Mental Synergy

The idea is to get the different parts of our brain/psyche/soul working together. The thread is what we make it but - I'd recommend not giving or asking for advice. Maybe go easy on theory or sweeping pronouncements on the human condition. Tips, hacks, routines, mindsets - that's the gold. Context always helps.

 

I went 12 days without listening to any music, probably the most time without for my entire life. Recently, I've been listening to music while doing other things -walking, housework, etc. I noticed right away that my focus (ability to prioritize) and concentration (how much time I can spend on what I am focusing on) went up a lot. I started noticing a lot more on my walks around the neighborhood and wrapped up tasks quickly and efficiently. Obvious takeaway - don't multitask - hardly a new insight - lots of writing on this.

The deeper understanding for me was this - listening to headphones was an early childhood coping mechanism - some my earliest memories are of listening to Dylan and The Beatles. I wondered then if part of my brain considers anytime I use headphones as a signal that there is something I need to escape from - an unintended dissociative response.

Listening to music again was wonderful - not surprising that details popped and I felt euphoria. But I've decided to scale back listening and possibly resume fasting. Thinking about boxing everything up except for my PortaPros.

 

I have been dealing with some mental distress over the past 2-3 years. I've noticed that the only hobby that has been left intact is reading. I find it hard to listen to music as much as I used to, and I can hardly make myself start a computer game. My work is suffering. My anxiety just tries to crush me down into a little human black hole, and I just lock up until I can regain control. The mental synergy aspect here is that now, when I listen to music for relief, I begin to associate that music with the anxiety now and it can be triggering depending largely on the lyrical and musical content. It is very frustrating to have your mind take what sooths you and weave stress and anxiety into that. It does force me to be constantly looking for new music and that is a nice aspect.

I feel like you are really onto something though with the association of emotion or trauma to a type of physical object. I had been thinking of it only in terms of music, but headphones could also be a signal to your animal brain that "Hey - danger ahead! Hide hide hide!". Thank you for sharing this post. It's made me do some thinking and introspection along different lines than normal for me.

 

Interesting thread. Reading your posts above feels kind of familiar but in the opposite direction: I do a lot of deeply focused technical work (coding, hard troubleshooting, etc.) and music always allows me to focus a lot better. But not any music: I can only listen to genres which heavily rely on rythm like reggae, jazz, African music, funk, soul, etc. It's not just that I like those, but it's like part of my brain becomes engaged tracking the music in the background, and allows me to "go into the zone" and reach deep levels of focus.

 

This is so important- the self help/ mental health industry is making billions off selling one size fits all/ magic wand approaches, fueled by the productivity culture. Everyone is different and needs a different blend. In this, as in gear, find your preferences.

 

Tip: Slow your sample rate.

Difficult times are usually temporary, values generally revert to the mean, things are almost never as bad (or good) as they first seem. And a lot of problems resolve without your help.

So if you find political news troubling, don't read it so often. If you're lucky, policies that outrage you will get proposed AND abandoned while you're not looking, leaving you none the wiser/angrier.

Or if you have money invested for the long haul, don't check your account balance every day or week or month. Prices go up and prices go down; you WANT sub-Nyquist-frequency aliasing so you don't see and get triggered by the peaks.

For me, slowing the sample rate worked a lot better than just trying to care less. I achieved even more peace by coupling my slow sample rate with "count to ten" / "wind the clock" / "sleep on it before hitting Send" type methods for putting time between whatever stimuli i did see and my response.

I'm sure it won't work for everyone, but it made a big difference for me.

 

Tip: sometimes you don't need to respond immediately (or at all)

I sometimes find it helpful not to respond to an instant message or email immediately (because I was busy, or otherwise). Sometimes the inquirer found the answer on their own, and sometimes my responses were different from my initial reaction. Other times, it's just better to ignore trivial matters altogether.

 

I have a small hack for getting past decision paralysis and overthinking when the outcome really doesn't matter. I'm talking about the small shit, like what to have for dinner or which toothpaste to buy:

Narrow it to two choices -- if there are more, you can do a bracket if you really need to, but I find I can generally get myself to Mexican vs pizza, for example. And then flip a literal coin, after resolving to abide by the outcome. That's it.

