I have found it very useful to frame things in terms of my future self. This works for both things I want to do, and things I want to stop doing.
For example — get home from work, tired, don’t want to go row. Instead of saying to myself “You really should go row, you said you wanted to do it 4 times a week.” I say “1 hour from now do I want to be a person who has sat on the couch for an hour or do I want to be the person who has worked out, taken a shower, and feels good”. Same thing for stopping mindless doom scrolling or making dinner vs ordering deliver or whatever.
I know it’s just a mental trick — but reframing things in terms of my future self has been incredibly powerful for me.
You're actually triggering two things with this trick.
First, the piece you call out is delayed gratification (ie focusing on the future over the short-term).
But there's a second piece hidden in there, which is identity-orientation. "I'm the type of person who does X". Tying actions to your identity is actually really powerful.
I do something similar. If I'm being lazy or procrastinating I ask myself to rate on a scale of ten how much I don't want to do said thing, then I ask myself why it's not a 10/10, those reasons push me to start.
Example - how badly do you not want to run today (6/10). Why not 10/10? Because I'll feel better after, because it's part of my marathon training and because dinner will feel more rewarding. Ok, go run.
I sometimes explicitly create a log of the before and after state of mind. Before rowing: “I feel fine, but pretty lazy and stressed about XYZ” after rowing: “Struggled through and got a big endorphin rush toward the end, feeling good and much less stressed.”
Seeing fitness progress graphs helps as well (heart rate vs power output etc). I know for me personally monitoring my resting heart rate made a strong argument against pretty much any alcohol consumption.
Future me has helped maintain an exercise habit and healthy eating for nearly 2 decades of my life (and counting).
Future me has been less effective for breaking the internet habit. It works, just not quite as well. I think because future me still wants to know what happened in the world in the last hour. And because sometimes current me needs a break and light entertainment due to the mental energy required to consider future me.
A bit off topic, but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas about how to remember to do something like this?
In specific, I mean as it relates to information management. E.g., a lot of things are solved problems for me, like using todo apps for todos, and some sort of "Everything bucket"[0] system for searching for information (per the link, I use the file system for this).
But things like this, things you want to try and implement, but unlike a todo, you have to wait for the right moment (i.e., use this technique to address a bad habit at the right moment), I can't figure out a way to use to technology to remember to do them.
(I'm aware some people don't like to use technology to solve these kinds of problems, but for me personally, technology has been tremendously effective in solving these problems when a system can be adapted to the problem. I'm just not sure what the system should be for this type of information.)
I've actually been thinking about this problem literally for over a decade, the first app I ever made was designed to address it[1]. This app is no longer maintained, because it didn't get enough users to be worth maintaining. Maybe an app like this is the right solution, and there's just not enough people who think it's a problem worth solving to support the continued development of a software solution? I'm not sure.
The problem with this kind of trick for me is that too often, the "better" option does not actually make me feel better (in any sense). It ends up just feeling like effort for the sake of effort.
Something that has helped me kick some bad but undeniably comforting habits in the last year is keeping actual data. For a few months I logged simple stuff, like whether or not I’d imbibed alcohol, how much sleep I’d got, whatever. And on the other side I’d track simple subjective measures of my mood and energy. I put all this into some simple linear regressions and the evidence was so overwhelmingly clear that it became very hard to convince myself that staying up until 1am was the only way to have quality ‘me time’, or having a boozy night with my wife was the only way to fully relax.
I don’t really go for quantified self stuff generally, I do quite like living intuitively as much as I can. But sometimes you do need to call yourself on your own bullshit.
I can recommend apps like kubios (my fav), hrv4 and elite hr (I use all three daily). Coupled with even a cheap heart rate monitor, you can see the effects of 'everything' on your body/ soul as well as track sleep etc. Oura rings do similar, but they're subscription based.
I'm glad you noticed the down sides, most people don't get to see that different perspective. Alcohol does a serious number on us without us realizing it. Alcohol really doesn't help us relax (besides in the few hours after consumption) and induces more stress over the long term
Personally my cannabis use patterns can mess with my sleep, I've noticed how much by simply using a sports band sleep tracker. Its surprisingly accurate at predicting my overall energy levels
I tracked every minute of my time several years ago, for about a year. The shock of how much time I was spending playing Battlefield is what helped me kick video games.
