I know a few people who seem to always be in negative moods... and when I learn about them, it appears, that basically every waking moment of their lives, there is _some_ form of... signal just being beamed directly into their brain. Whether it's all day long with headphones on playing music, or podcasts, or TV.

It's bonkers to me. I resolve so many of my own issues just... staring out the window, or staring at the ceiling.

I get that people are different, and we all have our different ways of going about things, but I just cannot imagine it is healthy to not let your brain "breathe" a bit sometimes.

I mostly sit with my noise cancelling headphones on, with no sound. And lately, I'm just moving towards not having them on at all when I'm not in meetings.

It's wonderful. There's a reason "silence is golden" after all. I actually still find classical music a bit distracting a lot of times even. A lot of the newer composers especially are particularly discordant.

This is the exact opposite of my experience. As a chronically depressed person, my inner voice is pretty much my enemy. I listen to podcasts to drown it out. I mostly listen to podcasts that soothe me, that I have no need to listen to every word that’s said. This works even when I listen to a podcast with hosts’ banter I enjoy on such a low volume I can’t follow what’s being said, at all. I do this quite often, in fact. I listen to podcasts, when I’m not working, probably 75% of the time. I estimate it’s improved my mood by a similar percentage.

I need to be very tired to just stare out the window. Get fidgety and somehow anxious.

But a motorcycle ride or a nice drive? Even doing the dishes? Now we’re talking! The mind and body are occupied in a mostly autonomus task so the rest of your brain can process and digest. It’s great.

Dare I say I almost enjoy doing chores now.

Another great option for me is boxing. For those 3 minutes in the ring, you are _not_ thinking about anything else. Whether you like it or not, your mind clears and focuses and only the sparring partner exists. It’s great.

You can get that level of focus on a motorcycle, but that gets a little dangerous for my taste. Maybe I should try going to a track.

Sorry to be that guy, but IME the fidgety & anxious feeling is almost always some need in one’s life that is being unmet. If you sit with that feeling it often becomes clear exactly what the source is.

YMMV especially if you’ve experienced some serious trauma.

If you’re interested in doing this, but find it hard to sit it the feelings, consider trying Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which involves investigating the root of your feelings within your mind.

It’s best to do DBT with a professional, but there’s a large community of DIY DBT practitioners out there. [1]

If your unable to investigate the source of some feelings (e.g. because your brain shuts down when you interrogate them) there is a new-ish practice for detangling your thoughts without all the interpersonal unpleasantness of Talk Therapy (that doesn’t mean it won’t be unpleasant in it’s own way).

It’s called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). Again, working with a professional is best, but it’s possible to be successful with a DIY approach. [2]

Disclaimer: I’m not a professional in any form of health, mental or otherwise. I’m just a happy self-administered DBT & EMDR patient :)

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/dbtselfhelp

[2]: https://anxietyreleaseapp.com/

I’m, yea… it is completely clear what the “source” is.

I need to MOVE. I was not made to sit in silence and do nothing.

I was born to move, physically. After a long run, some weights, etc… I can sit and focus or be in silence.

To me the ability to sit in silence is just a test to see if you’re in a settled state.

Nice glad that works for you. My language was vague because the unease can come from a lot of different things. Needing exercise or food, being mad about something that happened, processing loss (of family or a job), wanting to connect or reconnect with someone, having ideas for a project I’d like to get going on are a few examples of things that have cone up for me.

In my experience, sitting with the feelings pretty reliably leads to panic spiraling. I just don't think my brain is as capable of pulling back a level as yours seems to be. And I'm not sure how to change that.

You have to keep going. You must endure and let your brain process, and learn to relax and exist in a non-stimulated state. Facebook and Tik-tok have fried our brains so much that sitting in silence for 30 minutes is painful because we are used to constant dopamine.

Try going on walks, doing guided meditations, leaving your phone in another room and reading a book for 30 minutes. You'll find your brain slowly relax, think more creatively and in a more coherent fashion. It's painful at first, but it's the most important thing you can do.

Not an endorsement, but you could look into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Similar to CBT but a lot of it centers around learning to notice and accept negative feelings without spiraling. Rather than trying to avoid the thoughts, it’s about accepting them and still taking positive _action_ regardless.