Again, it's a small thing. But I can't tell you how much cumulative time and mental energy this has saved me over the last two years. I now keep nice big Kennedy half-dollars stashed in my car, jacket pockets, jeans, etc

And hey, if you occasionally find yourself disappointed where the coin lands, then you've just learned what you really wanted in the first place and can void the flip.

Oh and works great with a partner too. "I'm fine with either movie, honestly" "So am I, can you just pick one PLEASE" etc etc

 

Along those same lines, I found that if I can hold off on reading news until lunch or even late morning, I can handle it much better. Having a morning free of those kind of stressful inputs helps me set a tone for the day that is relatively durable, even if my "sample rate" is high later.

 

If you can't break it down further, then you need one of these of various denominations

Spoiler

 

Or the Magic 8 Ball

 

Music is sacred for me. So is silence. For example - I will not listen to music while training or doing mentally taxing work. In my mind it is disrespectful for both - the training/work and the music.
I can not focus with full attention to both, so I do not. Ability to focus on stuff can be trained, and so I have done. It has helped me tremendously in my work and training over the years.

Sometimes I listen to some primitive music when doing noisiy activities, such as cutting grass with tracktor or grinding metal with a tool for a long time just to have something better than noise.

In the end it comes down to dopamine management and music is a serious modifier for that.
A few times I have trained hard I had put on some strong heavy metal - I does give boost, but I don't need that for training, I'd use it for competition, if allowed.

Anxiety is not exact opposite of disability to focus and stay focused - yet there is strong link there.
If you practive getting distracted, you are easily distracted. I've been there, and don't want to go back.

 

Back in 2005, I was organising stuff for a major house move, an emigration.

I probably have ADHD. That wasn't a thing when I was a child, so it was never considered as a reason for my being obviously clever, but useless at learning most stuff. And anyway, it could just as easily have been laziness.

Anyway, perhaps more than most, I often find myself wondering why a came to a room, or what I was about to do. Or forgetting what I was meant to do and picking up something else instead.

That latter thing was happening, in my move preparation, over and over again. I was getting frustrated with myself. Then I realised: it didn't matter! It all had to be done anyway.

 

It's not a formal diagnosis by any stretch but the degree of comorbidity between autism and ADHD is high enough that I'm halfway tempted to just fully upend DSM logic and say it's all just a multiaxial spectrum of AuDHD, lmao (not at all serious here btw, just a jape).

Even nowadays there's still a stigma against getting diagnosed with any sort of mental disorder in this country, moreso than I think may be the case elsewhere. It's not just been that societal pressure that's been keeping me from getting properly assessed (not that I've not already been *peer-reviewed* to death and back over the decades), there's also just the fact that even with all the suspicions I've been harbouring for ages now I feel like getting any of it validated could upend a lot of what constitutes as function for me, and that scares the crap out of me really.

The love of music is I think what brings everyone in this forum together. Some folks are more inclined to go fully wild pursuing gear than others whereas there are a few here I'd say were near enough system-agnostic (i.e. just get a transducer you like the sound of and use whatever just works, no need to optimise); I think both are equally valid paths in their own way cuz at the end of it it all comes back to music.

Just that some are more inclined to nerd out about granular changes, get all giddy about them cuz it's REALLY FLIPPIN COOL to witness for oneself how much of a refinement going for different upstream components can make at the transducer level, easily measurable or no.

That said, I'm also one of the ones who cannot write or do anything that involves the engagement of ANY level of complex thought while listening to music-- it's too distracting. I only ever have music on in the background when showering, cleaning, exercising-- anything that you can sort of run on autopilot with minimal intervention. I'm with @Priidik on silence being its own special thing, something to savour as need be in a hectic world.

LMAO this happens so often that it frustrates me too. The number of times I've left my "nice" coffee to come to room temp (thereby messing with all the really complex organic compounds, then impacting flavour and texture), lost a plate of food I was carrying around, get sidetracked and accidentally leave one of the dogs in their cage for a couple hours (always with water and an electric fan, small solace as that is)... not fun at all.

