How to break anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle?

The best solution to getting past the anxiety/fear-avoidance cycle is to take small, manageable actions while accepting the feelings that go along with those actions.

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."

This was a slow process, but:

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.

I've been through the same cycle for many years (I can even say decades). My recommendation is to seek help from a psychiatrist. You probably have generalized anxiety disorder and it often goes hand in hand with depression. A psychiatrist will be able to diagnose those and give you medication if you need it. She could also recommend therapy, but you need to be diagnosed first.

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.

I was going through something similar and took me a while to recognize it was anxiety. It's good that you have recognized it so early.

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]

I had a similar problem, but for different reasons. There was a lab that I did end up failing and I knew I would, but the tasks were just so insurmountably and needlessly time consuming and boring that I couldn't rationalize even making incremental progress on them. These labs involved essentially manually drawing many graphs related to climate phenomena, and it's just not something I could bring myself to do. I'd literally sit down, look at the assignment, and then pretty quickly drift off to sleep. This was for an unbelievably easy intro class that I was taking in 3rd year, and I failed it, much to my profs disappointment, because the lab component took something like 50% or more of the grade. I didn't even show up for the lab exam. This is also despite the class being interesting, the prof being great, me having a lot of enthusiasm for the subject matter, etc.. it just didn't work.

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.

Listen to John Danaher (world famous BJJ coach interviewed by Lex Fridman).

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.

You are not trying to avoid failure, you are giving yourself a cushion to avoid confronting the fact that you may not be as good as you think that you are.

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.

You'll get a lot of advice to try different techniques, and I would look at everything, pick a few that click for you, try them, see if they work, and try more things until something works. I'll give you three suggestions.

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 nearly failed out of college because of this. I would have a paper due in n days, and would absolutely refuse to do it, in hindsight because I didn't want to spend weeks working on it just to get a D (who does?). I would literally get to ~24 hours before due date and have a 20 page paper to write with zero done. No reading, no research, I'd be lucky to even have a topic. I'd then regurgitate some garbage that barely met the requirements (if it even did), get the D anyway, and justify it by the fact that I "passed" and saved all that time. In retrospect, over a decade later, I was just terrified of trying and failing, so took solace in not trying and failing.

I've watched dozens of videos on procrastination and by far the best one is this one by Tim Pychyl: [1]

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

1) look for some psychotherapy. Really. You'll read a lot of advice everywhere, people in very good-faith sharing what worked to them, but you'll spend a lot of time experimenting to check what works best to you. A good therapist will speed up this process a lot.

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.

First thing:

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).

The book “The Science of Stuck” by Britt Frank is the best I’ve read about this. She has an interview on the podcast You Are Not So Smart that could be a good low-effort way to think about it. It’s been incredibly helpful for me.

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.

For me the issue was external factors. Don't ignore your social and romantic needs, don't try to do more than it is required of you to impress. Don't define yourself purely through your academic abilities, as annoying as that might be.

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’m exactly the same, turned my 3 year degree into a 5 year slog because I’d get too anxious to do assignments or even exams. Took me a long time (decades) to learn about anxiety and it’s impacts, so you’re doing well to be aware of it earlier.

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.

I had this problem. It crippled me. One or more of the following solved it:

- 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

Note, I have a bias as I had anxiety through ADHD.

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

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help address the underlying causes of anxiety. It is very similar to another suggestion in the thread about breaking the problem down in to small manageable steps, with a cognitive framework to

* 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.

So on top of the other great suggestions here, I can share a trick that has helped me to get me past periods where I was feeling either depressed or stuck or anxious or otherwise not my best. If I have a decision to make ("Should I go for this new job?" "Should I move to a new city?") I ask myself, "What would the happy, confident version of me do?" and then I do that. When I'm depressed or fearful I tend to make bad choices that perpetuate that state; when I'm happy I tend to make better choices that make me happier. This is a way of short circuiting that feedback loop and making even a small step to feel better.

The way you describe your problem makes me think that you might need the assistance of a therapist to overcome it.

Hi, I agree with insickness.

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)

Did anyone else say drugs?

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.

The easiest advice i have for you is still very hard.

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.

* Find a different source for your self-worth other than whether you succeed at certain tasks.

* 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.

I would strongly recommend seeing a therapist. This is the exact kind of "thought pattern" that therapists are incredibly good at helping you sort through.