The perfect app I found for this (on HN) is Daylio. It captures info at the right level of detail. Even has a place for a bit of writing or a photo each day.
I like the book “The Biology of Desire” on addiction. It views addiction as an instance of the same kind of desire-driven habit-forming learning that’s the core of our motivational system. And so quitting an addiction is not exactly just quitting something bad. It’s more like a continuation of one’s general lifelong process of learning. This is a kinder framing and it’s thoroughly neuroscientific. And it reveals that addictions are actually very clever behaviors in some ways—so we can even learn from them as we try to develop healthier habits to replace the ones that harm us. It’s also a narrative perspective that respects the subject’s life story. The addiction was a part in my troubled human journey. And now my narrative needs to find a new charge, a new quest, a new act. Maybe I was drawn into addiction in part because my life story didn’t make sense, I felt disconnected from past and scared of the future, etc. Addictions also form around the need for connection: it’s not just the beer, it’s the pub. So I have to find other social contexts that center around something that doesn’t harm me.
I like to draw a comparison to obsessive compulsive behavior. The compulsion (which is often what drives use and relapse) is a learned behavior and one that is reinforced by the reward.
People with OCD often find the obsessive and repetitive behavior helps with anxiety, although the anxiety ends up reduced in the short-term, it worsens in the long term as the behaviors have negative consequences of their own (disruptive and time consuming, interfering with normal life activities, shame for lack of self-control).
We wouldn’t tell someone with OCD to just “quit doing that” (and for the person it would just increase anxiety to stop doing what helps their anxiety), but provide an alternative that addresses the core cause of the behavior (anxiety) and “unlearns” the harmful behavior, replacing it with self-help tools to address the core problems (anxiety) in ways that are less harmful and likely more effective in the long term. That can be done through a number of approaches, none of which are surefire and often take a few attempts.
This is something I realized after trying to quit League of Legends, a game I played for over a decade, years ago.
I could only truly stop playing it when I completely internalized the fact that the game didn't bring me anything except misery after every match, win or lose, and the short term satisfaction of the ding you hear when you kill a creep or make a fancy play were not worth it.
Sometimes when I remember it exists I still feel a pull towards it, but now I know that if I play it, in 45 minutes I'll wish I did something else instead. This is more than enough to stop me, fortunately.
Even then it's hard to stop, mainly because it's a habit. I went through the same experience and for about 2 months I had the habit of trying to open League whenever I had free time (it wasn't installed anymore, but the brain wiring would still "think" of opening it). Every single time, I would need to tell myself that there are activities that make me happier. I would slip a couple of times, re-install and then immediately de-install. Luckily I broke the habit eventually.
After going through that, I no longer play games at all and would probably be fine with some degree of regulation in the industry. Many kids are growing up as addicts and it's a bit worrying.
> I could only truly stop playing it when I completely internalized the fact that the game didn't bring me anything except misery
Being cognizant of this was among the first steps to curbing addiction for me, but I found that I would quickly forget when my mind was in pursuit mode. Anticipation creates a large spike in dopamine - I've shaken in anticipation, you've got blinders on at that point. I needed the discipline to avoid entertaining the thought of cravings and take myself out of situations, offer alternatives even. When I was stressed or sleepless is when this was hardest. Eventually your baseline dopamine levels improve, and you find more motivation and focus for everyday life. It can get better with most other things remaining equal, which in my experience was beyond my imagination until I lived it.
I was like that on games. A half and a decade ago I switched over nes/snes/md/genesis/pce classics, roguelikes and text adventures. No bullshit mechanics, no addictions, no DLC. The 8/16 bit games are short enough to be enjoyed fully, roguelikes add random mechanics and calmness, and IF is like a good book but with far more interaction and rewarding puzzless.
Curious why you feel that way, I've been playing league of legends for about that long and although i don't spend nearly as much time as I used to on it, it still does mostly bring me joy whenever I get to play. Is the disappointment you feel linked to winning vs losing or are you always unhappy regardless of the outcome of the game?
