Start with the smallest steps possible. Maybe that means opening the assignment and saving it to your computer. Then put it down and walk away. Come back in a little while and take another small step, such as reading over the assignment or making an outline of what you need to do to get it done. Often once you've done something you will often start to feel a lot different than if you've done nothing.

Keep track of how you're feeling. It's okay to feel more anxiety at first because you're doing something instead of nothing. Those feelings tend to subside over time as you take action, but the point is not to reduce your anxiety, the point is that you are making a commitment to do something in your life, to live your life, rather than to remain paralyzed in fear. Your goal is not to get rid of the anxiety but to live the kind of life you want to live.

This is the model for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. A great book on this is "Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life."

Conceptually, they know they just need to put one thing away at a time, but often their emotions kick in first and short circuits rational thought. I help them through this by sitting in the room with them and just calling out 3 things that can easily be put away and tell them to just do those 3 things. Then we will do it again, and again, and again, and ....., until the room is close to being clean and they can finally take care of themselves.

I also point out the phenomenon to them - I call it their "monkey brain" impulse, which I use to describe any impulsive or avoidant behavior. I also use "lizard brain" when they go into a blind rage against their sibling at some perceived slight or injustice, and %kid_name% brain for when rational thought and morality are piloting their actions. The framework seems to work for them, and helps them think about their thoughts (which is a concept I had to introduce to them, they'd literally never thought about doing that - I guess kids don't develop that until later?).

Seems like an excellent skill to practice so early. Love that.

Good parenting in place.

    Start with the smallest steps possible. Maybe 
    that means opening the assignment and saving 
    it to your computer.

Avoidance/procrastination is still an ongoing struggle for me, and I suspect it always will be.

But breaking things down into steps is my best weapon. Nothing comes close.

(Second place is probably "getting good sleep" which has positive benefits for well, just about any challenge your mind faces)

I actually extend this concept to life in general. I make lists of daily tasks. This even includes "getting out of bed", "taking vitamins", etc. Sometimes it's useful to give yourself "credit" for doing all of the little things. Gets you rolling. Sounds silly but it is often effective for me.

I implemented a system of 9+ hours of sleep the night before an exam; this means I'll be in bed an hour and a half (maybe 3 hours) before my usual bed time. This provides a noticeable buff to my speed, accuracy, and recall on test day.

One thing that's helped me is self talk. You should assure yourself that you're the man and that these challenges are easy for you to overcome. Don't be afraid to go over the top with this and when you do it, give yourself a pat on the back before you take the next step.

I had not noticed the pattern of "avoid negative feelings" -> "negative feelings increase over time", and I actually thought problems like my anxiety had gotten better just because I had found more and more elaborate ways to try to avoid feeling it. In fact, it got worse and I became more and more avoidant of things that might trigger it.

Now the anxiety is still there, it still sucks, but I feel it without flinching and carry it with me without getting lost in the stories it tells. And by doing that, I have enough space in my mind to do the things I was avoiding and be more present.

So again, thank you for writing this comment. Know that you have really helped at least one person.

I call it the foot-in-the-door method, it makes wonders.

The other piece of advice I'd give is break tasks down. Write a paper is hard. Open a document is easy. Title the document is easy. Write a thesis is harder than those two but easier than writing an entire paper. Writing the first paragraph based on your thesis statement is easier than writing a paper.

If you have things broken down into steps its much easier to have a clear step by step plan on how to move forward.

I have struggled with anxiety and fear-avoidance for a long time. Probably most of my adult life. It got to the point where I had to find external help in the form of a therapist. She specialises in cognitive behavioural therapy, which helped me take those first couple of steps. I got better after about 12 months of therapy, but felt like there was something missing in the CBT solution to the anxiety problem.

What really put things in a totally different gear was realising that the voice telling you to avoid, to put off, to cower and run from things, is just a voice. That voice feels like _you_, but it's not you. The voice is sometimes correct. Sometimes it's not. A part of CBT is questioning the unproductive thoughts and feelings, which helps, but it doesn't take this idea of "the voice being just a voice" to its conclusion. Just because you have a thought or a feeling does not mean you should take it literally, as the truth.

ACT, which I discovered by accident shortly after my epiphany, gets to the heart of it with defusion (de-fusing the internal chatter from your rational self) and five other core ideas. For me personally, the idea and practise of defusion was a core component in helping me deal with crippling anxiety. It requires work, but it's possible to feel great in the presence of _some_ anxiety and fear. It's possible to look forward to things which would normally make you anxious and avoidant.

Another book recommendation "A Liberated Mind" by Steven Hayes. I suggest reading a book or two and try to internalise these ideas through practise. No HN comment can provide the nuance and context you'll find in a book and through practise.

I'll typically try making a list of the small steps I need to take, though I recognize that for some people seeing that list might make the anxiety worse. But for me it's a tangible step that allows me to cross off items and visualize the progress as I go which ends up reducing my anxiety about the task at hand. I do it for everything from work related projects to general "cleaning up the house" type work.

I found ACT to be a bit like relying on willpower. There were only so many times I was “willing” to move forward with my feelings when my thoughts and feelings are working against the task, before I give in and give up.

They eventually win out.

When I don't start a scheduled task, it just keeps pushing it down further and further. If I procrastinate too long, tasks at the end get moved to tomorrow automatically. Which sucks. Small steps, click start.

It can be also combined with a couple of neat tricks: talking with somebody about it & making a list about it.

1. Regular written self-reflection, i.e., keeping a journal and

2. Re-framing "failures" as learning experiences; forgive yourself

helped me a lot.

The written part was important to me because it forced me to revisit my previous thoughts and reevaluate them in light of what had happened since last time I wrote.

(2) also helped me do things with the mind-set that "failure" wasn't actually failure. The goal was to try and learn from it.

I didn't get around to doing this until after school, but I wish I had. In your situation, I'd try to get myself to do the assignment with a quick pass early on leaving notes for things I wasn't sure about. Take a break, then revisit and revise. Afterwards, write in your journal what worked well and what didn't. Write about what you want to try next time differently if some things come to mind.

Hope you find a solution that works for you. E-mail is in my profile if you want to talk more about what's worked for me.

Before writing anything, I would read the previous entry.

Usually, I'd include a small goal I thought was achievable for the upcoming week.

That allowed me to slowly build up good habits. I'd reflect on how well my attempt over the past week went.

Beside the habit forming, I found value in just reading my thoughts from the past week. It was helpful to recognize negative thoughts that persisted week to week. And I spent time thinking about ways to improve the situation. It was also helpful to recognize desires I had that I wasn't making progress on and translating those into actionable steps.

The _key_ imho is the reviewing. That helps you set yourself up for improving instead of ignoring issues and stagnating.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find a good mental health professional. You'll have to try many before finding a good one. Plus you will procrastinate of course. But you need to persist and make this task your priority. I know the pain you're going through, and nothing should be more important than ending the suffering right now. Once you get better you'll wish you had sought help sooner.

From my research and my experience, there are two effective treatments for anxiety and depression backed by scientific evidence: antidepressants and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

The other comments are well intentionned but most of them are basically asking you to change your mindset and just do it. Obviously, if it was that easy you would have done it already. Anxiety and depression don't allow you to think clearly, that's why it is extremely difficult to get out of it on your own.

When nothing seemed to work, I tried Zembrin as an OTC experiment if it was "just chemistry". It really worked for me, takes a few weeks to work, and it wasn't anything obvious - in fact I didn't think it was working until I forgot to take it for a few days and felt anxiety creeping back in. It got me into the right headspace to tackle the overwhelming amount of stuff life was throwing at me without having to take any more serious drugs which I try to avoid. YMMV and I would completely exhaust all non-chemical options before trying it, and if it doesn't work I'd seek professional help (specifically cognitive behavioural therapy - which you can try without professional guidance too but need a deep understanding of to do)

In the meantime, these observations have helped me in the past:

A) Nobody really cares if you fail, those who love you will still love you if you fail. Everyone is more self-absorbed than it feels. People care when you succeed.

B) Some amount of stress is benefical - don't think you have to eliminate it. Think of it like blood pressure - no pressure and no blood moves through your body and stagnates - too much pressure and your veins will burst - just the right amount of stress keeps you strong and moving. Comfort kills - but so does TOO MUCH stress. There's a sweet spot that's just beyond your comfort zone.

