this cartoon/video explains why you feel like shit, in
plain english with pictures, enjoy:

<http://www.storyofstuff.com>