Oh from what I've read it's probably just undiagnosed ADD (for me).

FWIW I am diagnosed ADHD (from childhood) and the whole thing that got me to start sitting with the fidgety feeling is the calmness that came out of the first time I sat for 10 minutes felt identical to the effect of stimulant medications for treating my symptoms.

I completely agree with some form of exercise or activity that is not supplemented by audio or anything else. Go for a walk and leave your phone at home. Turn off your car audio. I love to drive with the heater blasting and all the windows down in the winter time. Focus combined with spacial awareness makes me feel very alive.

Running on trails is like that for me - you must focus or you'll have some face time with a rock.

But I also think that just sitting is a more advanced and more rewarding type of meditation. My belief is that it is a skill which can be practiced.

One technique is to go through each body part and relax it. Eventually it happens automatically.

I don't think boxing is really the best sport for brain health.

I gave up the moto when my wife and I started trying for a kid, and this is by far the thing I miss most about it. Instant mental clarity on demand. I bike a lot now but the lower stakes mean it's not quite the same.

Track driving will put you into that mode. It's about 20-25 minutes of pure bliss and focus on your line, braking, throttle control, etc.

Bikers of HN! What do you ride? I have BMW R1200GS.

> I mostly sit with my noise cancelling headphones on, with no sound. And lately, I'm just moving towards not having them on at all when I'm not in meetings.

I find it very difficult to sit in complete silence. It's as if the silence exerts some pressure on me. But I've recently discovered brown noise and it works wonderfully well for me.

It has become my go to sound/noise whenever I'm doing something that requires thinking. This is my favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P48QELwruQs

> I find it very difficult to sit in complete silence.

That's not what I'm suggesting.

What I'm suggesting is, when you drive - just don't have any music on. Just drive.

When you're showering, don't play a podcast - just shower.

When you're doing dishes, just do dishes quietly.

It's not dedicated quiet time. It's "don't fill in all parts of your day with information".

I agree, to an extent.

I find that if I need to be "attentive" then having something going on helps. For me it is podcasts while driving. Having nothing noise my mind tends to wander which isn't always ideal because my focus should still be on the road despite engaging my brain with passive knowledge.

But for the rest of your comments? I agree wholeheartedly. I used to have the headphones in walking dogs, listening to podcasts, but I've stopped doing that and find the time outside far more relaxing, because that is time I should let my mind wander and venture. At work? Music to fill the voids, but I mute it if I'm trying to roll over some sort of problem in my head. Other strategies such as leaving the desk or using physical mediums (writing / sketching problems in notebooks) help too, but that's not really where we're at in this discussion.

Ultimately I think people need to just be aware that how they troubleshoot and relax won't be the same as another's. But it takes discomfort and experimentation to find what works for you too. Try podcasts where you would use music. Try the opposite. Try nothing where you would try something. Find what helps, and always be willing to re-test with new/old atmospheres.

I was in the same boat. I subconsciously reached for ways to distract my mind whenever it didn't have something to occupy itself with.

- When I was doing the dishes, I would immediately put a podcast on

- When I was waiting for my kid's music lesson, I would immediately grab a book to read

- When I was eating, I would always turn the TV on

- When I was sitting on the couch, to supposedly rest, I would put a music record on and I would also reach for my mobile phone to "catch up" or text a friend

- When I lie to bed, I immediately would grab my phone to browse HN

I realized that these were harmful habits that I subconsciously formed as a way to distract my mind from other thoughts that were causing stress and anxiety.

These days I'm more mindful about this and I try to just sit there by myself and just be. Kinda like meditation.

Been there, done that.

- Doing the dishes - podcast

- Walking in the lunch break - audiobook

- Cycling in the park - audiobook

After a couple of months I felt my brain is completely fried from that information overflow.

Now I don't even put my earbuds, unless I'm in a very noisy area and I need to focus on a work task.

I'd say what you describe is an active form of meditation. I do that now when swimming, walking, or simply having a coffee in the morning and looking at the ocean.

Soooo did you come up with good habits to handle the thoughts causing stress and anxiety? Was the change good or bad?

Nothing particularly fancy, just being more mindful and conscious of when I tend to do this, and deliberately stop doing it.