C) Keep a TODO list - be it GTD or whatever. Having everything on paper for me is very calming, otherwise if you have more things to do than your working memory can handle (IE 7-10 things), in other words if you have a pulse in 2021, then it will feel overwhelming because it's literally beyond your minds ability to keep track of.

[edit: removed one observation that wasn't related to OPs situation]

It got mentioned to me by a friend last year, so I decided to give it a go.

It took around a week to 10 days and then I wasn't feeling the pressure as much anymore.

I've since been diagnosed with ADHD and take it to get through a lot of days where I'd otherwise be non-functioning, but for the life of me I don't think I'd be able to do those assignments with any amount of meth in my system.

That might not be a helpful story. I wish I could relate in a closer way, but I don't really connect very well with anxiety related fear, unless it involves speaking a foreign language in front of the class or something. If you're struggling with anxiety in general, I might recommend getting into skateboarding, unironically. There's nothing like eventually pushing yourself to try something many many times and failing in front of other people, often only to have them cheer you on in a uniquely supportive way.

He talks about that the greatest fighters pick their battles very well, and they often get submitted in the gym because they intentionally put themselves in handicapped positions so that they can learn how to get out (and sometimes that doesn't work out, of course). So life situations where stakes are not high should be used to run high-risk experiments so that we can learn from them. He takes about risk taking a lot, and how confidence building is important for high performers. First, you learn how to recover from bad situations. You train this a lot. Then you need to learn and experience that even if you make a mistake you're good enough to recover from it. If you know that you can recover from your mistakes you're suddenly free to take large risks. As an extension: if you're new to a field and you're looking to acquire skills then learn how to recover from bad situations first, so that you can then keep exploring without the fear of getting into bad situations.

Your comment made me realize that every failure i considering it as high stakes...

As for John Danaher, he's seems an interested character. For a while now i want to listen his conversations with Lex Fridman, and also the 3hour long conversation he did with two other martial artists.

I love watching ragged edge hill climb segments or peak performance downhill mountain biking runs, they're this weird blend of composure and moments of recovery, and you can see them pushing through each small mistake fearlessly, as they're so familiar with them.

The cushion is that you didn't apply yourself to the maximum because you procrastinated and ergo it isn't you who failed, but a you who did not apply themselves.

Why do we do it? Out of self preservation. Confronting the fact that the reality does not match our idealized self is a very difficult process as it leaves us vulnerable and exposed. We feel that our lack of skills will be exposed and everyone will see that we are failures.

In reality, there is only one self, you that is choosing not to do what you have to because you are trying to protect a fragile ego.

I don't mean to sound harsh, all humans do it in one way or the other.

But eventually reality catches up to us and forces us to confront our situation. In the expectation you will do as you always did. However, if you condition the future on taking failure as an indicator for growth rather than an indicator of danger, you will be able to overcome the situation.

Take what you fear the most and tame it by actively trying, and instead of thinking you will fail, think and accept that it is an indicator of all the new things you will learn.

NB: Speaking from experience.

PS. Radical acceptance is a powerful tool in getting out of these situations.

This is something that when I was growing up, we learned to deal with through sports. Sports teach kids to confront winning and losing early on and how to better handle their egos.

I wonder if these issues are becoming more common as sports participation has dropped?

I too played sports competitively as a child and that eventually fueled interest in PvP games. It was about proving one's self.

In contrast, when one is limited to just academia/school, they have a poor understanding of where they stack up as they are essentially in a microcosm of reality. I take it that OP is in advanced studies and did well in their prior years. With high probability they did too well in school for their own good and didn't have to learn how to be consistent and do the work.

Again speaking from experience on the latter.

Interesting thought about global leaderboards. I wonder if they are so big, that it's easy to dismiss though. I feel like there is an optimal size in between, sort of like what's happened in sports in the past. As a kid got better, they would get moved to higher levels.

A friend of mine was top 100 in a region with 10 million players, and I could barely get to top 10% without help. Granted my friend is absolutely brilliant and has played competitively in all the games he played (e.g. WoW, League of legends, hearthstone, and so on). I wish he could find something in real life that gave him the same rush as "being one of the best".

The idea of radical honesty is to avoid all forms of "dishonesty" which also includes omission. If you are feeling or experiencing something, you have to accept it and articulate it even that entails becoming vulnerable and losing some of the metaphorical shield that protects you.

In the example above: radical honesty is admitting that we are trying to protect our ego from being punctured by avoiding what is making us uncomfortable.

Radical acceptance calls for the acceptance of the current circumstances, i.e. expressing it is what it is, and trying to make the best of the situation. I can't change the fact that I am not as intelligent as Terrence Tao or Erik Demaine even though our childhoods up to a point were identical. The past can't change because the future wants it, so might as well try to create a future that doesn't want to change the past.

In the example above, radical acceptance for me was accepting that I can't just sit in the class and absorb the material as I did in undergrad, but instead I had to actively work for it to get the same grades.

My first suggestion is to think, "I might fail at this, but I'll be better off if I fail at it today than tomorrow, and I'll be better off if I fail this morning than this afternoon." A failure right now is just a start. You will have time to fix it.

My second suggestion is to remind yourself that the fear is excessive and unhelpful. Don't think, "I deserve to feel this way, because I'm screwing up, and I should feel this way until I get my act together." There's only one reason to value fear: if it pushes you to take the right actions to address your fear. If it doesn't work that way, then the dose is too high to be effective, and you can let go of it without guilt.

Related to this, my third suggestion is to work on the overall level of stress and anxiety in your life. Think about the worst case and remind yourself that you'll cope. If you fail the lab, you'll survive. Lots of successful people failed a lab in school. Whatever else is hard in your life, remind yourself that it's not a disaster: for example, if you don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend and this causes you distress, remind yourself that lots of people your age are hopeless at romance and are happily married ten years later. If you're worried about disappointing your parents, remind yourself that many happy people disappointed their parents when they were young. Use these thoughts to reduce the overall level of stress in your life.

Most tips for dealing with fear and procrastination boil down to finding helpful ways of thinking about a situation and repeating them until they become habit. A systematic way to approach this is called cognitive-behavioral therapy, CBT. It's ideal if you can do this with a professional therapist, but unlike most forms of therapy, if you can't afford a professional to coach you, you can still practice it on your own.

I struggled for years after dropping out with this, and still do to some extent. But came up with a crazy strategy to kind of get myself addicted to completing tasks on my To Do list. I think today I'm probably significantly more productive than the average person, but I never would have got to this level without going through years of pain and life destroying habits.

There were a couple times where I just didn't turn something in, even if it was half done. I'm in my late 30's now and still struggle with motivation. I'll go back and forth between 8-10 hours of heads down coding in a day to maybe 30 minutes. I don't think it's burnout because I honestly can't even tell what kind of day it's going to be until it's half over.

It's aimed at helping graduate students overcome procrastination, but it's actually useful for just about anyone. It's chock full of very practical tips, and Pychyl's main point is that procrastination is not a time management problem, but a problem with managing negative emotions.

So it sounds like it would be right up your alley.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA

But perhaps not that many videos on irony? :-P

2) now, my piece of advice, which worked well to me: read The War of Art from Steven Pressfield. Forget the criticism about his religious tone -- people doing them didn't read past the second part. There's something really interesting in the act of "personalizing" procrastination. It seems it makes it more tangible, approachable, avoidable, I don't know. It was cheap last time I saw, give it a try.

If you are about to fail a class or out of school due to anxiety, go and tell someone.

This happens all the time so there will be standard things they can do about it, routines, process and guidelines etc.

When stressed things can seem epic and scary, which makes it hard to reach out.

Long term:

This sounds like ADHD to me. It might be partially anxiety, depression and other things mixed in. It's hard to tell as they can cause and worsen each other.

Try all the standard advice for stress and procrastination and see what works for you. Do you have a sporty hobby, try doing more of that. Is your diet or sleep schedule crap, sort that out. Read about the physical impacts of stress so you can recognize the feeling and find some method that works to chill you out, whether that's meditation or going for a walk or reading a book. Find stupid tricks that work for your brain (study buddies, pomodoro timers, breaking things down into smaller tasks, starting the task while intentionally not caring if it's perfect or even good just to get going, there's lots of different tricks that work for different people at different times).

She reviews all of the latest and groundbreaking research about anxiety, from older therapy tactics like CBT, to how it is a physical response (eg Body Keeps the Score by van der Kolk). It’s also easy to read (ie not overly academic).

As an aside, one thing that helps me, as others have alluded to, is to “just start” and/or break things down into very small tasks to get small wins. Eg, if you have to write a paper, just open a doc to start.