For those struggling with alcohol - I can recommend the Sinclair Method. The idea is to take an opioid antagonist, naltrexone, before drinking -- this helps reset the association between drinking and pleasure, since drinking on naltrexone is devoid of any pleasure, while the downsides of alcohol are still felt by the body. Do it a few times, and the desire to drink wanes. Also, when under the influence of naltrexone, it's hard to drink a lot, since it really is not enjoyable. It allowed me to basically stop drinking alcohol, but I can still go out with friends and have a drink if I want to, as long as I take naltexone before, there is zero risk of this ending up in a binge. Good stuff.
I have the problem that my addiction (scrolling 4chan* and HN for hours) has materially added value to my life. I've been introduced to books and resources and technical advice that I've found nowhere else. But I have trouble controlling the amount of time I spend browsing.
*4chan is full of hate, but if you grew up with it and have a sort of auto-filter, there are surprising things there. I would not have read (and deeply enjoyed) Moby Dick if not for 4chan. Weird. This is not a recommendation though, generally speaking, avoid the place at all costs.
I feel the same way about HN. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about technology, software, entrepreneurship from this site. But it would far more valuable to have spent the majority of those hours reading books, learning new skills, networking, or even just being more focused at work. It’s tough to find balance.
If they're genuinely useful, maybe you don't really need to quit them so much as establish firm boundaries as to their use. Not just as a matter of time, but also space and even circumstance.
Something for instance, like "I can only browse HN on my phone, during lunch." if you can successfully establish it as a ritual, that limits your potential window to time waste. Perhaps this is not a sentence entirely directed toward you, but: There's diminishing returns to HN's utility the longer you spend time on it. Knowledge you collect but can't/won't act upon is meaningless.
>*4chan is full of hate, but if you grew up with it and have a sort of auto-filter, there are surprising things there. I would not have read (and deeply enjoyed) Moby Dick if not for 4chan. Weird. This is not a recommendation though, generally speaking, avoid the place at all costs.
I wonder if your in some kind of local maximum, i bet if you stopped wasting time on 4chan you would find other things that make your life richer. like you just dont know how much value can be added to your life from other things, especially ones that wont require so much filtering on your part
Consider something like Cold Turkey, the paid version (one-time fee) has an included scheduler if you can't trust yourself to turn it on when you'd need to. If you don't want to pay for it, the free version includes CLI operations, you can make your own scheduler script without too much trouble.
HN has an included time limiter in the options.. but nothing stops you from launching it in incognito so it's only useful as far as you have willpower.
I liked this and will be the first to admit I have an information ingestion problem that the internet has made many times worse.
In grade school I nearly failed a semester because I read books all day. It was obsessive. I didn't do my school work but knew all kinds of random facts. And even though my parents caught it and pulled me out I never did as well as I could have because at some level the issue persisted, even now and I'm 50 years old.
It really has been a problem my entire life. I suspect it's kind of like the evolutionary desire for sugar. Useful when sugar was rare, deadly when sugar is cheap, refined and readily available. Same with the desire for information. We can only healthily process so much and we only need so much and it needs to be in the proper form.
It's so bad sometimes I'll have multiple tabs open at a time paging back and forth at light speed, or listening to informational audio and trying to read at the same time. Or surf the net for 14 hours straight. Like a wino greedily slurping a bottle as fast as he can with another ready to go in the other hand.
I never got into video games which always seemed like complete boring waste of time.
The ironic thing is I never would have found the article if I weren't frantically scrolling HN looking for the keys to the universe.
>In grade school I nearly failed a semester because I read books all day. It was obsessive. I didn't do my school work but knew all kinds of random facts.
This is a very familiar story.
Even today it's still an issue. I have missed the gym, or been late to a social obligation hundreds of times due to getting stuck reading something.
While the behavior does have negative impacts, I generally view it as a positive thing.
I know a little about a lot, and I can generally have an engaging conversation with anyone, about the things they want to talk about.
I think knowing a little about a lot also helps me in the periphery of the things I do go deep into.
