Ask HN: Emotion hacks? How do you work despite crummy love/life things going on?

[m_]

Have you had slow-to-resolve real life problems that made it emotionally difficult to focus on your job, startup, or coding?

What techniques did you find to make it easier to focus despite the problems? (e.g. looming divorce, girlfriend breaking-up, death in the family, loss of great friends, etc.)

Obviously it's important to deal with those things in your own full way to heal/resolve them, but the practical matter is that you've got to get some things done during that process, too. What tricks do you use?

[ashishk]

I try to take care of myself in fundamental ways. Like eating well, exercising, and sleeping on time.

I've found having control of basic things provides a deep sense of security.

[symstym]

I second this. I can't relate the the part about a sense of security, but I've found that it's very important to "take care of myself", in whatever form. For me that often means cleaning my apartment, taking care of business I've been procrastinating on, etc. Those are concrete, actionable tasks that are guaranteed to make me feel better, even if only a little bit. At work, I similarly try to focus on specific small tasks if possible, to keep my mind off of things.

[b0k0n0n]

What a coincidence—I'm going through this right now. The night my boyfriend broke up with me (two days ago) I differentiated equations until 4 a.m. Now I'm working on inductive logic and doing my best to stay off of e-mail and facebook.

I use other outlets such as reading and exercising, but I've found mathematics' abstraction to be the most helpful. Reading books brings up motifs and messages and content that calls certain memories to mind; diving into math allows transcendence.

[wglb]

I have used this technique in the past and call it Diversionary Therapy.

[darkxanthos]

I would give my left nut for a woman who understands half of what you just said. Rebound? ;)

EDIT: (BTW that's also to say some guys just don't know what they've got till they don't. You'll land on your feet, you'll see.)

[gtani]

You need to communicate your situation to family/friends, make yourself not feel isolated. Many people feeling anxiety and depression think they're the only ones they know, whereas many people are vulnerable. And when i see people prone to chemical dependencies or extreme behaviors, i urge them to seek counseling.

One thing that helps me is multiple 5-15 minute exercise breaks over the day. You can walk up a hill or a couple flights of stairs or do yoga poses or pilates things.

[ljlolel]

I agree 100%. Ubuntu has a program built into gnome that forces you to take breaks.

Go to Keyboard preferences > Typing Break. I set it to 10 minutes of work / 5 minute break. I can focus more, take short breaks to get things done (eat, brush my teeth, clean), and get more done than I do if I just stare at a screen for an hour straight.

[mechanical_fish]

A tough one. The one time I remember having a problem like this, I wasn't exactly tasked with doing programming at work. So I solved my problem by turning to hacking! I did nothing but Perl for weeks. A rather productive time of my life, actually. Fortunately my boss was very pleased with all the code I wrote.

Try this: Change your work environment. Move to a different office. Work at the library or the coffeeshop. This is normally not a good thing for your productivity -- what you generally want to do is establish productive habits, and encourage them by keeping your environment consistent and allowing it to cue those habits. But being surrounded by familiar things might be distracting at a time when they tend to dredge up feelings of unhappiness.

There was a time when simply walking down a particular street would fill me with dread. Emotions are cued to places. Fortunately I'm much better now.

This may be why we're always telling people who are feeling burnt out to take a vacation and travel somewhere.

[kirubakaran]

Thank you for asking this question, especially at this time. Responses of other people are a lot helpful for me as well.

Sharing how I deal with similar situations:

I go out and try to stay out as much as possible. Working in a coffee shop gives the illusion that you are not alone. I also cook elaborate dinner involving pasta, sit down with a glass of wine and watch a movie as a picker-upper. But of late I've been using this trick a lot and it has fast hit diminishing returns. Perhaps I should use exercise as a pick-me-up.

The problem with being down is, you will be even less inclined to do the things that are most likely to help you get better.