Also, adopting an approach of being ok with “just good enough” or “anything is better than nothing”. I find I get stuck because I want something to be very high quality from the start, but adopting the strategy of a brain dump or “sh*t first draft”, with the intention of throwing it away, has helped immensely, as I’ve accepted the fact that my first draft will be bad, and it is iteration that makes things good.

Do the bare minimum, but do it, and do it now. Try to collaborate with others, it will help you understand you are on the same level as them and you don't need to turn every lab report to a thesis-like endeavor.

Therapists can be hit or miss, but I think it might help you to talk to someone if that's a possibility. Some times in life you don't have level-headed impartial friends to give you good advice, and imo a good therapist would do just that. Help you see more clearly from a different perspective.

I think a big size of my mental problems are the lack of social and romantic satisfaction. I have social anxiety but i love people. I love going to parties, having interesting conversations, flirting etc. To the extent that some people wondered why i choose to study computer science :P (my second choice is sociology and political science, which i want to study someday).

Therapy & mindfulness has been a huge help for me. It’s helped me be more aware of how I’m feeling, and to take steps when I’m feeling anxious. For example, I’ve got a regular reminder in my Phone to check in with how I’m feeling, to actively think about what I’m avoiding, and to consider what it is I’m afraid of that’s causing me to avoid. If I’m feeling anxious or avoidant, then I do something to help, like try to ”explore” why I’m feeling that way, and to do some mindful breathing / grounding exercises.

You’ve done really well to ask here for advice, being vulnerable and open is a huge first step. I’d recommend seeing a professional therapist or counsellor if you can, especially while you’re studying - your education institution should have some people who can help.

Same here. It took me 7 years. I would usually vomit before every exam.

The horrible thing was that my grades were 98th percentile and my study method was very effective for me. I've never had this problem until the end semester of the first year of University. I don't really know what happened given that that first semester ended perfectly: two exam with a 100% and one with a 93%; such are mental tribulations like anxiety

- just time plus regression to the mean

- talking with a therapist, for a while

- being hit with a completely different enormous life stress, allowing me to say "fuck it" to all other anxieties

While it was ongoing, my coping mechanisms were:

- ditch social interaction in favor of putting myself near the problem for hours at a time with nothing else to do until I made reluctant incremental progress

I do not recommend that coping mechanism for anything except that which you need to literally survive.

When it was very bad, the following was not helpful:

- breaking into small chunks; fear-avoidance can be about starting, but in my case it was literally about producing any results visible to anyone else

That being said both Anxiety and ADHD have the same exact dopamine problem which means that analogues of dopamine and serotonin treat anxiety if it's cause is genetic in nature.

I do not know if the poster has a genetic version of anxiety, however if they do here is what I take for my ADHD that works for anxiety:

L-theanine ashwagandha(its what is in Maca!) L-dopa

and my further twist is to take a tablespoon if raw Cacao powder in mornings as it has two ingredients caffiene and anandamide.

Anandamine is what interacts with CBD receptors, i.e. if you want to get around the TCH in CBD oil this is the way to do it as anandamine obviously is not tested for i the THC tests and there are no addictions associated with anandamine.

Caution, it does not solve the emotional past obstacle you have set up for yourself. to solve that part you have to drastically change your life from consuming to doing in the form of making and creating and communicating. And yes, it is in fact a lot of work. But, I can tell if you make the honest effort towards this life-change you will be rewarded with the amazing stuff you can do once that life-change take hold. IMHO

I call it the ADD-anxiety-depression circle. Can't do what needs to be done -> anxiety about it and just everything -> depression because it's all too much -> can't do what needs to be done -> repeat ad infinitum.

I found that I must fix all three of them at the same time, because any of them can trigger the others very fast.

No anxiety? Skip straight to depression. No depression? Still can't do shit and am always anxious. No ADD (am doing everything)? Things are objectively great yet I feel anxious and depressed. It's a horrible cycle that only gets worse.

* be present, in the moment

* be mindful, of your anxiety, of your surroundings, of your self

* take action based on the above.

Maybe also take a ADHD diagnosis from somewhere like adhdonline.com. It takes an hour or so, longer if you're very introspective about the answers, and then you'll know if there are medical options to help you with this as well.

Treat finding a therapist like dating or considering a friendship with someone. A therapist can be a very good therapist (objectively) but not click with you.

It's okay to say "I'm trying out multiple therapists right now to see who fits best. Can we just do introductions with each other?"

Find someone who you respect, shares some beliefs with you, and generally has a compatible outlook on life.

Perhaps they say they do, but they are always totally full and also really low quality

The biggest problem is it needs to be quite well customized for each user.

I believe talking to anyone/anything helps a lot, and hearing feedback helps even more.

A "personal medical assistant" like that could help manage medication intake, serious episodes, moments when you feel very bad.

I have a prototype for myself, it's just a bunch of cobbled software running on a dedicated smartphone. The voice triggers and replies are prewritten based on my own self-analysis. But I know it all already, so the best part is medication reminders and letting me know what I live for.

However it needs to always be on me, and right now it uses too much custom software to just install on anything. I can't build such an app myself, but it should be possible.

I am single btw, so of course I have no one to talk to.

The therapists I tried were just public ones, so they're more interested in showing up and getting their cut out of the mandatory insurance system.

"We don't take on new clients" or "we only speak German" is a valid reply, and what's a depressed person calling for help gonna do?

Just hang up and give up or best case, call others. It's a shit system.

I gave up on it all and am trying to make/find a "system" that is truly personal, custom, free as in freedom, independent of the gargantuan public and for profit healthcare machines, which are too big to accommodate everyone, plus the disinterest in actual help is obvious in places where insurance is mandatory.

Not knocking on emergency services, surgeons, anyone fixing obvious physical problems, those people are worth it. Mostly mental healthcare, where it's easy for unscrupulous people to fudge numbers and make money for doing nothing.

It's like my hypothyroidism, took me years to get that diagnosis, it's stupid.

But of course, when you say "I'm depressed and I drink a lot', that's not the first thing anyone would think to check for. Or maybe my luck is terrible.

Either way, universal healthcare systems are just huge machines like the justice system, they work for most, but many slip through the cracks and get zero help, being left to self-medicate and self-help, which is hard when said machines gatekeep anything that can actually work.

That's how you get a huge popularity of homeopathy, religion, diets, illegal drugs, and anything desperate people can cling to and believe in.

I hope you can find yourself proper counseling though, I didn't know things were so dismal in Germany (I am assuming you are in Germany based on the contents of you comment).

Facing an insurmountable problem, you won't be able (at least mentally) to work without thinking about how difficult it is, at first sight, and it would systematically increase your fear too.

If you cut your big task into smaller and doable ones, sort & prioritize them, and work on it, one by one only, you would be able to start working on this whole system by little iteration, and fastly see progress. You've just converted an impossible task into a super-doable one ;-)

It is totally natural / normal to feel fear when facing very hard problem (because a reasonable human should not try to face problem he can't solve). Fear of failure is natural too. Just try to simplify your life facing problems, by cutting off in smaller parts. Your brain would appreciate a lot, and you won't follow a fear loop anymore.

This is big part of engineer job to face technical challenge like this one, and find efficient solution. Just make this problem your friend, while monitoring completion time (your real worst enemy)

The only thing that’s ever worked for me is working on things I’m truly interested in, crushing anxiety due to a deadline coming up, and drugs.

Getting adult adhd diagnosis in my late 30s has been life changing.

Make sure your goals are your own and your tasks meet the goals.

They're not the ultimate solution, only useful when I need to focus on something and just do it™, but it's the perfect tool to train my brain.

I can see now why kids are put on Adderall/etc then they stop taking them in adulthood. It always seemed very strange to me, but yeah, they help create habits that will stick for the rest of your life (starting work, focusing, just doing stuff that needs to be done).

The sooner you build them, the better. 30's is a quite late, but I hope not too late.

There are prescribers online. Even with no insurance it’s about $5/day after paying the doctor, counselor, and prescription (using GoodRx coupon)

You must move beyond your shame and guilt that keeps you afraid and alone, and you must have a regular two-way relationship with a community of your peers and betters that you all use to help each other out of these sorts of blocking situations.

You may well fail if you try…alone. But where you’re weak, someone else is strong, and vice versa. Exploit this.

This is extremely hard to do; it’s the only thing that works.

Not OP, but I've had limited success finding others interested in talking about mental health.