You have to interrupt the pattern. There's many ways to do that, but only one will speak to you.

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!

I had anxiety for many years, and cured it by meditation.

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.

What helps me is a bit odd. Stealing a quote from Douglas Adams

“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.

Cognitive behavior therapy, and maybe medication. See some specialists

On the medium term, get professional help, if you can afford it.

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.

Get some exercise and then immediately (while still sweating) sit back down at your desk and try to start. For some reason, that was a very effective way to start my homework assignments (the hardest part) in grad school.

Accept that you can fail and being failable is part of being human and part of who you are.

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.

If you have access to therapy, there is a modality called EMDR. From personal experience, I strongly recommend it.

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).

One thing that has helped me for these situations short term is to find a buddy who is will to sit with you and keep on you task.

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.

There are some powerful resources on YouTube for this. Essentially what you need to do is to re-program your brain firmware. Consider the brain as a maxima-seeking engine. Evolved to: find food then stay where there's food; identify predators then move away from them and stay as far away as possible. And so on. Your brain is mostly operating on a bunch of these kinds of slope, with some signal representing a good or bad thing, and a mechanism designed to change your behavior to either maximize or minimize the signal. Procrastination occurs when you are presented with a task that elicits both positive and negative signals: you want to perform the task to receive praise, feeling of achievement, not get fired. But you also fear the task because you may not perform it perfectly, leading to criticism. Your brain is not able to effectively navigate these dual slopes and so becomes locked in a local maxima: doing nothing. It neither wants to proceed up the reward slope by performing the task, nor proceed down the avoid slope by abandoning the task altogether.

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 am often the same way. I used to avoid doing homework, now I procrastinate on things like filing tax returns or calling back friends. It's a very damaging behavior and has cost me dearly throughout my whole life.

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.

For me, starting anything is the most tough part, but once I start something I will work on it, I am good. What I do is to turn on the music and make myself start. For some tasks, I usually get engrossed so much that I don't hear the music or lyrics at all. Other times, I force myself to do something with the beat of the music. ( I listen to all kinds of music, for some reason lo-fi playlists won't work for starting my work, I listen to some pop or rap or rock)

>> ...I tend to procrastinate...

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.

I'm going to mention this because it helped me a lot. It's kooky, pseudoscientific, and bizarre, but it does seem to work, for me and for a lot of people. And if it doesn't work for you, well, at least it's completely harmless. It's a very very simple procedure, involving tapping with your finger on certain locations on your body while focusing on your particular issue in a certain way. You don't have to pay for anything or attend a course, all the information is in a PDF manual that's freely available. You don't have to believe in the "theory" behind it. Normally I would link to the Wikipedia page about it, but WP is too Skeptical these days so the article is all about how it's "not real". Ignore that and try it anyway. If it helps, it helps, and if it doesn't you've only wasted a half an hour or so. It's really simple. The basic "algorithm" fits on a page.

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

Here is a list of things (bits of insight, strategies) you may find helpful. IME, anxiety and the resulting procrastination has more to do with fear of failure and insufficiency than feeling that you can't actually do something. It's a preemptive attempt to get you to not try at something, and the best way to overcome it is to find ways to "do the try" without making it seem like you are confronting the fear ("I'm not going to swim, I'm just going to wade in the shallow end of the pool for a bit").

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"}

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling. I've definitely been here a handful of times.

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.

I had massive issues like these in the past until I spoke with a person who provides therapy for these specific problems. The first day, he gave me a book on the topic and said that it had valuable info up to about chapter 4. In a nutshell, and from that book, who's title eludes me, I created the FU technique. I know, it sounds ridiculous but it totally works for me. Aside from diet leading to your issues, the best solution for dealing with panic / anxiety is to get angry with yourself. I have stopped numerous panic attacks talking trash to myself. Once you get used to its effect, move on to imbibing in physical activities that also induce panic / anxiety. This will help you build a permanent foundation of self trust and accomplishment. Like killing it on your assignments. Another thing is to learn to crave the anxiety associated with these tasks. Try to teach yourself to get excited with each new challenge. The more you engage in things that make you uneasy and succeed, the more you can handle.