For example, I've read hundreds of articles on Hacker News about cyber security and have read countless comments by cynical devs explaining that companies don't take security seriously because it doesn't create revenue. Today as a non-technical founder, the security posture of my organization is 10x better than my peers (including technical founders) at similar sized (and even bigger!) orgs.
You spoke specifically about the negative impacts - do you see any positive impacts?
On books, get adult mistery gamebooks, they are random enough to force yourself on your previous choices (and your character's skills) and having to improvise to win instead of being a static reader.
Well, there’s “bad habits,” and “lack of discipline,” vs. true, hard-core “addiction,” like alcoholism, compulsive gambling, sexual addiction, and drug addiction.
For the former, mindfulness, metrics, and discipline can be extremely effective (and can provide many benefits beyond simply quitting the habit).
For the latter, they can be helpful, but we usually need a great deal more assistance.
I would appreciate a trigger warning before people use the word "Addiction" to encompass everything from methamphetamine use to playing video games to frequently. As you indicate they are not comparable and require very different approaches to escaping. Adding to the challenge is that hardcore, true addictions tend to be layered on top of each other and quitting one is almost impossible while still having the others, yet quitting them all at the same time is also impossible.
Everyone's addiction is different. A question that may be useful for some:
When you started, why was it enjoyable? Be specific.
Many attempts at addressing addictive behavior focus on stopping the behavior. If there was something specific the behavior initially improved, that has to be addressed or you're unlikely to succeed.
E.g.: if drinking initially improved anxiety issues, those will still be there while the person is trying to quit.
For a curious person, reading interesting information on the internet and watching Youtube videos is not (necessarily) wasted time.
So it helps if you keep in mind activities that are acceptable and ones that are not.
A lot of the 'good habits', moved to screen time: I used to read more news papers, magazines and books, and most of that turned into screen time. Online discussion is also a useful way to spend time I think (with the right audience, such as some of HN).
I wouldn't put screen time due to curiosity for information on the same level as bad addictions, such as smoking (hurting health) or gambling (hurting the wallet).
The YouTube front page/recommendations were a massive amount of wasted time for me. Removing them via uBlock Origin filters has significantly reduced my "wasted" time on YouTube:
The best way to change your habits is to really understand and appreciate what they're doing for you. You're not running towards whatever your procrastination mechanism of choice may be; you're running _away_ from something else. This is why procrastinating has that tepid feeling of boredom, as you don't really want to click onto the next video / reddit / HN page, but you feel compelled to do so.
I highly recommend How We Change [0]. It was the first book in my long journey of trying to "read my self out of my depression" that was really insightful. It lays out why people choose to not change (tethered by their procrastination or other habits they deem to be fruitless), and only by seeing and appreciating that _fear of hope_ can you start to approach the (at times) extremely difficult task of authoring your life.
I felt addicted to the internet a year before the pandemic. I read the book “Don’t shoot the dog” and it had so many amazing training tips to kick that addiction. Am I a dog? No. But the training and reinforcement is pretty much universal. Having tools to deal with addiction is important.
Mindfulness sadly isn’t the big aha! moment. I know I was addicted. I know I wanted to change. This is why they say “admitting you have a problem” is the first step.
It’s not a matter of knowing you’re addicted and then suddenly stopping. That can happen, but more likely an incremental approach will happen. B.J. Fogg’s book about tiny habits talks about this epiphany moment being quite rare.
Only a couple times in my life have I had this epiphany moment and went cold turkey overnight. Once when I was larger and struggling to hike with friends like I used to. Another when I was playing video games and felt deja vu that made me feel like I wasted years of my life. Now, I’m in the best shape of my life and work on things I’m passionate about in my free time.
I think you're right when it comes to many addictions. When we add in bad, unhealthy and suboptimal habits this is probably less universal, which unfortunately get labelled as "addicitions" in a lot of cases.
Stupid condescending article. Anybody who thinks quitting smoking is just a question of "realizing you don't want it anymore" has never tried to quit smoking.
But I think there is a big distinction between chemical dependency and other compulsions or addictive behaviors.