I'll second this. Realizing that you aren't alone is a big relief.

* Value 'trying' over 'succeeding'.

* Consider yourself a 'completionist' instead of a 'perfectionist'.

* Do it for someone else. Instead of seeing the assignment as 'something I need to do so that I can pass the class so that I can graduate so that I can get a job', etc, look at it as something you can do that will make someone you care about proud, or as something that will enable you to do things that will benefit people who are important to you.

* Reflect on the observation that 'we don't grow when we're in our comfort zones'.

* See yourself as setting an example for others who are struggling with the same anxiety issues. Strive to make it a positive example.

* Memento mori.

Keep an eye out for specialization and incompatible red flags.

For me it was to work on bettering myself as a person everyday. I basically inverted my life and challenged myself to "act" more than "think".

You can also just accept your quirk as a human and find ways to work around it. Energy/attention management is a real thing, so do keep a note on when you best can knock it out.

Generally speaking just read books on these problems and you'll find things to try every new day in your life and eventually something will change it for the better!

But what you speak of, for my personal experience, is not anxiety.

Anxiety is when I am out and have too much coffee, and I feel like I'm going to pass out because the body feelings are causing me to freak out. Or I got too high and am panicking. It's an overreaction to sensations and experiences that I am unfamiliar with.

What you talk about, that crushing feeling when trying to do work, pure fear and avoidance, is much more in line with what I experience from my depression.

This scenario OP sketches sounds an awful lot like it can be extrapolated to 'no matter whether I try and fail, or don't try and fail, I'll fail anyway. as such, why even try?' which may indeed match the hopelessness associated with depression more, which may itself trigger more acute anxiety when trying anyway.

I definitely agree with your second paragraph. I would actually extrapolate it slightly further and say that it's worth OP asking themselves if they actually simply feel unmotivated, and anxiety is a good way to pin that fact on something tangible or understandable. If my hypothesis that it is a depressive disorder is correct, I think that is quite likely. But that's a question for OP, obviously not one that I can infer.

“The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”

Basically I just start without thinking about it, preferably without realizing it. If I keep giving myself a schedule (I'll start this in an hour, I'll start when the clock hits fifteen past) I'll find ways to justify it. However if I just sorta am watching a youtube video, and midway through I just start on what I need to do, the youtube video ends up background noise and I have started. For me personally keeping momentum is easier then starting so once I've begun I'll keep going.

In the same way you don't think explicitly about putting your right shoe on after you've put your on left, I try to make it so I don't think about turning off the computer during the moments I try to leave the house.

On the short term, it might help understanding what’s going on: your brain’s more animal part is trying to protect you from a perceived danger. That’s actually a good thing, most of the time.

Ways to overcome it: they depend a lot on your personality. Ask people who know you about this. In my case, what works is splitting the task into minimal steps.

For example:

1. Sit down in front of the computer

2. Turn off wifi (avoid distractions)

3. Open text editor

4. Write Essay Title

5. Write Abstract

6. Write Index

…

This works for me because my animal might see Write Essay as a tiger about to eat me, but Write Title is fine. Instinct can be stupid like that sometimes lol.

When you have more time, the book Atomic Habits coul also help you, but that’s more long term.

Also, pages and pages of advice here about anxiety and nobody mentions caffeine? Be aware that many people get a big increase in anxiety from just one small cup of coffee. Try a caffeine-free life for a couple months, if you have never tried it.

Finally, similar to the above advice, try doing some work in the morning before your "procrastination and anxiety" side has even woken up. In other words, roll right out of bed, still half asleep, and slouch over to your desk and do some work on your project.

Good luck!

Realize that if you fail, your life is not going to end.

Internalize that even after you fail, you are not worth less than what you think you are if you succeeded.

EMDR is traditionally used to treat PTSD. You play back memories in your brain with distracting bilateral stimulation and exercises that help reduce anxiety and panic. Over several sets the sympathetic response is dramatically reduced or eliminated.

Even if the underlying issue isn’t a “trauma” with a capital T, chronic anxiety has trauma-like qualities that still seem to respond to EMDR (at least in my experience).

Long term, I found success in changing my association to the stressor. For over twenty years,I used to feel dread and panic anytime I had to write more than two paragraphs. Last year, I decided I would write one page a week about anything. It was for ME this time. After two months, I completely changed my relationship to writing through this process. I also got a lot better at writing.

Add to this that these reward/pain mechanisms in the brain are driven by dopamine. Dopamine is interesting in that the brain synthesizes it, and only a limited amount can be stored. This leads to some time-axis effects that may not be obvious. For example if you perform a reward activity (browsing social media) while procrastinating, now you've burned up your supply of dopamine and have no juice left to perform the main task.

All the solutions are based on the same underlying idea, which is to invoke the brain's "executive functions" to override the lower level lizard brain mechanisms. Meditation for example is (imho) about invoking the brain's garbage collector, such that you train it to act more like G1GC than mark/sweep -- now you have shorter GC pauses throughout the day. CBT/DBT and the like are about training the executive system to maintain more effective control over the limbic system. Clearly Buddhists figured most of this out centuries ago.

I recommend searching for videos by Dr. Tracey Marks and "How to ADHD" then the algorithm will show you other relevant channels/videos.

Edit: forgot to also mention that since this is all run on meat, it is possible there are useful biohacks. Magnesium deficiency for example comes up, as do MCTs and MCFAs, and of course: sugar.

I don't know an easy solution but talking about this to people who listen without giving advice helps a lot. I haven't tried therapy for this but I think it could help too. The most dangerous part is to have this as your embarrassing little secret you can't talk about.

What does that look like?

I'd bet it is some sort of addiction: video games, tv/movies, drugs/alcohol, seeking sex/porn... even just going outside for a lazy walk. The avoidance is almost certainly some kind of self gratification. If you're feeling the fear/anxiety welling up, the habitual pattern is going to be to seek something soothing.

You have to break the connections of those patterns by first seeing the discomfort arising. To do that, you need to realize that you're doing the escaping (seems like you're here). Once you can 'come to' when the discomfort starts arising, then you can practice, slowly and probably badly at first, breaking the habit and taking your power back. Feel the feeling completely as a next step, and just 'be' afraid/anxious. Ride that feeling out and let yourself see that it's just something that happens and that you can be ok with it. Don't beat yourself up if you fail at this. Once you start being ok with negative feelings, they lose their grip over you, and you'll be able to really start to realize your potential.

You have it in you to do great things. Be creating self discipline in your life, you can accomplish more than you've ever thought possible.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160303213253/http://www.spirit...

https://github.com/jay-gates/dailywisdom

Some examples {with comments}:

- Set goals to 'good enough'/iterative development {lower the bar, to avoid a barrier to getting started}

- When you feel overwhelmed, pick ONE THING to focus on, ignore everything else; then when that's done, pick ONE THING.... {don't get overwhelmed by the WHOLE THING, pick one smaller part to focus on}

- Don't 'chain' tasks if it causes the whole chain to be put off; do what you can NOW and worry about the rest later {don't TRY to do the whole thing at once; intentionally break it up into separate, more manageable pieces}

- Use zazen (shikantaza) to overcome 'scattered thoughts' (too many thoughts or anxious thoughts) {resistance to doing things is caused by subconscious mental activity (your "little minds" talking at you in the background); quiet your conscious mind, rather than expending all of your energy "arguing" with them, which is what they "want"}

Hope and Help for your Nerves by Claire Weekes is the single best resource I have found for for learning to cope with Anxiety long term. I come back to it any time I find myself in similar patterns to what you describe.

Self compassion is another key coping tool. Being hard on yourself when you are in this state only makes things worse.

I highly recommend finding a therapist (I prefer ACT but traditional CBT is good too) and/or finding medication that works for you. The process of finding the right medication takes time, and cannot be rushed. Often, finding a Direct Primary Care provider trained in integrative medicine and is able to take the time to work with you as you are finding medication that works for you is a smoother path than going to the first psychiatrist you find on google IMO.

Just remember that everyone struggles like this at some point in their life. It is virtually unavoidable. Try to be kind to yourself in this time as you would a good friend. With patience and the right help, you will get past it.

Then took a test recently, turns out i have Avoidant Personality Disorder. Made a lot of sense, since I struggled with interpersonal relationships - difficulty in getting help from people, more prone to tolerating misbehaviour from other people out of avoidance of conflict, interpreting peoples signs and events naturally in an exaggerated negative fashion thus making me self sabotage etc. I sort of survived through probably because I scraped through when it was dire.