Sometimes I reread Jerome K. Jerome. Brings back childhood to some extent and some giggles. Douglas Adams too. Or I re-purpose librivox.org as my bed time story teller. Mostly I hang out here [HN]. Then I refresh my log... people using your app can cheer you up. Learning something new helps too.

[HalcyonMuse]

escapepod.org is another great "read-to-me" site. It's not full-length books; it's sci-fi short stories instead. In my opinion, it's much harder to write a good short story than a good novel.

EscapePod is also great for the commute to work, road trips across the country, and exercising (if you have a routine, anyway).

It rarely fails to keep my spirits up. (Even the sad stories are pretty cathartic.)

[jackdawjack]

Working hard helps, but if your job is anything like mine (grad student) inevitably work can be quite an emotional/mental challenge in and of itself which may or may not help. So i tend to turn to exercise, running hard with music is akin to meditation for me, the physical pain forces everything else out of my head. At the end of a good workout i'm buzzed from the endorphins and often i find that i've unconsciously/subconsciously come to some useful realisation. Personally at least i think my unconscious (if that's a thing) deals with problems far more effectively than my voluntary thought processes. it just needs some peace to get on with it

[wenbert]

For me, I would run to friends and family. I am a Catholic (like most Filipinos are) so if all hell breaks loose, I pray. ;-)

My dad died a few years ago, right about the time I was starting to hack things myself. Personally, what got me through was friends, family and religion. Just sayin'...

[gcv]

Take up a (slightly) risky sport. I was getting into rock climbing a few years ago (gave up for logistical reasons), and I can just about guarantee that when you're on a route, with your forearms burning and no obvious next move, that your troubles fade into insignificance.

[darkxanthos]

Agreed on the rock climbing. It's a great hacker sport. Much more intellectual than I thought it would be.

[b-man]

Did you ever tried meditation (I recommend zen style sitting, aka zazen)?

There is some nice, simple and to the point books about it, and for me it is something that really helps with concentration, sadness and focus.

list of good books

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Training-Philosophy-Shambhala-Clas...

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Brain-Understanding-Meditation-Con...

http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Plain-English-Updated-Expa...

[drawkbox]

Music while coding, westerns/zombie/scifi epic movies while doing smaller tedious tasks, get some gaming in maybe some L4D (important to have fun on your workstation).

Also, be sure to setup and knock down many tasks and todos that feel complete, smaller tasks for quick accomplishment. Game design your projects.

This applies to all slow downs, could even just be related to a long project or a moment you might not feel as hopeful.

Also get outside a bit and be cool to yourself, it is pretty much just you for the long haul anyways.

[sid]

It really depends on your problem and the situation your in. Sometimes you cant, there are some nagging problems that can not be left and should not be ignored. I guess these things are more along the side of family and health (for me anyway).

You shouldnt start a startup if you have to address family or serious health problems with you or anyone close because they need your full attention.

However for any other problem, girlfriend issues, money problems, loss of friends, yes they are hard but can be overcome with strong will. It depends on your priority, i value family and health over anything else so i can choose to ignore the others if i need to focus.

Im really close to finishing my startup now after about a solid 1 year of un relenting work, curve balls and problems, with day job, with startup and other things personal. During the last year i could probably say that i faced 3 problems that were quite difficult to ignore however they did not directly concern my health and not directly my family (god bless) so i keep going.

There are 24 hours in the day and you just need to tell yourself that after 3 hours of getting angry or wollowing or whatever you do, it gets you no where, but 3 hours of work gets you a step closer to how you see yourself in the future which can also be something you value.

You can even trick yourself into thinking that where you see yourself in the future is a future you without some of the problems you may be having now. The approach i guess is to take a completly robotic and logical approach and kind of dehumanize some aspects that arent that important cause if you let everything get to you then you wont get anything done, not even the basic day to day things.

The side effect of this is if you dont make it (even though you poured everything in) you need to be ready so you get into a state of depression.

