Sunstream @ Sunstream @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

I'll give you a piece of advice that's been very valuable to me, especially in the case of getting injections, which is always difficult for me. In the lead up to a local anaesthetic, and during, take a short-to-normal inhale through your nose (depending on your lung tolerance) and do a loooong, extended exhale, as long as you can extend it without needing to take too big a gulp afterwards. When you exhale, this pushes your diaphragm up into your heart, slowing your heart rate down and significantly decreasing the physical effects of anxiety.

It works very, very quickly, and if you do it for up to 5 minutes, the heartrate lowering effect can last several hours. Doing it regularly (5-10 minutes a day) has long term positive effects for your overall cardiovascular health, too.

I've never been one for meditation, but practices like that have probably been helpful to so many people because it naturally takes advantage of the relationship between breathing patterns and heart rate variability.

There are even more 'tricks' like this, such as the double inhale. Taking two very quick breaths in succession before that long exhale is even better at reducing your heart rate and generally calming you down. You've even done it before, but you wouldn't know it.

Children in particular will do this, and it can happen naturally when you're sobbing. Sometimes you'll take two short inhales like "huh, huh!" before going in for another cry rather than one big gasp- and this is why!

I hope this really helps you out, because it's very quick and straightforward, but boy does it work fast. Sometimes I've only remembered to-do it halfway through an unpleasant experience and it still banishes burgeoning pre-syncope and nausea. Good luck!

I've heard the uncanny valley affect also being attributed to ancient ancestors encountering other early non-human-but similar competitors. The effect of, "Oh look, another Neanderthal- Wait, shit, not like me, abort abort!". I don't know how likely that is, but it's an interesting thought.

Indeed! Auditory processing disorder can exist independently of ADHD or other disorders, and it can also exist secondarily to acute or chronic disease states like chronic fatigue syndrome 👍

This is because ADHD is primarily driven by overfiring neurons in the frontal cortex, resulting in overuse (and therefore dysregulation) of key neurotransmitters like dopamine and noepinephrine (or so it is understood by science thus far).

Disruptive activity in the frontal cortex and/or neurotransmitter dysregulation can occur under other circumstances such as I mentioned, and both of these factors would be a huge driver in moderating the phonological loop.

Idk about where the original poster is, but here in Australia, yeah there are different energy providers. They all take advantage of the same infrastructure (which is run by a singular company, by and large- Energex), but different companies will offer different rates or deals for your energy needs and your service area. It's supposed to provide some competition for the consumers, although I don't know how that works out on the vendors side of things.

Additional unfun fact, in case the implication goes by anyone; some few folks have discovered exactly how much it sucks when your immune system discovers your eyes and have, indeed, gone blind because of it :(

If you've not watched Mork and Mindy, that's worth it. It was Robin William's breakout role in television, so if you know Robin, you know what you're getting. It's delightful.

I've been really getting into Korean tv on Netflix lately, too. Best watched with subtitles and no dubbing. My gf and I have been watching Good Manager, which is about a tacky mob accountant trying to run away from his problems by skimming flagrantly from all of the dodgy businesses he manages. He gets hired at a large corporation and thinks he's onto his biggest scam yet, but the accounting team are sincere, the managers are psychos, and he's still got a glimmer of heart beneath his red hair dye and 1980's Sears catalogue suits that makes stealing from big business really, really hard when they take it out on the little guy. It's had me absolutely rolling; people's facial expressions, their theatrics, and vigorous use of the leitmotif really brought it together. 10/10, for me.

I watched a looot of Animal Planet when I was a kid, so I didn't have many illusions. I could never figure out how the fuck birds did it, though. I figured that male birds must have extendable bits somehow, but female birds have a tail in the way.

We kept ducks when I was a kid, and during the time that we kept a mallard, he would straight up stand on the female duck's backs, and that struck me as terribly inefficient. To support this, none of the female ducks ever laid fertilised eggs, so I figured he was just terrible at it.

Little did I know about the horrifying intricacies of duck mating. I'll thank the internet for informing me in later life... Yeesh.

It sure is; here's a video demonstrating the effectiveness. Shutting your door can mean the difference between life and death. I encourage anyone to watch or re-watch this, just to hammer it home.

Unfortunately, my cats can't deal with shut doors, so if there's ever a fire in my apartment, at least we'll all go together 🙃

I've been going to a psychologist fairly regularly (fortnightly or monthly) for over 2 years, and I do generally have a positive self image, now.

I didn't start going just to gain better self image, but it came naturally the longer I spent articulating the problems I have and the goals I want to achieve.

When you answer questions about yourself, your thoughts, your ideas and values (specifically when you SAY them aloud to another person), it tends to expose your internal biases; against others, as well, but particularly yourself.

Negative thoughts said aloud, repeated, begin to sound like hyperbole. It's easier to catch yourself being unfair, mean, critical or thinking with no nuance about yourself, when you have to articulate it.

Even writing my thoughts down worked better than just thinking them. Feelings were no longer vague and undermining, they were nameable and confrontable. Having someone verbally intervene in unfair self judgements- and to highlight and celebrate my personal wins- is infinitely rewarding.

I feel good about myself, overall. I see my good, bad and neutral traits, and the bad is easier to tackle or accept when I know good and bad don't cancel each other out. Many things can be true at once, and it serves me nothing to fail to see my wins.

Almost no one I know is fully evil, bad, useless or selfish, they always have at least one thing that's worth celebrating.

I decided that, now that I can see my good, I'm allowed celebrate, enjoy and share it, because the bad doesn't grow without my permission anymore, and they're not in competition; it's just all me. Complex, like everyone.

Too right. Someone in my household reminded us that we used to use munted all the time, so we're bringing it back into our vocab, haha

Munted - mutated, fucked up, borken

The Fifth Element. Still in my top ten list, and always will be.

Wait, so does symbolic memory transition to being primarily language? I assume we retain symbolic memory in some capacity?

Yeah, same here (same med and dose, too, lol), but it got better with therapy. I was used to being at the mercy of my mood my whole life, so when I became chipper and productive almost all of the time, I felt an an unnatural sense of urgency to 'make hay while the sun shines', so to speak.

I couldn't feel comfortable sitting down and relaxing when I could still see so much to do and I had the ability to do it.

What I learned in therapy was that, whilst having been given ability to action my goals, none of my old self guidance techniques really applied.

If life is a raging river, all I could do in the past was try to yank my raft towards rocks to block or divert myself, with my bare hands. Hard, painful, rarely successful and never without consequences.

Now that I have medication, I've been given a oar, but I kept using it to refine my existing techniques under the false assumption that the rocks need to be hit in order to get anywhere- but hey, at least I don't have to use my hands anymore, right?

When I get to a calm bit of river I should use that time to rest, "-but why? I have a paddle, now! I should go hard whilst I still can, I'm so much further behind everyone else, and soon I'll be too exhausted to use the oar so I should use my energy while I can."

I'm beginning to learn that I can use the oar to guide myself before rocks and turns, to not exhaust myself early, and to know that the river winds as it will but I don't have to meet it with a headbutt (lol).

Lol that was a big ol' metaphor for cognitive behavioural therapy, but honestly I wouldn't be where I am today without it.

I take medication but I also suffer from chronic illness- many times my health issues render my medication barely effective, so when I first came to my psychologist 2 years ago to work with him, I told him that I wanted to learn behavioural patterns and frames of mind when I was well that would still help me when I was sick.

It's working very well, I'm proud to say 🙂