And I think the word addiction itself has been kind of coopted by self diagnosing people on the internet for karma and some odd type of self gratitude, if that makes sense; kind of a weird bragging about your supposed addiction to ____ or OCD or ADHD etc.
The author writes "It’s about seeing through the illusion of satisfaction. It’s about realizing you don’t want to be doing it anymore."
Most users don't want to be addicts. Almost no one wants to be dependent on opiates or to have the shakes every morning. Anyone that does hasn't been using long enough yet or probably has other mental health issues that they are trying to patch over themselves with drugs.
We know the satisfaction or other benefits one initially gets from using eventually gets buried deep by all the negatives.
With drugs and alcohol the satisfaction becomes less and less, even when you use more and more.
Drugs are fun & feel good after all. they can 'fix' a huge array of problems in your life.
Until they don't.
Props to anyone who can overcome a chemical dependency on willpower alone and through this type of CBT mental reframing the author talks about.
But for almost all users, especially many of those with untreated underlying issues, it's basically impossible without science based, often medicine supported treatment.
Another book I think is worth reading for a dumbed down summary of addiction is Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction
> Most people try quitting their addiction by banning themselves from doing it.
After some failed attempts I quit smoking 7 months a go and this change in the way of thinking made the difference for me. During the failed attempts I used to repeat to myself "I can't smoke", this last time my thought was more like "I don't want to smoke", I didn't even tell to my wife that I was trying to quit so that I would fell less the pressure of being forbidden to smoke. Somehow it worked better for me and whenever I had cravings my thoughts were usually something like "I could smoke if I wanted to, I'm 5 minutes away from a pack of cigarets, but I don't want."
I'm not saying that this was the only factor that made me stop or this is the "secret to quit smoking" or that's easy, it just worked better for me.
This essentially the same argument that Judson Brewer makes using insights from behavioral + buddhist psychology – https://drjud.com/book/
The insight is also to use mindfulness to understand the "true" experience of the addictive behavior and come to internalize that it is no longer valuable.
I think article says its a matter of decission. Once you take hard stance/decission its a matter of time amd retries.
Goos tip is to find replacemet, a healthy one. You can get addicted to gentle (not stupid) weight lifting, running (please, on grass, not on cement or next to road full of cars, not on asfalt, its not good for your knees and lungs) reading a book.
Replace it with hobby that you like or put that time into something you wanted to do, but never had time.
Spot on. In 2013 after a highish triglyceride test result I quit obvious refined sugar. (Have to specify exactly what I mean or I get a lot of questions like “what about bread?!!? You know there’s sugar in bread right!?!?”)
I framed it as, “I just don’t want to eat that garbage anymore.” Two weeks of cravings and then I just stopped missing it. Fruit started to taste amazing.
[+] [-] tcskeptic|4 years ago|reply
For example — get home from work, tired, don’t want to go row. Instead of saying to myself “You really should go row, you said you wanted to do it 4 times a week.” I say “1 hour from now do I want to be a person who has sat on the couch for an hour or do I want to be the person who has worked out, taken a shower, and feels good”. Same thing for stopping mindless doom scrolling or making dinner vs ordering deliver or whatever.
I know it’s just a mental trick — but reframing things in terms of my future self has been incredibly powerful for me.
[+] [-] Ozzie_osman|4 years ago|reply
First, the piece you call out is delayed gratification (ie focusing on the future over the short-term).
But there's a second piece hidden in there, which is identity-orientation. "I'm the type of person who does X". Tying actions to your identity is actually really powerful.
[+] [-] costcofries|4 years ago|reply
Example - how badly do you not want to run today (6/10). Why not 10/10? Because I'll feel better after, because it's part of my marathon training and because dinner will feel more rewarding. Ok, go run.
[+] [-] emerged|4 years ago|reply
Seeing fitness progress graphs helps as well (heart rate vs power output etc). I know for me personally monitoring my resting heart rate made a strong argument against pretty much any alcohol consumption.
[+] [-] anthomtb|4 years ago|reply
Future me has been less effective for breaking the internet habit. It works, just not quite as well. I think because future me still wants to know what happened in the world in the last hour. And because sometimes current me needs a break and light entertainment due to the mental energy required to consider future me.
