The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
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A hypothesis on why the combination diagnosis of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder can be so devastating to the social and professional life of a gifted mind:
People with autism tend to meltdown or zone out over logical conundrums and paradoxes. As long as there is this one bad piece of logic in the world, which apparently describes reality, we cannot function; we cannot make ourselves turn away from this hole in reality.
People with ADHD tend to shutdown or freak out over emotional conundrums, such as being ordered by an authority to do something they were already spontaneously going to do, or being told to do something now which they’d already planned to do later. Suddenly, a feeling of being stripped of one’s autonomy and agency overwhelms the person with ADHD, causing panic and procrastination.
(I have of course described myself and my own experiences, but the hypothesis is that this might apply to other people.)
This is considered a symptom of a disorder? This sounds so normal, so entirely consistent with my own responses to these situations that I feel like I'm being confronted with something that I didn't know about how most people experience the world. Is the normal response to being ordered by authority to do something you were going to do anyway to not feel anything about the matter, or even to feel validated in your choice? That's absolutely wild to me, I literally cannot imagine having an emotional reaction to that authority other than, "fuck you, now I don't want to, you should have just left me alone". I'm not even kidding when I say that what is apparently the normal response is something that I would have described as Submissive Obsequiousness Disorder or perhaps Nonconfrontational Personality Complex.
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Long time Mottizens might barely recall that about a year ago on the subreddit I experimented with the croissant diet. That's the diet where you cut out all polyunsaturated fats, and eat a lot of saturated fat instead. Specifically the point was to reduce consumption of linoleic acid as much as possible, and increase consumption of stearic acid. Why? Because of metabolism stuff related to the Krebs Cycle. See Brad Marshall's website for more details, since he's the main driver behind the diet. Scott wrote about it a couple years ago as well.
My experiment was technically a failure, but a weirdly promising one. When I stuck to the diet strictly I ate like a king, as much food as I wanted (that fit the diet) and I didn't gain any weight. I also didn't lose any weight. After a month or two I started to lose interest and didn't keep to the diet as strictly as I had been, at which point I started gaining weight faster than normal. In the end, I abandoned the diet and went back to trying to watch my calories and eat lots of healthy food, etc. But the fact that I didn't gain weight while eating sourdough bread fried in butter with heaps of cream cheese on top every morning for breakfast intrigued me. I marked Brad Marshall down as "Might not be a nutrition crank."
I kept up with his blog, and in the time since then he's moved more towards specific metabolic supplementation on top of cutting out polyunsaturated fats. A few months ago he recommended supplementing with high amounts of calcium pyruvate combined with L-carnitine.
These supplements aren't expensive, so I was willing to give them a try. He recommended 2 grams of L-carnitine and 12 grams of calcium pyruvate per day, taken in two or more doses. Thats more than it's particularly feasible to take with pills, so I bought it in power form. I don't have a kitchen scale so I just eyeball a half teaspoon of L-carnitine and a teaspoon of calcium pyruvate, taken dissolved in hot water at 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM each day. I've been taking them for about 7 weeks now.
This has been the most remarkable experience I've ever had with a supplement.
My experience with supplements has always been as follows: I take the supplement, and hope it will improve my life. I take it for a while and the whole time I'm unsure if it's doing anything. Nothing significant happens, though it's possible there is a gradual improvement that's hard to notice. Eventually I stop taking the supplement because things don't seem any different if I take it or not. The only exception is Vitamin D, and only because I live in at a high latitude and my doctor brings it up every time I have a checkup. I don't feel any different if I take it or not, but I know I should and annually checkup bloodwork confirms that I need to keep taking it. Overall, supplements are always a leap of faith with uncertain results.
This has not been the case with l-carnitine and calcium pyruvate.
Within an hour of taking my morning dose, I feel a strong upswell of energy. I want to move, and moving in general feels easier. I hate exercise normally, but when I feel this feeling it's easy to start walking or running. More enjoyable. It's not a small sensation, and it's not always pleasant (mostly if I can't get up and move, which feels good. If I have to stay seated I get a bit twitchy).