I also suggest taking the Enneagram test. Understanding your personality at both its best and worst can give you insight on how you got there and how to stay or leave there, respectively.

In the short term, try to understand that fear of failure is basically fearing the inevitable, since you will fail at many points in life, but fear will actually increase the probability and impact of failure. At the same time, failure is somewhat meaningless unless it affects your health or life (like failing to free solo a cliff). Time keeps ticking and the "moment of failure" passes without a blip.

I have been taught at times that any done project is a good project, no matter how small. So in many ways, you have got to just jump in and do something, no matter how small. Then those small things will start building on each other. For your assignments, address what you need to get started and then you just gotta do it. Don't let anxiety take over once you do start. You won't finish the assignment in the first minute. It will take time. In the future, start earlier. When you start earlier the repercussions of failure are much smaller, and it doesn't loom over you. You have time, you can ask questions, you can take a break and think about it, you can do hobbies, see friends, etc. As you procrastinate, all these strategies are thrown out the window. Talk to someone. If you're stressed out, ask for help. Speak to the instructor or whoever is managing the assignments or tasks. Don't try to solve every problem (any problem in life) all on your own. To get you going, I'd almost suggest this as your first tactic. Go talk to whoever this assignment is due to and be honest with them. You got started late due to whatever (it doesn't matter) and you're stressed out, but you want to do well and get back ahead of things. Ask for help on getting started. Any reasonable person will respond well to someone telling them they're stressed but want to do what they can to work on what they need to. If they're not helpful, ask a fellow classmate.

And don't underestimate the experience and helpfulness that a psychiatrist and psychologist (therapist) can provide to you. It can be a very effective method to address these things. They are not just for scary psychological disorders, but left unchecked, depression and anxiety can become scary.

Your comment is the only take on failure that spoke to me. For a while I try to find something about failure, but everything I've read-heard didn't spoke to me.

Your comment also made me realize that, at least for me, there are two types of failure: Life/health failure and failure of ego. I live in this state for so long that I cant differentiate the two (with the exception of imminent harm or death)

I would recommend therapy. They'll give you some similar advice as this thread, and also help you implement it, help keep you accountable, and help find if there's a further underlying cause.

Something that I found helped me with the "bigger" manifestations of it, i.e. not a small homework assignment but larger projects in life, is: Stop psychologically evading failure.

That is, the instinct is to try not to think about what happens if you fail, since that's terrible; and maybe trying to convince yourself that you won't fail (and indeed maybe you're unlikely to fail). I say, do the opposite of that. Try to work through that worst-case scenario. This often brings up fears such as "What is my life about if I am unable to do XYZ?" Or "My self-perception is of a 'doer of X'; who am I, as a person, if I don't successfully do X?" If you are willing to face those questions and provide answers which you can conceivably live with, the fear of tackling X may subside somewhat.

Hope that helps.

[0] https://stevenchayes.com/a-liberated-mind/

I did two years of therapy, which helped me better understand and analyse my behaviour, bit not much with the actual anxiety.

My wife then recommended a book to me (Dare: The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks), you can read it for free if you get the Amazon kindle trial.

It basically describes 4 steps to follow whenever you have anxiety/panic, to accept it and in turn calm your nervous system.

It helped me a lot and made me able to cope and live with the problem. So, i can go out again and do things, which still causes me anxiety from time to time, but i can deal with it and move along and actually enjoy whatever i'm doing as soon as the symptoms/negative feelings pass.

For me, I can see when I'm getting into that cycle (e.g. haven't checked my email in a few days) and one way to break it is to use medication. I don't like benzos, but I'm sure they work. Instead, I take a full dose of Benadryl and that can sometimes help me get rid of the anxiety long enough to get through the initial part.

Drinking alcohol works too, but obviously only works when you're at home. Shouting or high intensity dancing to loud music can help.

Basically, just knock yourself out of it just enough to actually start doing the work. Once you start, you'll realize it wasn't so bad.

Just picture Michael Burry having to read this emails in The Big Short during the most stressful scenes.

What helps me is to view everything like a vortex. If I have a paper to write I start on the outer edge of the vortex.

I open a word document, then I go do something else. I come back to it and maybe type the title. Then later I come back and type the outline. I don’t try to do it all at one time, I just tried bite sized incremental improvements. Literally turn on the computer, open word, those type of small things

Then eventually with enough visits, enough small increments of productivity, I’ll fall into the center of the vortex and just do the paper.

Like one of those things you see in the shopping malls in America were you put a quarter in, and it spins around until it gets to the center of the vortex and falls in the hole.

You will be anxious all your life.

Just accept this sad fact and this sad life. You will never be relaxed nore happy.

Why? Because your brain has already developed extremely strong neuronal paths and structures and patterns and overdeveloped organs involved in anxiety that no treatment, nore physical, nore biochemical, nore psychological will be able to change in a positive, pro-relaxation way.

Life is tough and sad for us my friend, and there is no hope for us.

That's why countries should creates juridical ways to judge the parents of the children who were our tortionars, for example. Because they condamned us to a life of anxiety, depression and illnesses.

Sorry.

If it is persistent depression, you are right. I have dysthymia, and have had it since childhood, and there isn't really hope. Those who have remission, almost always relapse after a year. It is something you learn to cope with, rather than treat. We just have to come to terms with the reality of the situation, that in this life we won't experience the joy that other humans do.

What has this got to do with anything? Dysthymia isn't an addiction or "horrible circumstances". It isn't even particularly severe, it's just moderately meh all the time. Most people don't seek treatment because they assume it's just part of their personality: "I'm just a negative person" or "I just don't like making friends" etc.

You don't have a clue what you are talking about. Studies that say that dysthymia remission is 50% define remission as "receiving 'Tools to handle life'". It's about coping, not about treatment.

One who has dysthymia may never have long term responses like a person without it, there is no reason to expect it, and we have very little idea how to treat it long term. The best we can do is improve the person's response to dysthymic feelings.

Just because you recovered from alcoholism doesn't immediately translate to dysthymia. They call it "permanent depression" for a reason.

The good news is that unlike some other clinical PDs, AvPD is fairly amenable to cognitive-behavioral and other forms of treatment.

As others have noted, you might just have garden variety anxiety (which is also treatable), or something related like ADHD. If this is really impacting your life, it's worthwhile getting assessed properly.

For example, I once spend 2 weeks trying to decide on a startup name, for a startup that barely even exists anymore. It's funny now, and I think about that when I'm trying to pick names for things now. But in those 2 weeks it was not funny! I felt terribly guilty during that time.

Try to take it / treat it lightly. Joke about it. I know that's hard to do when you're in the middle of it though.

Keep in mind the point is to actually do the thing. Maybe my way doesn't work as well for and you find something else. I think it's worthwhile to experiment with different ideas here.

But, as the other comments have said, breaking things down into smaller doable things have really helped me at all stages. I.E. focus on getting through one assignment or one problem in the assignment. Break things down as much as possible.

Good luck on your journey and I hope you find success.

One really really good tip I read in one of those books is that the first hour of the day is critical for the rest of the day. This is so true in my experience. So tomorrow morning when you sit down to your tasks - do everything you can to really be at it during the first hour. Don't open social media or f** around. Experience shows if the first hour is good - usually the whole day becomes more productive. If the first hour is shit - usually you will be underperforming throughout the whole day.

You may choose medication to help you with that initial training, you may have a completely different diagnosis.

No one here should diagnose you, because a doctor wouldn't diagnose over the internet.

A helpful book: "Brain Lock" by Jeffrey Schwartz. It's about OCD but in my experience all these things are connected.

Problem here isn't mechanical, there are literally thousands of methods and tricks all over web to overcome procrastination. Its psychological issue.

What I would say is to really think about why you really want to not do the assigments. Is it because you ultimately think benefit of school is overstated. Maybe your passions lie somewhere else at the moment but you are forced to attend school because thats what we were told to do.

Only you can solve this issue.

Not sure why but working full time is WAY easier than school ever was.

You don’t face it all at once. You start small, by facing something head-on where your fear is maybe a 4/10. To give a concrete example: if you’re afraid of studying for a minor test because you might fail, then spend some time acknowledging the fact that yes, you might fail. You might get a lower score than you hoped. You might have to repeat the course. Maybe. Perhaps you write it down on a piece of paper next to your study materials: “I’m going to do a reasonable job studying for this test, but I know there is a chance I could fail. If I fail, then I will have to assess my options at that time. Till then, I’m going to give it a solid effort and see what happens.”

