[gonehome]

> Developing a habit of recognizing thoughts as distinct from reality has been shown to reduce anxiety. For more information on this approach see here.

I think this helps with catastrophic thinking (i.e. "I'll never pass another technical interview if I quit my job -> My girlfriend will leave me -> I'll run out of money -> I'll be on the street" etc.), verbalizing this kind of thing can help show that often the extreme worst case thinking seems a little more ridiculous out loud.

It also helps to imagine a friend thinking these things and what you would say or point out to them.

I suspect that a lot of anxiety comes from too actively predicting future negative outcomes along with too much uncertainty, as you get more comfortable with things anxiety tends to go down. The problem with growing a company is if you're successful you'll never get comfortable because things are always changing and scaling up (like mentioned in the article).

I've also found it personally helpful to reframe failure as 'learning experience' and now you know more of what works and what doesn't (rather than a direct evaluation of some fixed ability), this helps embrace failure and growth without constantly doubting yourself or thinking that you may just not have the capacity to do what you want.

Sometimes it can be hard to zero in on the anxiety cause though - it took me a while to realize that one of the reasons I didn't want to go to the city (SF) is that I was afraid I wouldn't find parking, along with just generally more uncertainty in a crowded/busy place. Sounds ridiculous, but high base anxiety can make pushing yourself out of local maxima to do things you want a constant vigilant effort. The easy thing to do is rationalize why the status quo is better or why the status quo is actually what you want. I think a lot of people do this without realizing anxiety is a partial driver of those decisions.

[pritovido]

Anxiety has a lot to do with Uncertainty.

Kirk Douglas recently died. One of the things he said it that he did not fear poverty, loosing all his wealth, because he was raised in poverty as a child.

He probably was happy in lots of ways, even being poor.

One of the things I love to do is going out and living in a cavin in the woods with all the inconvenience it brings you. No computer, no phone,alone, wild animals, very simple food and you could die from simple things, like running off a hillside.

This makes you feel alive like nothing else, makes you feel gratitude for what you have(your family, your work, your computers, your car) and also gives you psychological safety, that whatever happens you can deal with it.

It was a known technique by Seneca, 2000 years ago.

[derefr]

> I've also found it personally helpful to reframe failure as 'learning experience' and now you know more of what works and what doesn't (rather than a direct evaluation of some fixed ability), this helps embrace failure and growth without constantly doubting yourself or thinking that you may just not have the capacity to do what you want.

In fact, you can go further, and aim to fail. (Not in the sense of sabotaging yourself, but in the sense of doing things you're pretty sure are above your skill level, in the knowledge that you're unlikely to succeed at them, but are likely to learn from them.) Go in with the goal of learning as much as possible from the experience; and if you actually succeed, well, that's a pure bonus.

This is what Rejection Therapy is about, but it's also the basis of scientific positivism: you aim to prove the null hypothesis ("there is nothing interesting going on here.") Then you either succeed at proving that—and learning more about what hypotheses are worth making—or you fail to prove the null hypothesis, and instead discover some entirely-novel piece of knowledge about the world.

[jborichevskiy]

> I suspect that a lot of anxiety comes from too actively predicting future negative outcomes along with too much uncertainty, as you get more comfortable with things anxiety tends to go down

Well put. I've found this applies to most things in life: relationships, moving cities, switching jobs. I feel over the past year or so I've gotten better at identifying that thought spiral and stopping it before it consumes me (usually). Therapy and journaling have been most helpful here.

[RikNieu]

> verbalizing this kind of thing can help show that often the extreme worst case thinking seems a little more ridiculous out loud.

None of those examples you've mentioned sound in any way ridiculous to me. I've had two of those happen and one very close to.

An approach that seems to be working for me lately is to simply try and accept the (realistic )worst case outcomes as a very real possibility, try to accept it as-is, but without piling on further mental agony with value judgements.

"Yes, XYZ can and probably will happen, but I will survive it. If I don't, I wouldn't need to worry about it anymore anyway."

[phnofive]

> I suspect that a lot of anxiety comes from too actively predicting future negative outcomes

Is this not the definition of anxiety?

[Sophistifunk]

No really, there is also a physical response, and the actual emotional state of being anxious. You can feel anxious without knowing why.