More importantly, in his post Brad claimed one easily measurable effect form taking the supplement: an increase in body temperature, caused by increased metabolism. "The thermogenesis from pyruvate is real. Within minutes after drinking 10-15 grams of pyruvate I can feel my body temperature rise. If I’m fasted, my body temperature usually stays in the 98.6-99.0 range. If I then eat a bowl of white rice, my body temp will often shoot to over 100." So after taking my first dose, I decided to use one of those forehead scan thermometers to see if I was heating up. To my shock, it came bad reading 100.4 degrees. I've been keeping track of my temperature ever since. Before I take the my morning supplement my temperature reads normal (around 98 F), and after taking the supplement it reads 99-101 F. Forehead thermometers are not the most accurate, but given that I'm using the same thermometer for before and after temperatures I'm confident that there is an increase in temperature, even if the exact number is off. This is consistent: it isn't always as significant an increase, but it always goes up.
I have been losing weight, but it's difficult to attribute that to the supplements. I started taking the supplements in large part because I was already trying really hard to lose weight. Since I started taking the supplements I've lost 10 pounds, but during that same time I've tried to cut calories significantly and started at least light exercise daily. Still, I do feel that the supplements are definitely making it easier to cut calories and exercise: I'm not as hungry as I used to be during the day, and I'm actually looking forward to my daily jog which is novel for me. I'm going to keep taking these supplements indefinitely because I feel like my life has been significantly improved.
However, the comments at r/Saturated Fats tells me that my experience is far from universal. Many people reported no effect at all: some said it made them feel lethargic and lowered their body temperature. Interestingly enough, I recently found a mouse study where they found that giving obese mice pyruvate actually induced torpor, sending them into hibernation and lowering their body temperature significantly. They also found that lean mice given pyruvate did not go into torpor, and the pyruvate instead activated their brown fat and increased their temperature. So it seems to me there are possibly multiple factors that would cause people to have very different reactions to pyruvate, which might explain why so many people report bad effects.
I posted this because I feel obligated to do so: after a lifetime of trying things with no apparent effect, the fact that this has had a strong and significant effect is worth sharing. There is something here.
On the other hand, I'm taking a very large amount of calcium pyruvate here. Every resource I've checked says I should be okay, and that the side effects are just digestive troubles (which I haven't experienced, but I have a pretty resilient digestive tract). On the other hand, maybe someone here knows something I don't.
I did buy from them. Do you have a supplier you'd recommend?
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Is there any easily installable camera security system that isn't tied to the cloud and going to blab images of me to anyone who cares enough to hack it/the police if they ask Amazon nicely?
It seems like it would be a nice thing to have around in case of valuables, but fuck me if I'm going to use a product that will hand footage directly to the cops.
Second this. The best I could come up with when tackling the exact requirements as the original top level comment, was to setup unifi cameras to record to my NAS. If I remember correctly there were very few camera companies that didn't try to force you to use their subscription service.
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You can build one around QNAP/Synology NAS. Look for small companies selling their NAS setups due to going bankrupt.
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Reolink cameras have on-device human and car recognition, and you can locally record to either an SD card or a PC running something like Blue Iris (or buy a DVR, but why). Planning to install one soon.
I don't think about recording so much, because the point of a security system is to start the chain that brings a gun to bear, not tell the uninterested cops who stole all your shit.
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A month and a half ago I started a new exercise routine and I've stuck with it longer and better than I ever have before in my life. However, I've noticed that squats cause me lower back pain. I have a pretty pronounced lumbar curve, and at a glance I might have mild lordosis. I tried focusing on making sure my core was tight while squatting and that seemed to improve it, but only slightly. I'm 25, work in retail and use good posture when lifting. Most of my leisure time is spent at a computer. I get 8 hours of sleep a night, usually sleeping on my side or back. I'm 5'7", 137 lbs. My diet is mediocre - I stay away from chips, soda, fried foods, and hydrogenated oils but have a mild protein bar addiction, drink an average of 2 alcoholic drinks a day, and have too many simple carbs. Does the motte have any idea how to fix the back pain, or failing that, any good leg workouts that don't use squats?