FranklinMailot's comment is good advice I think. Getting professional help would be best here. I also face similar symptoms like how you describe - persistent procrastination with tasks (initiation, or even continuing from where you left). I faced them since i became an adult through college, and after I started a job. it became pretty clear that there is something seriously off when I underperformed for a good amount of time. Then 2 year ago, I got repetitive panic attacks. Had to take leave for a month. started seeing a psychiatrist.

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 suggest getting a therapist at the minimum. If clinical anxiety is the root cause or catalyst, then a psychiatrist could help get over that hill.

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.

A lot of good advice here which you can try to implement, but at the the end of the day if this is affecting your day to day life then this is a mental health issue.

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.

I occasionally suffer from this pattern, although not as gravely as you describe it.

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.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been mentioned by others, but this is the best book (imo) by the originator of ACT [0]. I reread it once a year just to remember all the gems in here.

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

I was stuck in this avoidance cycle for a while and it slowly extended to pretty much everything i was doing. From going to the supermarket, to making a phone call. Most things seemed pretty much impossible for me to do and caused anxiety and panic attacks.

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.

In my opinion, this never goes away and you can only learn coping strategies. I never had this issue with classwork though, but checking my email/dealing with DevOps problems/filing taxes.

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.

There is a sort of murky Autism spectrum label called PDA or Persistent Demand Avoidance. I came across it trying to work out something with my son. It’s not officially recognized, but it does present a novel variation which has its own unique obstacles. Worth looking up perhaps.

I have severe ADHD, with anxiety that almost feels like a fear of success.

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.

I just read the question. If you are anxious from your birth or childhood due to parents, or rejection by other children, etc., believe me, no solution exist.

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.

Depending on the extent to which this is impacting your life (for example, does it extend to your interpersonal relationships?), you may want to be assessed by a psychiatrist for Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD). This is one of the cluster C PDs. There's a book called Distancing: Avoidant Personality Disorder by Kantor that might help you evaluate whether this is something that might apply to you.

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.

What you want to do is try to get past the emotional part of it. I find laughing helps. You want a kind of telling stories around the campfire attitude about it.

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.

It's interesting the contrast your experience is to my own. I have dealt with anxiety my whole life but didn't really want to acknowledge it until recently. My lack of awareness helped me push through a lot but at the cost of authenticity -- which in turn affects my mental and emotional health and my relationships. So good on you for being honest with yourself about anxiety -- that's something I really suck at still.

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.

There are many self help books about procrastination, its quite a well researched topic with some pretty good insight. It's not gonna be a silver bullet though, it takes hard work and changing habits.

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.

This is not a simple "do this", except to say you need to see a doctor. You are not alone! Many suffer with anxiety for their whole life. What helps is therapy to learn to train your brain that many are anxious too and that you are normal. The ones who don't have chronic anxiety are people you can learn from. When you figure it out you'll have superpowers that most would kill for.

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.

yea this is not a easy problem to solve. And surely cannot be solved my tricks like pomodoro technique. You probably already know all the tricks like starting small, setting a timer, put your phone in slient mode ect ect. You are surely not looking for more of these.

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.

If I’m being honest with myself the biggest thing that got me away from this pattern was leaving school. I graduated but dropping out wouldn’t have changed anything with regard to job prospects.

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

To break the fear-avoidance cycle, you have to stop the avoidance, and purposefully push yourself in the opposite direction (exposure). It won’t feel good - your anxiety will increase. Your brain will make up a thousand reasons why you’re doing something wrong/dangerous. You have to persist, expect and tolerate the spike in anxiety, and allow your brain to acclimate to a fear. Then, that fear goes away. ALL fear works this way. It doesn’t matter what you’re afraid of or what mechanism you’re using to avoid the fear (pure avoidance, procrastination, compulsive behaviors, reassurance seeking, whatever.)

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.

How was your childhood? Sometimes people push themselves to achieve to avoid internal shame. Check out "childhood emotional neglect" and "complex PTSD". Dealing with these core issues can make daily life easier.

Look into Cognitive Distortions - those are the self conversation lies we tell ourselves, as we "play ourselves". Cognitive distortions take the form of exaggerations of the unknown future, reading others' minds (which is impossible) and then taking a negative thought attributed to others as truth. Cognitive distortions are in general are a nasty little asshole inside your head constantly being negative.

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.

