Great post! Let me just add a few observations that I’ve made myself doing mood swings and depressive and hypomanic states:
There seems to be a close link between energy levels, belief in ones ability to achieve ones goals, and confidence.
The feeling of energy gives us the idea that we can deal with the problems which are troubling us, and we always extrapolate our current state into the entire future we imagine, so as long as we have energy, everything will be alright. But if you think about your future at night when you’re exhausted and low-energy, projecting this state into the future, you might start to doubt your ability to deal with the future and achieve your goals.
The feeling of energy is very close to self-esteem. I used to have mood swings, so it became very apparent to me how my levels of energy and my belief in myself changed together. As my subjective evaluation of myself changed, as would my evaluation of all problems and challenges. What seemed like impossible challenges would warp into trivial problems, as if my evaluation of my own ability was inversely proportional to my evaluation of challenges. A last thing which seemed to scale was the exploration vs exploitation axis. At the depressive extreme, any minor risk would worry me. At the manic extreme, gambling seemed like a fun idea, and I somehow always believed that the outcome would be in my favor (and if it wasn’t, so what? Any loss felt insignificant)
This momentum towards better states (and the feeling of growth) seems like a core part of human nature. I’m even somewhat confident that confidence is the ratio between perceived victory and perceived defeat, with memories of both serving as “evidence” that the brain uses. So why does confidence change over the course of a day? Perhaps it’s due to state-dependent learning, and because the evaluation of the evidence depends on your current state. I also think that the feeling of “getting stuck” is a lack of momentum, and that depression is “learning” that all strategies available to you are no good.
There seems to be a close link between energy levels, belief in ones ability to achieve ones goals, and confidence.
It seems to me like this might be tangled up in the whole thing where (IIRC) the feeling of tiredness/fatigue/”whole-body burn” during exercise is generally not because your muscles really are giving out or you’re about to damage yourself, but because your brain doesn’t think that the risk of harm and very certain tiredness and vulnerability are worth it. It even points towards why depressed people (among others) tend not to enjoy exercise as much and often give up earlier or do less, even if they benefit from it just as much.
Great post! Let me just add a few observations that I’ve made myself doing mood swings and depressive and hypomanic states:
There seems to be a close link between energy levels, belief in ones ability to achieve ones goals, and confidence.
The feeling of energy gives us the idea that we can deal with the problems which are troubling us, and we always extrapolate our current state into the entire future we imagine, so as long as we have energy, everything will be alright. But if you think about your future at night when you’re exhausted and low-energy, projecting this state into the future, you might start to doubt your ability to deal with the future and achieve your goals.
The feeling of energy is very close to self-esteem. I used to have mood swings, so it became very apparent to me how my levels of energy and my belief in myself changed together. As my subjective evaluation of myself changed, as would my evaluation of all problems and challenges. What seemed like impossible challenges would warp into trivial problems, as if my evaluation of my own ability was inversely proportional to my evaluation of challenges. A last thing which seemed to scale was the exploration vs exploitation axis. At the depressive extreme, any minor risk would worry me. At the manic extreme, gambling seemed like a fun idea, and I somehow always believed that the outcome would be in my favor (and if it wasn’t, so what? Any loss felt insignificant)
This momentum towards better states (and the feeling of growth) seems like a core part of human nature. I’m even somewhat confident that confidence is the ratio between perceived victory and perceived defeat, with memories of both serving as “evidence” that the brain uses. So why does confidence change over the course of a day? Perhaps it’s due to state-dependent learning, and because the evaluation of the evidence depends on your current state. I also think that the feeling of “getting stuck” is a lack of momentum, and that depression is “learning” that all strategies available to you are no good.
It seems to me like this might be tangled up in the whole thing where (IIRC) the feeling of tiredness/fatigue/”whole-body burn” during exercise is generally not because your muscles really are giving out or you’re about to damage yourself, but because your brain doesn’t think that the risk of harm and very certain tiredness and vulnerability are worth it. It even points towards why depressed people (among others) tend not to enjoy exercise as much and often give up earlier or do less, even if they benefit from it just as much.