[+] [-] robenkleene|4 years ago|reply
In specific, I mean as it relates to information management. E.g., a lot of things are solved problems for me, like using todo apps for todos, and some sort of "Everything bucket"[0] system for searching for information (per the link, I use the file system for this).
But things like this, things you want to try and implement, but unlike a todo, you have to wait for the right moment (i.e., use this technique to address a bad habit at the right moment), I can't figure out a way to use to technology to remember to do them.
(I'm aware some people don't like to use technology to solve these kinds of problems, but for me personally, technology has been tremendously effective in solving these problems when a system can be adapted to the problem. I'm just not sure what the system should be for this type of information.)
I've actually been thinking about this problem literally for over a decade, the first app I ever made was designed to address it[1]. This app is no longer maintained, because it didn't get enough users to be worth maintaining. Maybe an app like this is the right solution, and there's just not enough people who think it's a problem worth solving to support the continued development of a software solution? I'm not sure.
[0]: https://www.al3x.net/blog/2009/01/31/the-case-against-everyt...
[1]: https://1percenter.com/review/
[+] [-] id|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xcde4c3db|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thom|4 years ago|reply
I don’t really go for quantified self stuff generally, I do quite like living intuitively as much as I can. But sometimes you do need to call yourself on your own bullshit.
[+] [-] C19is20|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] netizen-936824|4 years ago|reply
Personally my cannabis use patterns can mess with my sleep, I've noticed how much by simply using a sports band sleep tracker. Its surprisingly accurate at predicting my overall energy levels
[+] [-] nefitty|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] physicles|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbrock|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refurb|4 years ago|reply
People with OCD often find the obsessive and repetitive behavior helps with anxiety, although the anxiety ends up reduced in the short-term, it worsens in the long term as the behaviors have negative consequences of their own (disruptive and time consuming, interfering with normal life activities, shame for lack of self-control).
We wouldn’t tell someone with OCD to just “quit doing that” (and for the person it would just increase anxiety to stop doing what helps their anxiety), but provide an alternative that addresses the core cause of the behavior (anxiety) and “unlearns” the harmful behavior, replacing it with self-help tools to address the core problems (anxiety) in ways that are less harmful and likely more effective in the long term. That can be done through a number of approaches, none of which are surefire and often take a few attempts.
[+] [-] sirspacey|4 years ago|reply
I’ve noticed finding ways to make my experience more friendly, easy, and kind seems to make the most progress in assessing patterns.
Best quote I’ve heard on addiction:
“Addiction is getting more of something than you want.”
[+] [-] justinator|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kaze404|4 years ago|reply
I could only truly stop playing it when I completely internalized the fact that the game didn't bring me anything except misery after every match, win or lose, and the short term satisfaction of the ding you hear when you kill a creep or make a fancy play were not worth it.
Sometimes when I remember it exists I still feel a pull towards it, but now I know that if I play it, in 45 minutes I'll wish I did something else instead. This is more than enough to stop me, fortunately.
[+] [-] emerongi|4 years ago|reply
After going through that, I no longer play games at all and would probably be fine with some degree of regulation in the industry. Many kids are growing up as addicts and it's a bit worrying.
[+] [-] slothtrop|4 years ago|reply
Being cognizant of this was among the first steps to curbing addiction for me, but I found that I would quickly forget when my mind was in pursuit mode. Anticipation creates a large spike in dopamine - I've shaken in anticipation, you've got blinders on at that point. I needed the discipline to avoid entertaining the thought of cravings and take myself out of situations, offer alternatives even. When I was stressed or sleepless is when this was hardest. Eventually your baseline dopamine levels improve, and you find more motivation and focus for everyday life. It can get better with most other things remaining equal, which in my experience was beyond my imagination until I lived it.
[+] [-] anthk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ss108|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] infairverona|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aenis|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boppo1|4 years ago|reply
*4chan is full of hate, but if you grew up with it and have a sort of auto-filter, there are surprising things there. I would not have read (and deeply enjoyed) Moby Dick if not for 4chan. Weird. This is not a recommendation though, generally speaking, avoid the place at all costs.