Elevate your life from the back squat life to the front squat life. It moves the main load in your back up to your mid back and reduces your chance of injury (if you get into a bad position, instead of feeling like you can tough through it and hurting yourself, you literally can't help but drop the weight). Embrace the Squat-Hinge Continuum from this article at Stronger By Science and realize that the variations don't matter that much unless you're planning on competing on a particular movement. Grab one from the squat end (front squats are safest) and one from the hinge end (whichever you prefer; good mornings are ones that most people end up most susceptible to injury, so perhaps avoid), and you'll be fine.
Only downsides are that you'll need to work on wrist flexibility (it'll probably hurt your wrists when you start; it'll go away) and that you'll have to take the ego hit and drop the weight ~25% (but you can always compute a fake 'back squat equivalent' when you're inevitably wanting to compare yourself to some other bro in your own silly head (no one else cares)). The other downside is that you'll start looking at all the Oly lifters out there and be constantly tempted to want to learn how to start throwing the weight above your head.
(Parting shots: Split squats are also fantastic, especially for some sports, but the extra stability of going bilateral helps you get to the loads you probably want. Don't be afraid to learn to use a belt.)
EDIT: Can get to more refined advice with measurements of your mobility. It took me a long time to learn that my sports resulted in me really lacking mobility in internal hip rotation and needing this sooooo good. Yoga can definitely help, but I find that the most common yoga programs do miss some directions that can be important, depending on your particular needs.
I've always thought RDLs were the same thing as SLDLs.
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Some people cheat their squats by doing a semi 'Good morning' as they ascend from the bottom of the squat. Since you mentioned lower back pain, 95% prior you are doing that. Since that's a lower back exercise.
I don't squat because I dont want to grow a fat ass. Leg extensions, hack squats and deadlifts are all I do for legs.
I did a couple very slow squats with a lot of attention paid to my form and it's possible I was doing these. I'll focus on it next workout - I think I start off well and then my form degrades as I get tired.
Thanks for the exercise recommendations, but I'm working with zero equipment and don't yet feel the need to add weight to my routines.
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Deload, work on your form, build back up. Split squats are a good call for legs while you work on form for the full squat.
Do the full 30 Days of Yoga, it will improve the way you move permanently if you haven't done it before.
As daunting a prospect as that yoga routine looks, it would probably be hugely beneficial. I spent the first 20 years of my life entirely sedentary and I am positive it has resulted in problems that I don't even know the full extent of. Have you tried it? Is it pretty brutal on someone who hasn't done yoga before, or is it manageable?
100% manageable, I did the whole thing during my 2L winter finals. And you don't seem like you have a big ego, about this anyway, so you won't have a problem being open to using offered progressions for how a pose can be done, or drop into child's pose/down dog. It's not necessarily about hitting the hardest progression when you aren't ready for it.
Everybody is different. My wife and i go to hot yoga together multiple times a week right now, and there are poses where she crushes it and I suck, and poses where I crush it and she sucks. Sometimes it's whole categories (I suck at balance poses), sometimes it's physical quirks (she can't do plow due to... nature's Endowments), sometimes it's seemingly random (I can hit a bind in one pose, but not another).
Don't feel bad that you're not hitting the hardest version of the pose, just do what you can and make progress. The 30 day program is good because if you stick with it until the new year you will definitely notice a difference in eg your down dog and tree by the time you finish. And if you ever want to pick it up again or go to a live class you'll be competent.
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For the leg workout: split squat, or split squat, or split squat.
How are deadlifts on your back?
These squat variations all look great. I'll give them a shot, thanks.
I don't do any weighted exercises, all bodyweight. I'm at a low enough level of fitness that bodyweight is plenty with the right routine, and I'm more interested in calisthenics than hypertrophy.
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EDIT: Thanks for all of the suggestions folks, they're greatly appreciated.