Your fear will rise, but if you stick with it, it will eventually fall. You will know what it feels like to have conquered a fear.

In time, you will learn to have this process be your default coping strategy instead of avoidance. Then, you will not live your life dictated by fear, and in time, your overall anxiety will decrease to a healthy level.

This process works very repeatably for a very wide range of people. But it’s much easier to describe than it is to do. Your brain doesn’t want you to face your fears, because your brain thinks you are in danger. So your anxiety will not go down without a fight. But it’s a fight you can win!

I strongly recommend using a CBT therapist who specializes in anxiety disorders. I would also recommend looking for a therapist who is experienced in treating OCD. I recommend this because the treatment for OCD really works for any anxiety, but the inverse is not true. So seeing a provider with OCD expertise covers your bases.

I suggest you look into Dr. David Burns, the father of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and the first person to seriously document and address this negative self conversation vicious cycle, and how to defeat it.

Great book on the topic: https://www.amazon.com/Alter-Ego-Effect-Identities-Transform...

You can also try to leave it and come back with a new set of mind.

Do something new (and safe), without preparation. E.g. take your phone, go out into the street, let the internet select a new, random song and play it aloud, and dance to it. The more people who see it and the more they are puzzled the better. Also: Allow yourself to enjoy it a little bit.

You will see that you can do anything. You don't need all knowledge in advance and it doesn't matter how others judge it. Write your assignment with that mindset.

For anxiety, I have heard sometimes magnesium deficiency can be a factor.

This helps me to silence the critics in me and to just get on with it.

In my discussion among friends and family, excessive mobile usage has turned out to be the #1 cause for anxiety issues. (especially among self employed people)

Physiological changes brought about by the above can help anxiety, break you out of this cycle. Give it a try

Sometimes before a task (e.g. go for a run and don't think about it at all, then immediately sit down and start after getting home) and sometimes after a task interval (e.g. get to this point, stop, go take a long run and don't think about it at all, or just lightly turn more fun aspects of the problem over in your head).

Running has the nice combination of sunlight + nature + physical exertion + dopamine.

Truly from my experience and discussions with others this is the biggest single change many can make if not already consistently exercising, being active, getting out in nature (especially getting more sunlight to counteract Vitamin D deficiency which affects mood).

Nietzsche had much to say on this topic, the mistaken dualism of mind and body.

Trying to fix fundamental problem with self-reflection and psychbabble misses the point and tragically wastes years upon years.

Personally I note that a combination of antiinflammatory supplements (most importantly high-dose omega-3) and magnesium L-threonate tends to help me noticeably, but my anxiety isn't intrinsic, just work-related stress.

Also sometimes when you procrastinate it's an indication that what you're doing is not really what you want to do, so you might want to consider doing something else that you can be passionate about (not saying that's easy and you talk about assignments, so you probably don't want to drop your degree out of the blue).

When I do that, it sometimes gives me enough inertia to move on to the next step.

Do you want your anxiety and fears to be the author of your story or do YOU want to be the author of your story?

It sounds a little crazy but this small degree of separation can help take you out of the moment and give you back some agency

I can't tell you: "Don't be afraid."

I can't tell you: "Just take the first small step."

I cannot use reason, logic, or statistics to try to convince you that the thing you're afraid of is no reason to be afraid of it.

Deep self-reflection, meditation and/or professional help is all I can suggest, but is even that good advice, given it can be reasoned away as "won't work"?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/653396.Feel_the_Fear_and...

A major, but subtle ADHD symptom, is executive dysfunction. It's like when your willpower fails to start your body in the same way that a car may fail to start its engine. People with this can't start a task even if they desperately want and need to start it.

Anxiety can also cause similar issues. Although, usually I see anxious friends meet deadlines.

Instead, go to a properly educated professional with whatever the title is called in your country, like a "Doctor of Psychology" (someone with a professional doctoral degree in clinical psychology / a title with legal protection to be able to use it.)

It often makes a lot of difference in terms of the result.

What country are you in where such a thing is not always required?

I agree though. For every 100 therapists, I would say that maybe 5 know what they are doing, and maybe even up to 15 or 20 are willingly abusive or cause more damage

"With the exception of some therapeutic professions, the term therapist is unprotected in the Netherlands and Belgium."

This is what helped me, I have suggested this to a friend of mine who was struggling with a lot of avoidance-related issues, and it helped them too.

Talk to a professional to understand which unfulfilled needs you have.

But at the end of the day, once you finish a task, however small, you'll feel better and have more mental energy to deal with the rest.

Also lying in the bed and worrying about what to do is less useful than getting into a more awake posture (sitting at a desk) and dealing with an issue. That said give yourself frequent breaks (reading HN) but cap it so you don't spend all your day reading news.

Don't forget daily exposure to sunlight. It regulates your clock and mood.

Small steps, consistency, and rethinking failures as learning opportunities.

Won't be easy, but we can all make it.

Short Term: Get everything out of your head and into a document or text file. All the things you have to do, all the things you want to do, all your ideas, all the things you're worried about. Stick it into something you can come back too later once you've solved your immediate problems. Then and this is most important, create a reminder or alarm or calendar notification that will remind you to look at that file after the deadline on your assignments is up and you're not so stressed.

You need to clear your mind to focus on your assignments BUT subconsciously your brain won't truly let you concentrate on them until it's sure that you won't forget/ignore them all, that's the point of the reminder.

Medium Term: You've got to take that file you wrote with everything you need to do and get it into tools with a schedule that'll help you manage it.

* Put birthdays and mothers/fathers day, important dates into a calendar like Google Calendar with reminders that give you enough time to address them.

* Put simple weekly drudgery tasks like chores into a todo system like Microsoft ToDo

* Put everything that needs thinking about into a note taking system like roamresearch.com, a task like "Do assignment X" is useless, you need to be able to write down ideas about how to tackle it not just that you have to do it.

Finally, set aside time every day to organise and prioritise what's in your system. The first thing I do every day is check what I need to do in terms of chores and more importantly prioritise what I need to work on, on a given day.

Side Note: Your system will evolve over time, you may throw away and build new ones, that's fine and necessary.

Long Term: "Know Thyself" - Figure out how many hours a day of focused work you can do, don't be surprised if this number is lower than you expect, 4 hours per day of focused hard mental work is the maximum for a lot of people. The better you know yourself, the easier it becomes to prioritise and do work. You'll set yourself more realistic tasks and goals, it'll be less stressful.

Figure out what time of day you work best, what schedule suits you best. The more you understand yourself, what you like, what you dislike the easier your entire life will become.

Beyond that, understand your motivations, your strengths and weaknesses, look at failure if it comes as helpful instruction in learning those things.

What got me over this cycle was to seriously see how bad it can get.

I mean, really, now the fear has been reset to normal. I'm afraid of the consequences far more than the activity.

1.Learn from the best. There are people around you that probably has not this problem and can do the work. Study what they do and feel. Just ask them what they do and observe. They will have a different personality that you have, but it will be very useful anyway.

2. Keep a journal and write it down what you feel and why you feel something. This requires practice, you get better over time and will know thyself much better.

3. Read(or hear) books like: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Now-Habit-Audiobook/B002V8L1E...

And follow the mantra that is there to eliminate thoughts about the past and about the future every time you start working. Again you improve over time and you won't need it after a while as it will become automatic.

4. Write Check lists with your work todos (roadmap) and follow them so you can split your thinking on "deciding what to do" and then "doing it" and not thinking at all after the decisions were made.

5.Use relaxing music that you enjoy so it pushes you up continuously while whatever you hate pushes you down. I use "Satie" music for hours.

6. Take breaks and vacations. Sleep and eat well. See your friends and family. I take 10 minutes off every 50 min of hard work.

7. Monitor and record your effort level. You can expect someone to walk for 8 hours a day, but no human being can run for 8 hours a day, most of them can't even run for 1 hour. People understand that but do not understand that with mental processes it is the same.

Running is inefficient when you could walk. For making your effort level go down you can use tools(think on a bicycle that lets you run without effort, a car or a plane) or delegate to people/companies that specialize in your big effort task way cheaper that what it cost you.

8. Make things smaller in your checklist so you always progress and have positive feedback. Celebrate everything you check.

9. Understand that some times pain is unavoidable, but usually it comes at the start of the task. Usually the reward comes at the end. If you get used to complete things, you get used to the reward and you train your body that completing new things is enjoyable.

