
Ask HN: Tech work, mistakes, and anxiety - anxiousconda
My view of mistakes is pretty lousy. I beat myself up about them for extended periods, and when I make the initial discovery I feel a rush of panic. I&#x27;ll sometimes find myself remembering old mistakes from years ago, for no reason at all.<p>I&#x27;ve been an anxious person since I was a kid. I suspect it&#x27;s in my nature, as it&#x27;s certainly in my family. I&#x27;ve been in the workforce for a decade, working as a general programmer&#x2F;knowledge worker the entirety. The self-doubt and anxiety are at their worst. Maybe I&#x27;m partial, but this field seems like it feeds these fears more than other careers. Lately, I&#x27;ve been thinking about moving on to something else. Maybe I&#x27;m not cut out for it, but I do love what I do.<p>There are much wiser people than I around HN. I, and maybe even some others, could very much use some of that wisdom on this topic.
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audiometry
It's not the role or the job. Changing those offers a moment's escape, but
then those thought and habit-patterns will return. I'm a commodity trader
who's been fighting these issues for twenty years.

I recommend that you investigate mindfulness first. This gives your
mind/awareness the opportunity to recognize these unhelpful thought patterns
being created by your brain-organ. Over time you can better balance your
sympathetic and para-sympathetic nervous systems, so you're not terrorized by
your own amygdala. Jon Kabat-Zinn as a fantastic lecture at Google that
explains mindfulness.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nwwKbM_vJc)

The mindfulness ability gives me the "fleeting moment of volition" where I can
avoid immediate reaction to amygdala-terror.

What I'm working on now is what Kabat-Zinn calls an "orthogonal rotation of
thought" and what psychologists call "cognitive reappraisal training." The
idea is to look at whatever problem you're traumatized by and intentionally
choosing other ways to view it with different conclusions, and also to be able
to observe the fear/problem without being stung so badly.

This is a new skill I'm working on, and I think it's bearing fruit. I've been
experimenting with some simple software to prod more of the orthogonal-type
thinking, rather than suffering endless cycles of the same unskilled patterns.

Good Luck. Feel free to DM me.

