| I had (have) a similar problem. For me it was a few things: 1. I did not recognize I was stressed, but I was - a lot. One day I bought a smartwatch that tracks stress levels (Garmin Vivosmart) and saw how high it was: 80-90/100 most days. That opened my eyes. You can be stressed and not know it. 2. I manage anxiety. First step was observing when it is there, what exactly it feels like. For me, it often manifests as jaw pain, body aches, tinnitus, tunnel vision, "narrow" thinking etc.. Then strategies to lower anxiety - quit smoking, meditation, more than anything building awareness of what it feels like for you so you can manage it - meditation helped with that. 3. Crystal clear goals, detailed goal-setting, and an acceptance of/commitment to slow and steady progress. Compulsions to read "interesting" stuff came from either a desire to escape the present moment, or idea that I was not reading/learning enough - which was a vague, unreachable goal that feels forever out of reach given the infinite amount of content on the web. 4. Feeds are designed to be addictive - stop it. Just don't do it for a few days and see how much clearer your mind is. And you will probably realize you don't "learn" anything from that kind of unstructured dopamine-seeking - it is more like watching TV all day than learning. Basically i had forgotten what relaxation feels like, to the point where anxiety-driven thinking felt completely normal. It is not. Find ways to reduce anxiety even if you don't think you are anxious and stick with them - nagging thoughts, random pains, tunnel vision kind of thinking are all signs of anxiety. I'm still working on it, but this was a huge revelation to me - the idea that when you are anxious for long enough, you literally forget what calm feels like. Well actually the idea itself doesn't do much for me, but experiencing it.. that changes things. This post is nice too (no affiliation at all): https://medium.com/the-strategic-review/background-ops-2-key... |
This is a very insightful observation.
I have seen this in myself.