Alter Egos are a great hack. Your alter ego is a simplified version of yourself and who you want to be. It doesn't get rid of the fear, but it alters your response to the stimulus. e.g. you can adopt a mindset of Jason or The Terminator to be relentless in the face of threats. Your actions break you out of the loop, and you can drop or replace the alter ego later.

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

You are stuck in a mental structure. There are many good advises which help you to gradually improve that structure.

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.

Sounds like adult ADHD.

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

You sound a bit like me. A trick that helps me overcome these situations is to imagine that the worst thing that could happen, in your case, to fail, has already happened. Then I pause and try to see how this affects me. I imagine people pointing towards me, laughing at me, whispering to each other "he failed", then I start to realize, this is not so bad. A failure is just a failure and other people's feelings towards me in this moment really doesn't matter to me.

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

What’s your average screen time over a week/month?

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)

There are more direct approaches, but, recognize those thoughts as bubbling up from lower levels of brain function, that they are not who you are nor are they your destiny nor are you required to act upon them, leave them be, and do what you need to be doing, with your attention on the doing. If you engage with the thoughts (by trying to change them or suppress them or argue with them), you simply strengthen the associated neurology. If you respond to the thoughts with avoidance, you strengthen that associated neurology.

Exercise, lifting weights, running, getting more sunlight / vitamin D, going on walks in nature.

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

I consider anxiety a low-level biological problem. It should have a biological fix.

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

It may help to go out and do something else that you enjoy, to stop thinking about all this. That would give you some perspective on things and you can get back to your work with a fresh mind.

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).

A strategy that occasionally works for me is to start the thing with no intention of following through. Just give yourself permission to give up after some negligible effort, no matter how inconsequential. For example, just tell yourself you're going to pull out the assignment and arrange it on your desk and that's it. Or you'll just load the project in your IDE but not commit to any actual work.

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

There are lot of good strategies outlined here but I have found that sometimes it can be helpful to look at your life and choices from an outside view - like a person reading a story or watching a movie - and consider what direction you really want to be going in.

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

How ironic to be reading about anxiety / fear-avoidance coping methods while I am on my favorite website for enabling my anxiety / fear-avoidance behavior.

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

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"?

There's lots of great advice here and seeing a therapist seems like a good idea, however in the meantime, I read an interesting book a while back called Feel The Fear... And Do It Anyway that you might find helpful.

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

I'm in a similar situation like you and started reading the Book "Self-Discipline in 10 days: How To Go From Thinking to Doing" by Theodore Bryant. I haven't completed the book yet so i can't tell you that it worked in the long run but the section about selftalk and fears already changed my way of thinking significantly and i learned a lot about my self. So definitely a recommendation.

Ask for a referral to a psychiatrist about Anxiety/ ADHD.

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.

I highly recommend reading Daring Greatly by Brene Brown (after completing your assignments). The book covers this topic among others.

In any case, i'd strongly advise to avoid "therapists";

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.

I would suggest a therapy. There may be many various reasons why you have the patterns you have and an honest talk with someone from outside of your circle will go a long way.

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.

Stop trying to perfect your work, try to complete all of your work. Sometimes that means turning something in that you know is wrong.

This is consistent with ADHD, but then, a lot of things are. It's a possibility to explore with a professional. Good luck.

I would suggest to start by taking a pen and paper and just brain dumping onto the page. It doesn't have to be structured in any way, just your general thoughts on the project and what needs doing. After this it shifts the brain a little towards the project at hand.

you need to focus on a single thing, finish it and move on to the next. It's easier said than done because sometimes one thing might take too long and you might feel the need to drop it and attend to another task that's more urgent.

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.

You're only dreading this while you're dreading it. Go ahead and get it out of the way so you don't have to dread it anymore. Make a calendar entry if you have to in order to make sure you have a proper time to get it done

Lots of great advice here. The HN community is truly amazing. I've decided to work on my own issues regarding starting right now.

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

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

Having been in your situation, this is what I would recommend...

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.

Let it go. Don't do the assignments. Seriously.

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.

https://hbr.org/podcast/2021/12/anxiety-is-a-habit

What I did was multiple things:

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.

Travel, get exercise, eat well, sleep well, and ask yourself what you desire your life to be, and then work to make it happen. Then fail, and repeat, possibly without to the travel part.

Why are you asking hackernews? Not everything in life can be hacked by techies on the internet even though a lot of them think otherwise. Speak to your doctor and try to see a therapist.

