Small update in favor of writing being good for my mental health.
You know that sound your computer makes when the CPU is really active? The fan kicks on to cool it down. My girlfriend says that she can see this happening to me when my mind is running.
And my mind runs a lot. All of the comments I’ve made here are examples of threads that run in my head throughout the day.
It’s pretty unpleasant. I have to think more about why exactly that is, but part of it is a) that I feel like the threads are “running away from me” and I need to “catch them”, and b) because they constantly pop up and interrupt what I was previously doing or thinking about. Maybe a better way to describe it would be to call it “cognitive hyperventilating”.
Writing them all out here is helping me a little bit. But a) it’s only a little bit, and b) I already knew this from the time I’ve spent journaling. So the new evidence I have only allows for a small update. It would be wrong to rehash the previous/historical evidence I have and update on it again (I recall Eliezer writing about this at some point).
If anyone has had similar experiences or has any advice, I’d love to hear it.
Small update in favor of writing being good for my mental health.
You know that sound your computer makes when the CPU is really active? The fan kicks on to cool it down. My girlfriend says that she can see this happening to me when my mind is running.
And my mind runs a lot. All of the comments I’ve made here are examples of threads that run in my head throughout the day.
It’s pretty unpleasant. I have to think more about why exactly that is, but part of it is a) that I feel like the threads are “running away from me” and I need to “catch them”, and b) because they constantly pop up and interrupt what I was previously doing or thinking about. Maybe a better way to describe it would be to call it “cognitive hyperventilating”.
Writing them all out here is helping me a little bit. But a) it’s only a little bit, and b) I already knew this from the time I’ve spent journaling. So the new evidence I have only allows for a small update. It would be wrong to rehash the previous/historical evidence I have and update on it again (I recall Eliezer writing about this at some point).
If anyone has had similar experiences or has any advice, I’d love to hear it.
As far as I understand it, to have your awareness buffer not filled by your mind running you need to fill it with something else.
Meditation is a way to learn to fill your attention with what you perceive. Various physical activity also fills awareness buffer.