On the other hand, if you are used to not complete things you are only used to the pain, and you have trained your body to learn that doing the work is painful. You probably even try to punish yourself more into doing something, so your emotional "gut" associates, links or anchors doing tasks with pain.

Using music/engaging speeches to help change your emotions will help you to feel better and more positive about the work.

Unwinding Anxiety by psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Jud Brewer MD PhD — Dr. Brewer’s other successes include designed leading programs (highest success rate) for both quitting smoking and weight management. These programs succeed by making explicit the emotional landscapes driving counterproductive habits. The book unwinding anxiety does the same for anxiety.

Do the assignment and fail it, then you'll see what the real outcome is

One good advice is that you are paralyzed because you fear what is before you. You don't know how to manage it, and your instinct to facing danger is "don't move". What you have to do is to think about the danger of not moving, and the cost associated. You use one fear to mitigate the other.

There is also something that I can't really explain about changing your vision and "Take responsibility for your life. Accept the burden that come with it".

Part of the solution is to just sit-down. Like with time in the office of 8 am to 5 pm, just get into the habit of sitting down and just reduce distractions that way. Like even if nothing is done in the 8 am to 5 pm timeframe, just not playing video games or watching a movie is already a big step in the right direction.

Like an office helps the body to get to do intellectual stuff, like laying in bed helps the body to fall asleep. That's the same idea, sitting down in 8 am to 5 pm period and just not being allowed to watch videos or play video games, helps the body get used to doing intellectual work.

For practical advice, the student probably can just spend-time in the library even if just sitting in the library.

I’ve struggled with this as well and only doing things that interest me helped. Over time those things were profitable enough; took a long time to find.

good luck and hang in there

Alan Watts' speeches on youtube might help with anxiety.

good luck

Today i went for a 30minute walk after i woke up (A while i go i used to run everyday and i want to start again. That's why i walked today), then i finished a chapter from Le guin's "The dispossessed". Watched a movie and always thinking about the assignments :P

Insickness in this thread also pointed this out: start with the smallest step.

And when it comes to fear: become braver. What helped me a lot was to accept fear.

State of mind

- First remember that anxiety is normal and debilitating. There's nothing inherently wrong, sometimes it's just a culmination of different things.

- Anxiety comes in peaks usually matching particular stressors like workload or difficulty in coping with work. It might seem in that peak that everything is wrong, but it usually isn't and you'll be clearer of mind soon.

> Many are the things that have caused terror during the night and been turned into matters of laughter with the coming of daylight. Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

- Anxiety creates a vicious cycle of guilt. Break that by giving yourself time and space to be better. An afternoon or morning away is better than a week feeling like shit.

> “If there is no solution to the problem then don't waste time worrying about it. If there is a solution to the problem then don't waste time worrying about it.” - Dalai Lama XIV

Writing down

- Because of the Zeigarnik effect, the mind finds closure in things that are written down. It's a good exercise to write all the tasks that clobber our mind.

Plan it

- We have anxiety, which tends to lead to procrastination, when workload is high or tasks are difficult. So it's important to divide and conquer. Break down large tasks into small ones that we can do easily

- As much as possible, address small things that you can do. You build momentum on winning small tasks. Identify small things that you can do to win. Winning creates a virtuous circle of serotonin which builds momentum.

- As soon as there is a plan, our mind anchors to that plan as a way to relax.

Exercise

- Seratonin has anxiolitic properties that help to counter anxiety.

- Resistance training (anaerobic), with low-to moderate intensity, seems to offer a reliable and robust decrease in anxiety: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4090891/

- Aerobic treadmill exercise training appear to contribute to Serotonin levels https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11064-009-0066-x

- Go outside in the morning to get natural light. It sets your circadian rhythm for the day. You can combine this practice with a short jog, bike ride, or walk. Lateral eye movement caused by self-propelled motion is shown to reduce stress. Your eyes scan the environment in front of you from side to side. This triggers a process that tells your brain there are no imminent threats ahead of you, causing a calming effect that will help you break free from stress-induced tunnel vision. (Andrew Huberman, Ph.D., a professor at Stanford)

Sleep

- Sleeping affects mood. Sleeping 8 hours, if possible, is critical

Food

- Heavy processed and junk food also affect the body leaving us clunky and unmotivated. Important to regulate

- Healthy homemade food is the best course of action. If possible, cooked by yourself, as the action of cooking food is rewarding by itself.

Reading

- In an anxiety peak, it's difficult to focus and to be productive. Reading is an activity that is beneficial to reduce stress even if forced.

Expectations

- People sometimes accumulate expectations from others. Insecurity can lead to accumulate these to a point where it's not possible to deliver work. One must be effective in managing these expectations.

- Create boundaries. In an anxiety peak: Remove news, email, twitter and slack from daily consumption; Remove screens from start and end of the day. -> - Smartphones reduce available cognitive capacity and lead to Survivorship bias; Force to say 'no' to things

Granny's Rule

- Grannys rule - eat your carrots first This means that you should have things that you look forward to doing. What brings you joy? What do you feel like doing? Aim to include that in your plan and have that as your reward!

1. Breathe. Panic attacks for me require deep breaths, drinking a bottle of water, drinking a cup of tea/coffee, or other familiar comforting experiences. Buzzword to Google here is «parasympsthetic nervous system».

2. Reflect. Reflection confronts is with truth. The fact that you are asking us proves that you know that the truth is, these fears do not define you, they are not anchored in sober reality. I sometimes do long-form reflections like journaling but usually this is a short-form reflection. I come from the Christian tradition so the easiest one for me is «I am a child of God.» I will repeat that to myself, gradually creating space between the repetitions to reflect on it. “I am a child of God, my worth is not defined by [my parents/this class/my next performance review/my wife/whatever]. I am a child of God…” But some will instead do «five whys» reflection or «om Tare tuttare ture svaha» or I used to, as an atheist, recite my Five Commitments to give myself space to reflect on reality and my distance from the current situation.

3. Get information. «Information can only help, not hurt.» So I might dread looking at my bank account balance for example. It's important that I remind myself that this is kind of silly. The balance is not going to be magically higher just because I'm not looking at it. The balance is whatever it is right now, my monkey brain needs explicit reminders, “If it's bad, then knowing how bad it is won't make it worse.” I might find out that there is less to do than I fear, or my fears might be confirmed but I will know more so as to plan accordingly.

4. Mental offloading. What do I do with that information, do I sit on it? Allow it to marinate my head? If it is actionable, like what to do on a project, «I better write it down!» Every moment some new obstacle arises, write it down somewhere. Google's “Keep Notes” works for me. Writing allows us to extend our brain, give it an extra heap of virtual memory. A phone alarm gives us a coprocessor: I will set alarms to remind myself to get the baby to sleep, to re-park the car for street sweeping days, to take out the trash on trash days, even to take medicines, religious upkeep, or practice guitar. Another powerful tool is the checklist, you might want an alarm that tells you to go through a checklist of housecare activities, or you might have a morning checklist, or you might have a shopping list. “Get it out of my head!”. It is clutter! Offload any mental task you can.

5. Get your foot in the door. When we were growing up we would shut our brothers out of the room, close and lock the door, but if they saw us doing it, they could put their foot or a shoe or something else in there, we could not get it out without relaxing the pressure. «I just need a little opening.» Find the smallest task you can possibly start on in this project. You do not need to parcel the whole project into small tasks, (but if your brain works that way then more power to you). But my way is just to peel off a tiny chunk and work on that. The great part is that I know I'm tricking my brain and somehow my brain still lets me trick it. I know that once I'm doing that small thing, I will discover that this can't happen until something else happens, and I will go work on that other thing, and give me 15 minutes and I will suddenly be in a flow state handling the entire project, I can't help myself. But when I'm outside the project it seems like too much. But when I'm inside, time flies. «Getting Things Done» calls this a “next action”.

To those five pieces of advice, I will add two more that have to do with different situations than you have asked about, but they often coöccur for me with the situations that you are describing.