Its all about iron will , specially when life throws you curve balls. Good thing is, if you get through it, you will become a much stronger person.

Having said that, take time off once in a while cause even though i take a robotic approach (as sometimes its the only way) im not a robot :)

[kareemm]

sleep. exercise. eat healthily. spent time with great friends.

most importantly, put time aside to spend dealing with the emotions that come up. don't bottle them up. they will be expressed in destructive ways when you least expect it.

see a therapist if necessary; having someone help you get through growth roadblocks is the best money you will ever spend.

realize that whatever you're dealing with will eventually pass, despite being difficult to deal with now.

and know that there are no hacks for emotions. difficult times need to run their course and the best way to cope is to process your emotions.

good luck and know that we've all been there... dealing with difficult issues is a more challenging part of the human experience, but it also presents great opportunities for growth.

[byrneseyeview]

most importantly, put time aside to spend dealing with the emotions that come up. don't bottle them up. they will be expressed in destructive ways when you least expect it.

Does this really happen? If you spend much time with military veterans, you notice that they have way more self-control than the average person, even though they've also been through more than the average person. Is this because the military attracts very emotionally controlled people, or because exercising such control strengthens it?

[neilk]

Slightly tangential, but I had this thought the other day. In our industry, shutting oneself into a room with a computer and being alone with our own thoughts is considered functional and praiseworthy. I think a lot of my most productive colleagues deal with almost everything in life by diving deep down in this mode. Is this really a good thing?

[HalcyonMuse]

So long as one has options, I think it's okay. A few years ago, I was at the point where I was going into this "deep down" mode daily because social interaction just wasn't very accessible to me, and I got pretty depressed.

I've read recently about extreme social deprivation (like solitary in prison) and I've begun to wonder a bit about similarities.

[rjurney]

I've always channeled my emotions during times like that into workaholism. It may not be the healthiest way to address problems, but at least you get output from your angst :)

Just be aware: you'll have to deal with the emotions directly sometime.

[lisper]

Focus on the positive: are you healthy? Have enough to eat? Have hot and cold running water? A roof over your head? Air conditioning? Those thing alone make you better off than most of the people on the planet.

[zimbabwe]

I blogged. I had a pretty big readership (three hundred or so followers on Tumblr, not sure how many followed on RSS), and I wrote a lot about how I felt and what I was going through.

The conversations I had with my readers led to a lot of self-growth and peace. I grew up a lot writing about the experience. There were also some moments of personal vindication: After writing about a particularly assed argument with her re:music, I got a message from somebody who works on a major music site that vindicated my point of view a little. (I'll also say right now how astounded I am that the people I was reading stories about at fifteen I get to talk to and attend events with at eighteen.)

[PStamatiou]

I'm on tumblr too, hit me up (profile). :-)

[jherdman]

Sometimes I arrange to have an outlet. During my last break up I called my mom a lot when I absolutely couldn't focus. I talked to her for 5 or so minutes on my break to vent a bit. I found that after a little bit of releasing the mental pressure I was able to focus again.

That said, when you go home, you need to get your shit together. Make lists of "need to do"s and "want to do"s, and tackle them. Keeping busy is the key. Before you know, you'll be back to your awesome self.

[vaksel]

Learn to cope faster. You can't change the past, so there is no reason to dwell on coulda/shoulda. Cut your losses, learn from the experience and move on with your life.

[danielrhodes]

Having a routine/schedule/structure in your life should help with mitigating such issues. Obviously you're not going to be at 100%, but setting up your life so it isn't a house of cards is very important.

[rickdangerous1]

Depending on the severity of what you're dealing with, work can be a refuge from life problems. It sure was for me when I was going through hell a couple of years ago. After I'd have a guts full of sitting around hospital waiting rooms feeling emo for a month, i just got to the point where i had to work. I sent an email to my colleagues saying "I'm coming to work tomorrow, don't talk to me about my stuff - i just need to work". And working was the only respite I could find.