 

If ADHD had been a thing, and if attention-enhancing drugs had been available, I might have had some benefit. None of that was there. The best that could have happened would be me getting stuck with one of those stigmatic formal diagnoses of not being normal, with no benefit attached.

I too do not like to listen to music while doing something else. Neither thing will be getting full attention. Actually, I feel the same about eating!

 

I guess we can call it ADHD, but I tend to blame today's environment for people being distracted, and forgetful. A hundred years ago, people don't have blinking lights, notification tones, 24/7 newsfeeds, etc. People don't get diagnosed with ADHD because there weren't many distractions. In the rural areas, you watch grass grow; in the urban areas, you look out for that new-fangled horseless carriage to chug along.

Music is probably the only thing now that really engages people, and at a set pace. And easy access to it is probably one of the best thing to have happened in human history. I think I can do without most of modernity. [Cue Monty Python's Life of Brian sketch on not needing the Romans...]
Except: indoor plumbing, electric lights, clean drinking water.

Anyway, back to music...yeah, a little music through earbuds while taking a walk. Away from distractions. Focus on the rhythm. Simplify.

Apologies on the stream of consciousness...but the funny thing is that I feel mentally better

 

Something I always advocate for is learning to appreciate silence. I don't mean anechoic chambers, but simply getting away from the constant hum of noise that surrounds us everyday. Cubicle hell with conversations and phones and office noise. Constant music/tv/traffic/etc outside of work. Our senses are constantly being bombarded and sometimes our relief is to somehow flood ourselves with an even louder stimulus to drown out the rest, but that's just adding to the problem.

Physically, there's thing thing called the stapedius reflex/muscle in your ear. It tightens up when exposed to noise to protect all the delicate hearing bits inside your ear. The muscle does relax when things are quiet, but it takes a very long time to do so. It could be hours depending how "stressed" the muscle is. This absolutely affects your hearing. The muscle is also affected by stress, illness, etc etc. Is it any wonder that alcohol or other recreational substances can affect our hearing (beyond the brain chemical woowoos).

So take some time every day. Learn to enjoy and appreciate the silence. Train your ears to calm down, actively relax the muscle (as contradictory as that statement may seem). Learn to expand your biological ability to discern quiet dynamic range. Meditation and mindfulness under a different name.

Chill out man.

 

Some hearing test showed that I don't have the reflex. MyENT doc said, no worries, lots of people don't. But I wish I did!

 

Active de-stressing is a daily must for me. Examples:
Sitting in a quiet room with purring cat in lap while staring at the garden outside.
Sitting in garden listening to birds or just the noise made by wind, when the world is collectively quiet enough to permit.
Sitting at the waterfront on a quiet morning listening to waves hitting the water break or seawall.

 

if you are struggling with some existential dilemmas or past traumas I would recommend looking into Katie Byron & the Work



There's a lot of videos with her on Youtube but they all basically spell out the same thing, four simple questions you can ask yourself to challenge any dilemma, belief or narrative; followed by a 'turnaround' which helps you reframe and hopefully heal/let go/rise above.

An example belief might be: "My system isn’t good enough". You can examine this belief with the four questions:

1. Is it true?
You might say: “Yes! I hear flaws. The highs are too brittle. The bass lacks weight.”
But pause and really consider it.

2. Can you absolutely know it’s true?
How do you absolutely know it’s not good enough? Compared to what? Under what conditions? Are you certain it's the system, not the room, the source, your mood, your expectations? Could it already be good enough to move you?

3. How do you react—what happens—when you believe that thought?
You obsessively A/B test cables and read forums late at night. You don’t enjoy music. You listen for flaws. You feel anxious, insecure, never satisfied. You delay joy. You spend money chasing a feeling that keeps slipping away.

4. Who would you be without the thought?
Imagine sitting in your listening room, hearing Coltrane or Bill Evans or Radiohead, and simply feeling grateful. Present, not judging, just experiencing. You might find the gear disappears and music arrives.

Then, the turnaround to the original though might be "My system is good enough", "My listening isn't good enough", "I'm not good enough for my system". Think about that!