
Ask HN: How do you cope with the existential dread - oldsklgdfth
How do you get through the day without dwelling on how meaningless and futile everything is? Do you distract yourself or have you found away to address this feeling?
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IntronExon
I’ve struggled with an existential dread of death since I was about 9, and I
have a spectrum of coping strategies which work for me to some extent. YMMV.

First and most important is trying to break the habit- and it is a habit- of
thinking about things which set off that introspective nosedive. It’s not
easy, but CBT offers s good tool set for mindfulness and thought stopping. The
essential “trick” is to recognize those thoughts, and then redirect without
spending too much time on the recognition or redirection.

Distraction can work, but occupation is even better. In other words, listening
to an audiobook or doing something fun and distracting helps, but being
involved in life, work, friends, etc is much better. The greater your
connection to the real world of people, the easier it can be to disengage from
the internal world of your own thoughts.

Don’t go deep! If you find yourself trying to think your way to the bottom of
your dread, you will discover that there is no bottom, and it’s easy to get
lost.

Consider whether or not this might be clinically significant, i.e. depression,
anxiety, and such. If so, it may be worth seeing a professional about this, as
your preoccupation with futility may be a symptom and not a cause.

Get sleep, and especially try not to get lost in your own thoughts late at
night, or when you’re tired. Everything seems worse and feels worse at night,
and when you’re tired. Audiobooks or radio can help as a distraction to get to
sleep, and I recommend listening to something you’ve already heard so it
doesn’t engage you _too_ much. Put the volume down until you can _just_ make
out the words.

Meditation.

Hang in there, it will get better.

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nugi
1\. You don't. Like any other thought, it is always there to think. It is up
to you to refocus if you do not desire to focus on it.

2\. You give in. Let it consume you. And then let it leave you. Don't spend
time there looking beneath each rock, but observing as if from a moving train,
behind glass. The lynch/felinni movie changes from 1st to 3rd person, and you
can reframe the mindset.

3\. Behaviors aren't erased,but replaced. Find a replacement
feeling/thought/action. One that is always appropriate.

4\. Install the new behavior. Find the trigger, then find a new trigger that
reliably happens before the original one. You reroute behavior, not actually
replace it.

5\. Run the path, make a trail. Starting just by imagining yourself achieving
outcome. Then 'make' yourself veer toward the old behavior and notice the new
behavior begin to take over. 3 times confidently is the magic number.

6\. Revisit after a while. All installed automatic processes need to be
reviewed as your life changes. Behaviors are only good or bad in relation to
the environment. A new location, or stage of life, needs new programming.

7\. Laugh. Everything is only as meaningful as you make it. There is fleeting
joy in existance. Do something stupid, that you love, and just awash in it.
The hedonists aren't on the path to nirvana, but they sure get closer than the
stoics.

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sharemywin
1\. There is such a thing as a perfect circle; it just can't exist in reality.

2\. There's a God. and I just ain't him.

[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/acatholicthinker/2015/08/there-...](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/acatholicthinker/2015/08/there-
is-a-god-and-im-not-him-thoughts-on-god-anxiety/)

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jenkstom
Antidepressants.