I've been switching back to classical music more and more for this reason. For me it fades into background like white noise. Slightly related, but one of my favorite ways to exercise for many years has been Jiu-Jitsu. It forces presence in the exact moment, which for me triggers a mind flush. When I get done training I often immediately see solutions to problems I had been exploring.

Finally, there is a fairly new book that suggests to stop listening to things at all waking hours, "STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World".

classical music is great! I started with piano sonatas and now able to enjoy piano and violin concerts. Highly recommend Roon/Qobuz combo for streaming classical

People don’t know what they are like at equilibrium, so when something affects them they do not know the source. By constantly filling your self, you cannot be sure of the source. When filling yourself of podcasts, of food, of low-entropy words, of wine, of cheap books, of easy sights, of leisure, of wine, of coffee, etc. — when filling yourself of all these different things, it’s hard to know your literal self, because it’s being fluctuated nearly every second of the day.

It would be interesting to know how much quiet time the brain needs to properly rest throughout the day.

However I feel like this question falls into the "optimise every second of the day" thought pattern which kinda goes against the point.

That’s funny. Still, I think it’s more that the “obvious” optimal (fill up your day with productive tasks) is actually non-optimal, which is an important and useful fact to consider and share.

It likely depends on things that are difficult or impossible to measure like the amount of stress experienced in the past.

Genius CEOs know that, so while they email for 30 minutes and go surf, we grind or get fired. If we didn’t grind we’d build our own solutions.

Corporatism is not a random emergent thing. Occupational psychology goes back 100 years, and behavioral economics almost as long.

It’s all melodrama over the end of literal reality if we don’t burn ourselves out though.

I don't know if it's a purely modern thing but quietness is I think straight up perceived as uncomfortable by a lot of people now. Had a conversation recently with someone saying that they can't have a meal without having something on in the background, and in conversations too people are very hung up about avoiding silence.

it's really underdiscussed how averse people seem to just contemplation.

>it's really underdiscussed how averse people seem to just contemplation.

Another observation I've made is that the more time people spend consuming information, the more they feel compelled to talk. It's as if humans are programmed to share the information they've gathered. I'm certain that in the past, people eagerly listened if you had new information, but these days, everyone is constantly collecting new information. It seems like everyone wants to share/talk, yet no one wants to listen.

> in conversations too people are very hung up about avoiding silence.

"If they don't stop exercising their mouths, their brains start working."

-- Douglas Adams

I'd add cut off browsing news/reddit and scrolling social media. It also overload the brain with garbage.

Agreed, and if you combine silence with physical movement (aka go for a walk or hike) the benefits of both are amplified.

So many brilliant men in history are known for having walking routines. I'm not going so far as to say walking made them brilliant, but I do think it's likely it contributed to them being able to maintain the physical and mental health needed to be able to think deeply and communicate their thoughts to others.

100% agree. I used to have podcasts or an audiobook on to listen to while I was doing 'boring' tasks but I found it was just causing my brain to work overtime and drained me of mental energy so quickly.

Now I just enjoy the sound of silence. Sometimes I may put on some music quietly to drown out another background noise but always something I know well so that my brain knows it and doesn't spend time or energy processing it for the 1000th time. I've found it can be any music providing I know it well enough.

I actually listen to fewer podcasts now because of it but I am much happier about that as I seriously began to worry about how my brain needed constant stimulation.

I was unable to just be still in silence.

I worry a lot of us are just overloading our brains with constant stimulation leading to faster burnout and mental health issues but that is a conversation for another day!

This, 1000%.

If you're always jamming new media into your brain, it's like you're constantly writing to a hard drive without ever giving it time to defragment.

> Stop listening to podcasts. > > Enjoy the quiet.

For me, this translates directly to “close this very tab.“ “Now.“ And I’ll do that, but I’ll hit reply first ;-).

Exactly, i agree. But i also fight with the idea that there might be some extra wisdom if i just keep scrolling a little bit longer. Maybe if i close now I'll miss out on the most important part

> It overloads your brain if it's having to process info during every waking moment.

And many times, it's overloaded with BS by the host. Suprisingly a lot of misinformation comes from many of HN's favorite influencers.

I went through a "productivity" phase where I tried to listen to podcasts every day at 1.5x speed or more to be more efficient... it did not last long.

Yes, 100% this.