I should be studying right now, but everytime I sit to study, I can’t sit there long enough, I want food even though I am not hungry, I want to watch TV/youtube, self-pleasure… etc…
No matter what productive work I want to do, I will try to not do that and do something which gives me momentary pleasure. I want to masturbate, eat lots of food even though I am not hungry while watching TV/Youtube and I don’t seem to be able to break the cycle and it’s destroying me. How can I break the cycle and do something good for a change instead of pleasuring myself in the moment meaninglessly?
Self discipline is a skill in itself and it is something you can learn.
At it’s most basic you restrict things you want and make them a reward for doing a task.
It can be hard to restrict things as you say. When I used to study, I used to go to a “3rd place” to do it. That is somewhere that is not home or work - I used to go to a library. In that environments you don’t have TV, or food, and hopefully you won’t be masturbating.
Mobiles can be very difficult though - if you can’t stop yourself using your phone to watch YouTube then either leave it at home (I know, shocking idea in this day and age!) Or install parental locking/anti distraction software that locks your phone down for certain periods. This can help you learn self discipline with your phone.
Similarly if you study with a laptop, then look at anti distraction tools to keep you focused on your work rather than surfing or on YouTube.
The reward side is very important. You need to be consistent and follow through on your promises to yourself. Don’t use unrealistic rewards - like “if I study for 6 hours today I’ll have dinner tonight”. You’re going to have dinner anyway, and you don’t want to go down the road of punishing yourself. Make it a favourite meal, or promise to watch next episode in a favourite TV show.
The idea is that you will be still enjoying those things because you will study and work. But be prepared to deny yourself those things if you fail to reach your goals in the beginning.
Self discipline is hard, not least because you can cheat yourself too easily. But it’s worth putting in the effort, and the forced physical separation from the distractions and rewards at home makes it easier.
This is a fantastic answer. The things that trigger the reward center in your brain should not be the common input. I fully agree with the suggestion to remove the temptation beforehand and set goals. Personally, I also suggest that you make the reward less frequent over time so that the completion of the work becomes the desired result; rather than just a means to attain the reward.
It’s most effective for long term behavioral modification if your reinforcement drops off steadily, and becomes randomized (as in, may or may not appear, randomly selected each time according to a decaying probability curve).
Oh, like in gacha games? ;P
hey, thank you! I feel like my brain is hijacked by all the stuff I do and I can’t do anything else. Fuck this laptop and fuck this phone. These aren’t good for me.
Escaping from these things is a long slow process involving a lot of work.
The book Atomic Habits is very good. It talks about how you have a limited willpower budget and the best way to make long term change is to only make small changes at any given time, and stick with that small change until it requires zero willpower. Then you can make another small change.
Basically it’s like making a sculpture by putting down little layers of concrete, then waiting for the concrete to fully cure before putting more concrete on it.
You make a little change to your habits. Something like “I don’t touch any apps other than alarm clock for the first five minutes of my day”.
Then you do a huge and nearly exhausting amount of work to make sure the first five minutes of each day aren’t your normal escape patterns.
Trying to go whole hog takes more willpower than you actually have, and so it breaks down. Trying to alter the first five minutes of the day takes an amount of willpower you can actually afford to spend.
And the key is, after you’re consistent with it for a while, it eventually takes no willpower, and is now by definition a “habit”.
It’s mostly not your fault. Apps, games, and socials are intentionally designed to be addictive. That’s because the more time you spend on them, the more ad revenue the owners make.
If sheer willpower doesn’t work, find other ways around it. Someone else already suggested going to a library or another place, that’s good advice. Of you phone is an issue, you could turn it off and allow yourself to turn it back on after you’ve been productive for an hour, or after you have achieved a specific goal.
Have you had an ADHD screening?
I got diagnosed with ADHD, prescribed some meds. It was a total waste of time. Gave me anxiety for about a year and a half before I stopped taking the meds. My success at handling the complexity of life increased for the first few days of my medication routine, then dropped back to where it was before with more panic attacks.
For me, getting an ADHD screening started a major detour in my own development.
Sounds like you were on the wrong meds. There are lots of ADHD meds. There are also ways to reduce the anxiety they cause. It honestly doesn’t sound like you want to try to fix this, you just want someone to wave a magic wand as if there’s some magic easy fix.
Yes, I was on the wrong meds.
I am stating a simple fact: I went and got tested for ADHD and it ended up setting me back, being the wrong move.
It would be nice if there was a magic wand, yes. I wasn’t thinking about it, and don’t know where you got that from what I said.
Then try a different medication? It takes a long time and a lot of attempts to find the right one
This is more a provision of information for OP than it is a request for help with my problems.
You either had bad doctors or you didn’t communicate with them. They should have lowered your dose or switched to a different stimulant if you had ADHD, and if you didn’t, they seriously screwed up by diagnosing it as such and giving you stimulants. A good doctor would’ve listened to you and recommended therapy in combination with meds.
I’ll 2nd what hexagon said about going to a library or similar place. Trying to work around other people who are working helps to focus the mind and reduce distractions. If you can go to a library, this may be a good place to set up better practices, e.g. thoses others have suggested, first, then set up a work-only zone at home you can transfer that feeling of focus and work to.
I hate to say it, but watch the David Goggins interview with Huberman recently. The overall point is - hard stuff is never easy, it always sucks, and there’s only one way through it and that’s by doing it, no matter what.