Don't be afraid of failure! You're tougher than that, trust me. Turns out failure is pretty easy to get over. What's harder to get over is a life full of regret.

Accept failure as an inevitable part of life: everything worth doing is worth doing poorly, in the sense that it’s better do something poorly than not doing it at all.

Some simple tricks to overcome the wall of awful https://youtu.be/hlObsAeFNVk

Put on motivational music & motivational speeches

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

Go to: the tapping solution dot com Give it a try. I think you'll be surprised at the results.

Before you judge this method, known as "Emotional Freedom Technique", consider that the U.S. Veterans Admin. approves it for treating PTSD. The Army don't waste time on woo. More: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/veterans-administration-appro...

book recommendation:

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.

when i get like this i just focus on making any progress at all. Just drawing a diagram on a sheet of paper is better than nothing. My HS football coach would circle us up before kickoff and we'd all look at the scoreboard. He'd say "priority 1, get rid of that zero". Any progress, no matter how small, is much better than zero.

Surprisingly, a quick physical workout can help my mental state, and assist me with energy to push through blocking situations.

I find experiencing the bad thing fixes my faulty risk assessments.

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

Watching interviews from Jordan Peterson on youtube did help me a lot recently.

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".

YOU HAVE ADHD! Sorry for the caps. But seriously, you have adhd, go find a specialist psychiatrist.

I have this cycle now, but I didn't have it when I was in high school. It sort of crept up on me.

For me, I think it would help to just write a plan down and then just execute it.

Also, just set aside a time for it like with working in an office, work is from 8 am to 5 pm so can't indulge in too many distractions during that time and so body gets used to doing intellectual work during that time. Consistency helps the body gets used to it like with a consistent sleep schedule.

What exactly are you trying to avoid? Failure? Fear of failure? Or simply doing the assignments?

Yeah some people really need medication to get past things and that’s perfectly okay.

Nothing to it but to do it man. You just have to start and endure some discomfort.

walks in nature helps

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

although meditation is no cure for procrastination i would advise you to give it a try. It has potential to make you a better you

Alan Watts' speeches on youtube might help with anxiety.

good luck

When you procrastinate what do you spend your time doing?

im a big fan of exposure therapy and good old fashion sleep/hydration/diet/exercise

Maybe not the most popular person, but I think Jordan Peterson has some really nice lectures and talks about this subject in YouTube. Also about fear.

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.

Could it be adhd?

Below is a list of things that I've gathered over time that work for me. If you'd like to have a chat, happy to hear you out, sometimes that also helps.

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!

What works for me:

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 can relate to this quite a bit, I personally think it is my biggest weakness. I have managed to do a few things despite this but just as an example, a few weeks ago I could not bring myself to work on a 5 minute presentation about work that was already done months ago because the feelings related to the work were very strong. Instead I 'winged' it, and it went ok (stakes were low, as I mentioned before, I had already done some work for this for an unrelated presentation), but really it didn't convey the work that was done as well as possible. It also didn't need to be as hard as I made it ( I spent the day before fretting about it, looking at it for a few minutes, but not doing much about it ). The irony is that the worst case scenario of showing up without much prepared was not nearly as bad as my anxiety made it seem the day before, and that anxiety made it hard to prep... So the anxiety was completely off and just made my life harder than it needed to be.

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.

Have you ever tried water fasting?

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.

It seems as though the problem is primarily fear and/or aversion. The mind is kind of like a cavern of echoes, and you can choose to add power to, or dampen, the echoes. Are you able to think of something that will bring up a wholesome feeling, like kindness toward an animal, or a baby, or gratitude toward a mentor? If so, you can use it to dampen the fear pattern.

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.

Professional help. Nobody is going to be able to help you without knowing the specifics of your problem, and nobody here knows the specifics of your problem.

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?

Ask shia labeouf.

If you keep that up eventually your head will dry up and fall off. Stop that.

I just participated in the Landmark Forum (https://www.landmarkworldwide.com/) which is designed to do (among other things) just this, over a three day intensive class. It's about redefining the way you look at the past, present, and future and establishing more positive views. As someone who has been studying mindfulness (and, where it's related, Buddhism) for the past few years, it was a very welcome experience, and it's already impacted my life and relationships in a number of positive ways.

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.