To some people this may be obvious, but for decades I had no idea that my “laziness” was an expression of anxiety.
Obviously it’s not easy to resolve anxiety, but at least understanding what was happening helped me move toward more consistent freedom of engagement with life.
That depends on the person. I’m autistic and for me it’s just a moment to minimise stimuli and recharge a little bit. No fear involved, just a little overstimulated and in need of a reset.
my dude, your comment just opened my eyes to a possibility that I had not considered previously. Seriously wish I did drugs right now so I could smoke a bowl and stew on it for a couple hours.
is my “I dont’ wanna” because I’m actually terrified? it makes so much sense.
Makes sense. Being frozen by fear is among the worst human experiences.
A few things you can do to reduce anxiety directly:
Breathe long and slow. Breathing deep and fast is bad, it will make you hyperventilate. But deep, slow breath will reduce anxiety. I’ve used this to control panic attacks. Works best in a dark room. The key thing is to make the exhalation as long as you possibly can. With some practice, I can now exhale continuously and slowly for over a minute. Doing that for ten minutes, and eventually starts feeling like I’m squeezing a sponge slowly and the liquid that squeezes out is pure relief. Just see how long you can keep slowly, slowly exhaling before you need to inhale again.
Anti-anxiety meds. Not a good long-term solution as they tend to be addictive, but very useful short term for recognizing how it’s anxiety underneath the laziness, and to get enough relief to fix any problems threatening your livelihood
Deliberately approach things you fear. Spiders, heights, conflict, etc. Any time you consciously decide to approach a thing you fear, it will overall reduce your anxiety levels. Like across the board. You go force yourself to look at a spider picture, you will have less fear of doing laundry. Not a joke, it works.
There are other techniques but a big list of techniques isn’t useful to start with. That breathing thing is probably the quickest way to find out how much of the procrastinating is from anxiety. Sit there for five or ten minutes making your exhales as long as possible, and you’ll cut down your anxiety levels very quickly.
This is the freeze response. It’s a fear thing.
To some people this may be obvious, but for decades I had no idea that my “laziness” was an expression of anxiety.
Obviously it’s not easy to resolve anxiety, but at least understanding what was happening helped me move toward more consistent freedom of engagement with life.
That depends on the person. I’m autistic and for me it’s just a moment to minimise stimuli and recharge a little bit. No fear involved, just a little overstimulated and in need of a reset.
my dude, your comment just opened my eyes to a possibility that I had not considered previously. Seriously wish I did drugs right now so I could smoke a bowl and stew on it for a couple hours.
is my “I dont’ wanna” because I’m actually terrified? it makes so much sense.
I kinda hate it.
Makes sense. Being frozen by fear is among the worst human experiences.
A few things you can do to reduce anxiety directly:
There are other techniques but a big list of techniques isn’t useful to start with. That breathing thing is probably the quickest way to find out how much of the procrastinating is from anxiety. Sit there for five or ten minutes making your exhales as long as possible, and you’ll cut down your anxiety levels very quickly.