In your scenario, you’re always waiting for the moment when it “feels good or right” to do the work… but it never does feel ideal, right. That’s the key, accepting that it sucks and pushing on through that sucky part anyway.
The good news is, the sucky part gets less and less once you pass the first hump of starting. It’s like the hardest part of exercising is getting started, once you’re doing it you’re fine.
Good luck, I know the feeling.
For me, it will start feeling “right” about 15 minutes after I start studying or working. You need a while to get into it, to get warmed up.
Why would anyone wanna be productive if not for the sake of pleasure? Why even live? Get your priorities straight and then do the math. This shit is investment!
Lemmy User: Asks for advice
Lemmy: ADHD
It’s worth noting that, now that people have had a few hours to vote, none of the most upvoted replies mention ADHD.
And that’s honestly not a positive. People out there don’t get diagnosed until their 30s because they never seriously considered it. Not saying OP has ADHD, but dismissing it outright without more exploration is potentially harmful.
potentially harmful
Oh for fuck sake. No, failing to give a voice to the hypochondriacs who bleat about every medical condition under the sun in any random social media thread isn’t “potentially harmful” by any stretch of the imagination. Frankly, constantly obsessing over such things is itself causing harm.
The irony is that constant obsessions/hyperfocus is a symptom of ADHD.
You need practice at concentrating on your work.
In the same way you’d work out to build muscle strength, your mind needs regular training to stay in shape.
Start with sensible, achievable goals and improve over time.
Start with tiny goals. Not just achievable but almost trivially achievable.
Goal 1 could be: wait ten seconds before the next time I open social media
This is what’s meant by “baby steps”
Yeah I do this to break my inertia.
“I’m not actually going to do any work, just clear my desk, then 5 minutes youtube”
“I’m not actually going to do any work, I’m just going to get my books / laptop out, then do whatever thing for 5 minutes”
… and so on …
When I was at university I couldn’t work at home at all and I had to force myself to go to the library on campus and work there. I later learnt I had ADHD though, so that didn’t help.
Same here!
Something that helped me is setting smaller goals, like studying just a little before taking a break. If I ordinarily study for 0 minutes and screw around for an hour, I’d try to study for 5 minutes and screw around for 55 minutes. Smaller goals are more achievable and take the pressure off. Then you can build on that small success instead of feeling like it has to be all or nothing.
I got some counselling, then on the anti depressants, they were the first step - let me see why I should do something different, but then I got onto the ADHD meds and they let me focus. It took a while, had to work out what worked for me but once I got it it was the answer I needed. They’re not the solution for everyone, but if you haven’t tried at least talk to someone about it.
unfortunately, this might not seem like a great solution for my problem. I have been on meds and I still can’t perform and I didn’t notice anything getting better while I was having those meds.
How long did you take the meds for? How long ago did you stop?
To add on to the other commenters, medication alone doesn’t usually solve things. Rather, it makes you more able to implement solutions to your problems. It’s why therapy is pushed so hard.
You could also be on the wrong meds. It can take a lot of experimentation before they work.
Even if we’re just talking antidepressants, it usually takes a number of tries to find the right fit. The same thing applies to ADHD meds.
Also, medication is most effective in conjunction with therapy.
This sort of dopamine-seeking behaviour can be a symptom of ADHD (though it’s not the only possible reason)
It’s also a symptom of trauma
I say at this point, 100% of people have ADHD. It’s mentioned at every turn.
I won’t give you the “self-discipline” options since others touched on it. If it’s a mental thing, it could be ADHD, anxiety, and/or depression. Before you dismiss it, look at the diagnostic criteria from doctors on YouTube or maybe the ICD. I wouldn’t put too much weight into the DSM-5 for ADHD because it’s been criticized for having an inaccurate or stereotypical view of it. People like Dr. K (HealthyGamer) say that ADHD is simultaneously overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed for similar reasons. If you do go the psychiatry route, make sure you find a doctor who genuinely listens. Medication and therapy can change your life for the better, but they won’t do that if the person giving the treatment doesn’t care.
Try the pomodoro method
Going to the gym and lifting heavy has been medicine for me. Eating healthy (I make my own food from scrstch). Walking. Hiking. It’s a mentality change. My health was deteriorating. My knees were giving out on me at an early age. I started to become diabetic and that was a major issue. Now, it’s all gone. I am healthier than ever. Never bored. Always have something to do. And at the end of the day when I have time, I’d play video games to relax. I only do an hour and max 1.5 hours then just get up. I usually set up a timer and stop the game right away when the timer goes off. Do things that attract your interest. That way you get busy with them. Change majors if you had to. If you’re bored with school then it’s not the major for you. Stay away from anti-depressants and all that. You have your own medicine in your hands. Good luck to you and I hope that things get better for you.
I really relate to the struggle you are describing. The book No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz has helped me understand and work with this experience. It’s more of a deep dive than a quick fix, but I recommend it.
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As others have said, this could be symptomatic of something like ADHD.
I didn’t get diagnosed until 18 and it changed the game. I was very hesitant to start stimulants because of misinformation and stigma, but my doctor corrected a lot of that and it’s changed my life.
Doctor Russell Barkley has been at the forefront of ADHD research for decades and has a YouTube channel that’s packed with useful information. If what you see resonates with you, I’d talk to your doctor about it.
Wasn’t diagnosed until 52. Wish I would have realized what was going on decade’s ago. So much could have been different.