I'm worried I may have some kind of anxiety disorder. For the last few months I've found it very hard to relax, and almost always feel tense and on edge. I don't (or rather, can't) enjoy most of the things I used to enjoy. Even when I'm spending time with my friends or a girl I'm dating, I feel tense and can't let myself relax. I don't look forward to anything. When I'm in work I'm bored out of my mind, when I get home I do nothing to pass the time. My sex drive is virtually nonexistent.
What I've tried so far:
Cutting out caffeine: I didn't drink any caffeine for an entire month. Now I'm back on it but drinking less than I was before I cut it out completely.
Reducing alcohol intake: I was probably drinking too much during Covid. For the last few months I've been trying to keep my non-social drinking to a minimum and not to overdo it when I drink socially
Meditation: I've been doing guided meditation once a day for the last two weeks, using www.tarabrach.com as a resource
Talk therapy: I was seeing a therapist once a week from July until two weeks ago (I had to pause the sessions as I changed jobs which meant a change in insurance provider). The therapy wasn't specifically about this issue, but the issue did come up in the sessions
Exercise: I got into running during Covid and still run once or twice a week. I cycle to work every day (provided it's not raining).
Leisure activities: I try to read from a corporeal book every day.
None of the above seems to have helped much, if at all. Maybe once every two weeks I'll experience a day where I'm able to just completely relax and unwind - but there doesn't seem to be any obvious rhyme, reason, or pattern to when these days strike, at least as far as I can see.
Any suggestions for how to deal with this are welcome. Ideally I would prefer not to resort to psychopharmaceuticals, as I've been prescribed antidepressants and antipsychotics in the past, and found the gains rather meagre compared to the brutality of the side effects.
How’s your digestion? Any IBS symptoms? Sometimes our micro biome influences our emotions and mood and we don’t even recognize it. You could try eating more probiotic foods like kefir.
Exercise 1-2 times a week isn’t a very high “dose” for anxiety. You need to up that to 5 times a week, for at least 40 minutes of moderate (HR 130 or greater) intensity.
Is this a mood thing as well? You say you don’t oook forward to anything: could this be related to the seasons? Maybe get a SAD lamp.
, try some breathing exercises. Box breathing is pretty good. See if that helps.
Take magnesium and vitamin D. Most people are deficient and magnesium has definite anxiolytic effects .
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What kind of meditation is this? Maybe you should look into metta (loving kindness) meditation.
I found its effect rather disturbing in a very good way (and should do it more often).
I have no idea what the kind I'm currently doing is called.
If you have any resources for metta, please send them over, I'd love to give it a try.
Sorry for my late response. There is some basic advice on the following website:
https://www.lionsroar.com/metta-meditation-guide/
If you prefer a book-length treatment, Johnson's The Path to Nibbana is often recommended.
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I'm mal-functionally non-anxious and probably less professionally successful than you, and this is big advice for me to give as some jackass on the internet, but consider Thomas Szasz' famous dictate that most mental illnesses aren't in the brain, they're problems in living. What we call mental illness, is often just the world asking something of you that you just can't do. This South Park Episode, but unironically or SA on stimulants in Sillicon Valley.
Consider that just as it's silly to say someone has ADHD because they can't read The Great Gatsby or look at spreadsheets all day, maybe you have anxiety because your life is stressful and it is ridiculous to say that you need drugs to cope. Maybe the simple fixes aren't working because it isn't a simple problem.
Now, hey, if you want to take drugs to be even greater than you could be without them, I don't necessarily object to that. Barry Bonds started taking drugs long after he had won several MVPs. But don't confuse using drugs because you want more with needing drugs to function as a human.
It's certainly possible that I have anxiety because my life is stressful, but I have to admit I'm quite sceptical of that interpretation. I'm steadily employed at a normal 9-5 office job; I am treated with respect and courtesy by my colleagues; I've never had to work late, overtime or at the weekend; I have no dependents; I'm not wealthy but nor am I struggling to make ends meet; I have good accommodation; and I don't have any health problems. All of these things were true two, three and four years ago, and I know I didn't feel like this at those times.