[+] [-] reidjs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tetraca|4 years ago|reply
Something for instance, like "I can only browse HN on my phone, during lunch." if you can successfully establish it as a ritual, that limits your potential window to time waste. Perhaps this is not a sentence entirely directed toward you, but: There's diminishing returns to HN's utility the longer you spend time on it. Knowledge you collect but can't/won't act upon is meaningless.
[+] [-] tayo42|4 years ago|reply
I wonder if your in some kind of local maximum, i bet if you stopped wasting time on 4chan you would find other things that make your life richer. like you just dont know how much value can be added to your life from other things, especially ones that wont require so much filtering on your part
[+] [-] _gshc|4 years ago|reply
HN has an included time limiter in the options.. but nothing stops you from launching it in incognito so it's only useful as far as you have willpower.
[+] [-] rd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mythrwy|4 years ago|reply
In grade school I nearly failed a semester because I read books all day. It was obsessive. I didn't do my school work but knew all kinds of random facts. And even though my parents caught it and pulled me out I never did as well as I could have because at some level the issue persisted, even now and I'm 50 years old.
It really has been a problem my entire life. I suspect it's kind of like the evolutionary desire for sugar. Useful when sugar was rare, deadly when sugar is cheap, refined and readily available. Same with the desire for information. We can only healthily process so much and we only need so much and it needs to be in the proper form.
It's so bad sometimes I'll have multiple tabs open at a time paging back and forth at light speed, or listening to informational audio and trying to read at the same time. Or surf the net for 14 hours straight. Like a wino greedily slurping a bottle as fast as he can with another ready to go in the other hand.
I never got into video games which always seemed like complete boring waste of time.
The ironic thing is I never would have found the article if I weren't frantically scrolling HN looking for the keys to the universe.
[+] [-] nickfromseattle|4 years ago|reply
This is a very familiar story.
Even today it's still an issue. I have missed the gym, or been late to a social obligation hundreds of times due to getting stuck reading something.
While the behavior does have negative impacts, I generally view it as a positive thing.
I know a little about a lot, and I can generally have an engaging conversation with anyone, about the things they want to talk about.
I think knowing a little about a lot also helps me in the periphery of the things I do go deep into.
For example, I've read hundreds of articles on Hacker News about cyber security and have read countless comments by cynical devs explaining that companies don't take security seriously because it doesn't create revenue. Today as a non-technical founder, the security posture of my organization is 10x better than my peers (including technical founders) at similar sized (and even bigger!) orgs.
You spoke specifically about the negative impacts - do you see any positive impacts?
[+] [-] anthk|4 years ago|reply
On books, get adult mistery gamebooks, they are random enough to force yourself on your previous choices (and your character's skills) and having to improvise to win instead of being a static reader.
EDIT: 68k URL.
[+] [-] ChrisMarshallNY|4 years ago|reply
For the former, mindfulness, metrics, and discipline can be extremely effective (and can provide many benefits beyond simply quitting the habit).
For the latter, they can be helpful, but we usually need a great deal more assistance.
[+] [-] exhilaration|4 years ago|reply
I like ice cream and chocolate chip cookies a little too much. It's not quite an addiction, but it's gone beyond a bad habit at this point.
[+] [-] skeeter2020|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daggersandscars|4 years ago|reply
When you started, why was it enjoyable? Be specific.
Many attempts at addressing addictive behavior focus on stopping the behavior. If there was something specific the behavior initially improved, that has to be addressed or you're unlikely to succeed.
E.g.: if drinking initially improved anxiety issues, those will still be there while the person is trying to quit.
[+] [-] erwincoumans|4 years ago|reply
So it helps if you keep in mind activities that are acceptable and ones that are not.
A lot of the 'good habits', moved to screen time: I used to read more news papers, magazines and books, and most of that turned into screen time. Online discussion is also a useful way to spend time I think (with the right audience, such as some of HN).
I wouldn't put screen time due to curiosity for information on the same level as bad addictions, such as smoking (hurting health) or gambling (hurting the wallet).