6. Clear the buffers first. The previous step is not terribly helpful in figuring out how to start on a hairball. If you have ever dealt with an extremely messy room… Oh have I lived in some messy places! Here is my first lesson: «Always start by identifying & clearing the stashes.» What is a stash/buffer/queue? It is any place where you put things with the intent of bulk processing them later. Laundry hamper (to wash later), dryer (to fold later), sink (dishes to wash later), dishwasher (to put away), trash bins (to take out later). Because sometimes tasks really are bigger than the time you have right now to devote to them, and you need to take the step which has the most leverage. Well, if you don't empty out this trash can then you have a buffer overflow situation for trash, it starts to appear on countertops or floors or desks because you don't have space in the trash and you don't have time to figure it out. You don't have space to put dirty dishes because the counter is full of dirty dishes. [You can also stash tasks!! But you have to make your stash clearable which requires a different sense of what a task is. “Schedule time for X” rather than X itself. Remember, it's only a sash if you use it for bulk-processing.]

7. Then, try to minimalize. Marie Kondo’s bestseller attacks mess from an almost anti-Christian perspective, “what would it look like if you really loved your stuff with all your heart”? Powerful materialism. The surprising thing is that it comes to the same place that a Christian would, because they are both careful to center Love. If you really love each thing that you own, then you will know it by name, it will have a beloved place in your drawers where it lives and belongs and can thrive, and whenever you pick it up it will be something that you can take joy in, much as you would take joy in interactions with your children or spouse. Well, not everything is like that, sometimes you don't take pleasure or joy in having a plunger, but you need a plunger just in case your toilet gets stopped up. «Give up all you neither need nor want.» Be honest with yourself about, will I use this in the next 6 months? 1 year? Do I need this for emergencies? My parents miseducated me: that's a “perfectly good ” such-and-so, I can't throw that out! Do I want it, in the sense of does it give me pleasure and joy just by being in my life, whenever my eyes dance upon it—and if it's not, then, does it fill a legitimate need for which prudence demands I keep it anyway. This is also true our emotional damage, but that would take a lot more to get into.

I'm pretty sure this anxiety/avoidance pattern that I manage to some extent has in the past cost me years because I know it has delayed my engaging with the things I need to do to move forward. I love working, thinking, reading, prioritizing, but I do think I have trouble regulating my emotions in certain situations more than other people I know.

My limited advice since I haven't figured it out: 1. Some amount of therapy. I have done some CBT. Lately I have been reading a bit about ACT, seems related to this specific problem more so than CBT. It is ok to have bad feelings sometimes, they pass, don't worry about worrying. (Easier said than done.) This is an ongoing process and can help you think through patterns like this. 2. I find that sometimes too much thinking early on can make things worse, and things are done faster if you don't think too much before jumping up on something. 3. Focusmate.com: you tell someone what you'll work on for the next 30 mins, and you do it. Somehow having someone else there that you're accountable to, as well as who doesn't know you, makes some of the emotions recede for me a bit, enough for me to get started somehow. 4. Articulate to yourself, as if you were explaining to someone else, what makes the thing hard. Sometimes I feel calmer after this. 5. Reframe the situation: maybe you can find some other situations where you are successful against this pattern and try to remember them. Can you make the same happen here even in a small way? Can you fight back a bit? Short term stress is not that harmful to you and you may want to see it positively, see some positive properties of it in your work. Eg. sometimes when things are quite critical I somehow manage to break from the avoidance and do something. 5. Perfectionism is an enemy, and guilt follows. I find guilt over previous avoidance is a secondary effect that makes things even worse. Eg. when I finally get to something I have avoided, I feel guilt over how much time I avoided it and how it really isn't so bad. Checking your own patterns may help you realize this is a familiar pattern and just that. 6. Work with other people or run your thoughts through other people. This is not always possible, I'm a PhD student so it is especially hard to do this (your work is ultimately your own and no one will drive it forward but you, but you can try running your thoughts through someone else), but I find in a team (even just 2 people) I find myself very mindful of not imposing any of my perfectionistic tendencies on the people I work with. This in turn helps me regulate them more. 7. Get good sleep. It helps me be able to step away from myself and think of myself more in the third person than when I don't sleep enough. 8. Get some exercise. I find it is helpful in breaking through some of the rumination/avoidance cycles. 9. Share some of these emotions/situations with other people (what I'm doing right now ;)). It is easy to also start avoiding people in these anxiety/avoidance loops, I certainly feel that impulse, but you may find other people can relate and even have some advice. If your feelings can change this way you may be able to get some work done.

The reason I ask/suggest is that when water fasting (which isn't starvation mode, starvation mode happens when you're regularly enough eating calories keeping your digestive system going - but not enough to actually provide your body with what it needs) is that when fasting your body 1) burns more calories so you'll have more energy available (to your body and brain) than if eating food, and 2) your body produces more adrenaline - so you have more mental energy too.

I wonder if this relatively simple/quick "hack" could give you an experience that may help you have the mental energy, and get rid of brain fog that some foods you eat may also be causing you, to see if this shakes things up enough where your focus and therefore concentration sharpens?

Start out with 24 hours while drinking a ton of water, and based on seeing how you feel - see if you can make it to 3 days (72 hours); starting at 7pm means at 7am you're already at 12 hours, and 7pm next day already 1 of 3 days done; you have to drink a surprising amount of water, I usually stop at 4pm so I'm not having to get up in the night. I recommend weighing yourself each morning and logging it just to have some numbers to passively start developing a more thorough understanding of how your body works in relation to food.

Perhaps it sounds too simple, too good to be true, but I have had this experience and others too.

Here's a 30 minute video by Dr. Jason Fung explaining by water fasting is good, healthy, and safe for us (arguably unless you're underweight and don't have fat reserves to burn): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIuj-oMN-Fk - Dr. Jason Fung - 'Therapeutic Fasting - Solving the Two-Compartment Problem'

Certain foods can also cause a person anxiety and/or AHDH and/or other, and so by water fasting you may also be giving yourself a break from those - and then when you're re-introducing foods when you break your fast (first food) then you can see how it makes you feel immediately after or hours after; a chicken-egg problem, what came first: the procrastination or perhaps the anxiety-ADHD from how food is disrupting your brain?

The having a "clean" system for after 3 days of water fasting and then adding food that causes stress will be a dramatic contrast, so you'll more than likely be able to notice if a food you eat causes discomfort - which then shouldn't be dismissed as unimportant or "it'll go away."

Happy to offer more guidance if you'd like, e.g. foods to break your fast with, diagnostics you can to to give you concrete evidence of foods to stop eating and perhaps other GI tract care you need, etc.

The nice thing with what I'm suggesting with water fasting is this is "all your doing" is focusing on is drinking water. You're not being asked to try some new technique, etc - which your executive function is clearly not working how you want, so even trying to implement any new techniques requiring much thought or focus will potentially stress you out more - especially if you're using your exhausted mind needing to think even more.

And then just by only drinking water for up to 3 days the psychological and behaviour changes will happen on their own - if your focus sharpens, a brain fog lifts, you have more mental clarity - then you may find that you inherently can get more done without stressing; even 24 hours you may gain some clarity, 36 hours even better, 48 hours even better, 72 hours is when more benefit kicks in though.

Best case scenario is that water fasting breaks a pattern or cycle you've been stuck in.

Worst case scenario you try only once and you stop - while saving a bit of money from not eating; you can do 24 hours first, eat, then a few days later try for 36 or 48 hours, and then progress as you feel comfortable - as it's all about feeling and checking in with yourself, not forcing yourself - as part of a non-violence practice.

It can also be an ideal time to learn or try things in the past that you tried but perhaps didn't work - like breathing exercises, meditation, yoga - any practice that is part of emotional regulation to manage and quell/process stress you may be feeling.

When the fear pattern arises again, realize as quickly as possible that it has come back. Stop it, i.e., do not walk down a road in imagination related to the fears, imagining painful outcomes or whatever. In other words, gently stop the thought and drop it. Relax tension in the body, especially in the head. Smile. And bring up the wholesome feeling, however is appropriate for you. This dampens the fear echo. Each time you do these steps, you are taking energy away from this habit of your brain. Every time you do it correctly, you're taking a step toward not being bothered by this concern.

This technique will work, but please just try it and try to do it diligently, giving it provisional belief. In the meantime, try to do your assignments, watching for your fear to decrease.

* This message pre-censored by HN, allegedly to preserve curiosity.

There are a million ways that people have gotten through these kinds of issues, because there are a million people, and each person needed something different. Either you can risk failing to find your "thing" that will get you through, or you can enlist the help of someone who's trained in helping people like you.

It'd be like trying to operate on yourself; you'd never think to do it, so why do you think you'd be able to self-treat your behavioral injury?

Google it for yourself...as with anything "woo", there's both positive and negative comments out there. But for me, it was the right thing at the right time, and it's inspired me to take action in very meaningful ways.