I'd say you're doing a fairly good bit at coping with it. I mean, you still have the job and the girlfriend.
My life situation is completely crap, basically, got nothing going for me except being physically healthy, not broke and on good terms with my parents.
No anxiety though, no problems relaxing most days.
I did watch Edgerunners and also thought about things in a .. unwise way and couple days after I had half a day of feeling anxious and dreading something undefined, and I noticed how much it sucked. Can't imagine enduring something like that for a month.
One possible piece of advice:
**Try fighting. **
One time a therapist talked me into signing up for a boxing class. Between the punishing 1 hour of aerobics training and subsequent sparring, the entire thing was very relaxing and strangely enjoyable. And I think what was most relaxing was the sparring. I was up against 18 year old guys.. who were mostly at least slightly less new to it, and .. it was fun.
Did hurt a fair bit, but the whole 'physical fight' experience was something I had no idea I was missing. It's quite a lot more .. interesting? than a good mental fight (like e.g. a challenging game ). Like comparing a silent 1920s film to a 1980s action film, or something like that. Or some solid VR experience.
Sadly I had to give that up, I had a prior shoulder injury that kept flaring up because getting pummelled (even not at full force) while blocking blows was just too much for it. I've been meaning to do some strength training as that'd probably make the shoulder more robust, but haven't gotten around to it. And probably never will, knowing myself. Lifting weights seems extremely complex, and knowing I'd have to couple that to eating more to get anything out of it just makes the whole thing seemingly too daunting.
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You're probably right then, just wanted to throw it out there.
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I had a physical on Tuesday and apparently my resting heart rate and blood pressure are fine, which is reassuring. I'll do some research into thyroid illnesses and diabetes. Thanks for the suggestion.
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I'm curious what is going on in your mind when you are feeling tense. Are there particular thoughts you keep returning to? How do you respond mentally when you have these feelings?
Anxiety feeds on itself, and one of the main drivers is rumination. Rumination is a choice and there are ways to train yourself away from it. You mention a lot of behaviors you are changing to deal with anxiety, but you might also want to think about thought processes you need to change.
I went through a period in my life in which I was ruminating so much on personal problems that I was completely unable to concentrate on anything. The way I'm feeling right now is distinct from that: I can watch a film, concentrate on it and follow the plot, I just don't derive much pleasure from doing so, if any.
That honestly sounds more like depression than anxiety. Anhedonia is a core symptom of depression
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For an acute non-pharmaceutical intervention that is basically physiologically guaranteed to make you relax for about an hour at the very minimum, try either a 20-minute sauna or a very hot bath, like 105F to 115F, measured with an actual thermometer. Hot showers aren't the same at all, though they still have some effect. If you're insufficiently relaxed after the bath, stay longer next time and ensure that the water temperature isn't becoming too low as the bath progresses.
You could also try an elimination diet to make sure it's not some weird autoimmune thing, like only eat potatoes and a multivitamin for two weeks and see how you feel. It probably won't work, but there's a nontrivial chance that it does, and P(working)*reward_of_working - P(not working)*cost_of_not_working seems like it would be decently high for you.
Elizabeth's post on "luck based medicine" also would seem relevant here:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fFY2HeC9i2Tx8FEnK/luck-based-medicine-my-resentful-story-of-becoming-a-medical
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I've dealt with the same issues, and Tara Brach is a great meditation teacher. I have eventually managed to curb the worst of my anxiety but it took many many years of meditation, yoga, therapy, etc etc.
In terms of pharmaceuticals, I was also skeptical but ended up taking Klonopin after a bad stretch. It actually helped quite a bit and now I'm completely off of them.
I think that the healthiest practices are meditation, exercise and therapy. At the end of the day it just takes a lot of work. Anxiety is essentially your brain being habituated to interpreting everything in your environment as a threat, and you have to work to change the way you naturally respond to things. Wish I could give you a stronger recommendation but that's my experience.
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