[+] [-] david_allison|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _huayra_|4 years ago|reply
I highly recommend How We Change [0]. It was the first book in my long journey of trying to "read my self out of my depression" that was really insightful. It lays out why people choose to not change (tethered by their procrastination or other habits they deem to be fruitless), and only by seeing and appreciating that _fear of hope_ can you start to approach the (at times) extremely difficult task of authoring your life.
[0] https://www.harpercollins.com/products/how-we-change-ross-el...
[+] [-] thenerdhead|4 years ago|reply
Mindfulness sadly isn’t the big aha! moment. I know I was addicted. I know I wanted to change. This is why they say “admitting you have a problem” is the first step.
It’s not a matter of knowing you’re addicted and then suddenly stopping. That can happen, but more likely an incremental approach will happen. B.J. Fogg’s book about tiny habits talks about this epiphany moment being quite rare.
Only a couple times in my life have I had this epiphany moment and went cold turkey overnight. Once when I was larger and struggling to hike with friends like I used to. Another when I was playing video games and felt deja vu that made me feel like I wasted years of my life. Now, I’m in the best shape of my life and work on things I’m passionate about in my free time.
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|4 years ago|reply
Taking away the substance doesn't cure the root pain. Truly quitting addiction means addressing the room cause(s).
[+] [-] skeeter2020|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schwartzworld|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dillondoyle|4 years ago|reply
But I think there is a big distinction between chemical dependency and other compulsions or addictive behaviors.
And I think the word addiction itself has been kind of coopted by self diagnosing people on the internet for karma and some odd type of self gratitude, if that makes sense; kind of a weird bragging about your supposed addiction to ____ or OCD or ADHD etc.
The author writes "It’s about seeing through the illusion of satisfaction. It’s about realizing you don’t want to be doing it anymore."
Most users don't want to be addicts. Almost no one wants to be dependent on opiates or to have the shakes every morning. Anyone that does hasn't been using long enough yet or probably has other mental health issues that they are trying to patch over themselves with drugs.
We know the satisfaction or other benefits one initially gets from using eventually gets buried deep by all the negatives.
With drugs and alcohol the satisfaction becomes less and less, even when you use more and more.
Drugs are fun & feel good after all. they can 'fix' a huge array of problems in your life.
Until they don't.
Props to anyone who can overcome a chemical dependency on willpower alone and through this type of CBT mental reframing the author talks about.
But for almost all users, especially many of those with untreated underlying issues, it's basically impossible without science based, often medicine supported treatment.
Another book I think is worth reading for a dumbed down summary of addiction is Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction
[+] [-] jimmyvalmer|4 years ago|reply
Article's solution: Don't be a dipole.
I believe Ben Affleck of all people nailed it on his recent Howard Stern appearance. The cure for addiction is suffering.
[+] [-] vcarrico|4 years ago|reply
After some failed attempts I quit smoking 7 months a go and this change in the way of thinking made the difference for me. During the failed attempts I used to repeat to myself "I can't smoke", this last time my thought was more like "I don't want to smoke", I didn't even tell to my wife that I was trying to quit so that I would fell less the pressure of being forbidden to smoke. Somehow it worked better for me and whenever I had cravings my thoughts were usually something like "I could smoke if I wanted to, I'm 5 minutes away from a pack of cigarets, but I don't want."
I'm not saying that this was the only factor that made me stop or this is the "secret to quit smoking" or that's easy, it just worked better for me.
[+] [-] ndynan|4 years ago|reply
The insight is also to use mindfulness to understand the "true" experience of the addictive behavior and come to internalize that it is no longer valuable.
Ezra Klein has a nice interview on the subject: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/that-anxiety-youre-fee...
[+] [-] max002|4 years ago|reply
Goos tip is to find replacemet, a healthy one. You can get addicted to gentle (not stupid) weight lifting, running (please, on grass, not on cement or next to road full of cars, not on asfalt, its not good for your knees and lungs) reading a book.
Replace it with hobby that you like or put that time into something you wanted to do, but never had time.
[+] [-] 300bps|4 years ago|reply
I framed it as, “I just don’t want to eat that garbage anymore.” Two weeks of cravings and then I just stopped missing it. Fruit started to taste amazing.
Triglycerides went from 263 to 113 in one year.