Read the blog post and also the other blog post in the page ( "Why discipline isn’t the answer to procrastination", "How to stick to good habits without being hard on yourself", "How fear of shame causes procrastination", "How fear of success causes procrastination").<p>I get the feeling that the author is in a situation a lot of people in HN could relate to: A situation where Performance Anxiety, Fear of missing out (FOMO), Fear of being left behind, distraction and ADHD all gets entangled in ones work , personal life & choice of how to spend their time. It seems like if these things are left unchecked for a long time, the things can lead to depression, or other form of negative mental state.<p>My question is how do you solve/amend this? Reading comments from similar themed post on HN it seems like a lot of people are aware of themselves having one or more of the above. Some seems to have accepted it, others seek help from therapist. But a lot of people also seems to feel like they don't want to "lose" the feel of guilt, stress, bad self image that follow performance anxiety and fear of missing out because they take their negative emotional reaction as a virtue that pushes them to improvement in stressful times (myself being one of them).<p>It seems like vast majority defaults to "work harder, smarter" as a solution, and only later in life when "working harder" have a diminished (sense) of return, or when they hit a wall, change their course of action.
To me it seems the strategies and tools we're able to build for ourselves often hit the mark much more often than any mainstream advice could give us. In part, this seems to be because we know our idiosyncratic nature much better, but also because we have skin in the game and are therefore willing to be way more creative in solving our own problems.<p>I've built apps for similar(ish) reasons solely for myself in order to deal with whatever issue I had to deal with. A good example is using TiddlyWiki and simply making a journal with a few fixed questions that simply was asking how I was doing on a few psychological/physiological measures (i.e. exercise and so on).<p>I've been in the situation where people sought my advice to fix their issues, whatever they were, and applied my strategies. Sometimes they hit the nail and worked, other times they catastrophically failed because they worked against the nature of the person.<p>While one has to pick their battles, I'd advocate for people to consider making their own tools/techniques/strategies to deal with their issues. I know this isn't always possible or a smart move to do. But I've seen that it's more often the best move in the long-term than not. Oh, and of course that doesn't exclude recruiting help along the way :)
Holy smokes guys, I went to sleep after posting this and woke up to the tiny server running my blog dead and about a 100 comments here. I'll get my kid to school and then sort everything out.<p>Thanks!
I like the idea! However, I don't know much about psychology, so I'd personally be hesitant to create such a product. Certainly "releasing emotions" without a therapist could be somewhat dangerous for some people. And perhaps what actually helped him isn't using the app, but a new sense of purpose or meaning in his life due his discovery of the book and developing the app.<p>It'd probably be wise to consult an expert on the psychological backgrounds.
So many mental health apps these days with so little high quality evidence of their effectiveness.<p>And there are so many of these apps out there, why would someone build their own? Maybe OP is onto something though.<p>Could it be that the creative process and challenge of building an app to solve a personal problem is just as good a treatment for depression as the app itself?
To everyone berating this guy about 'not being very depressed':<p>My depression is not your depression, and your depression is not theirs. Please stop judging.
It makes me sad when i read stories like that.<p>I feel depressed. Doctor - Take these pills.<p>I still feel sad. Doctor - Take more pills.<p>Medication cures symptoms of depression but cannot fix the underlying problems causing it.<p>Taking pill to feel happy again is a patchwork that will eventually burst catastrophically.
Thanks for sharing.<p>I'll share one reaction I had — these sorts of things are normally narrated in professional, glossy, somewhat saccharine voices, and it was a fun and surprising moment of human connection to realize, hey, this is just some dude talking into his laptop mic! While I imagine you might consider investing in professional VO at some point, there's something really nice about the way it is now.<p>I wonder what it's like for you to hear your own voice asking these questions of you — is there any value in that specifically?
mild, flu-like symptoms. Just describes how I feel since february and I'm not sure, whether it's for a hidden Covid (business travelled to Spain, when they found their first case, around 2 weeks, before they closed down...) or the depressive mood-swings I had in the past.
The blog seems down, but the page it linked to is still up: <a href="https://beta.wuju.app/" rel="nofollow">https://beta.wuju.app/</a>
> I went to the doctor, told him I was feeling mild flu symptoms for a couple of months, he asked me a few questions, determined that I had depression [...]<p>Wait, what?
Wow this app is quite neat. Basically it's like a catalogue of different emotions and mental states and it's got prompts that take you through them and help you to identify and focus on them and help you work through them in a very low-pressure way. Very nice!
The best thing I did for my mental health this last year was get the audio book of "The Untethered Soul." Interestingly enough, I found out about this book on HN last year. This is a fantastic book about spirituality that is really practical. I've listened to this book about 5 times all the way through and it never gets old.<p>The guy who wrote it is the real deal, not some random guru. The Surrender Experiment, his other book, is also good because it shows how he applied it all in his life to make him self a self-made tech multi-millionaire and to go through some pretty hard struggles and build a large spiritual community along the way.
Very nice. I did run into a lot of useless scrollbars though (on Firefox desktop), this was discussed earlier here on HN: [0]. I guess you are an Apple Safari user ;)<p>Oh and I may be dumb but it took me I while before I realized I had to check all the boxes, because I though: Yeah I'm in a quiet space, so I don't need my headphones.<p>Other than that, very nice job, worked for me, impressive. Will bookmark.<p>[0]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24293421" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24293421</a>
I just spent 5 minutes with the app, and had a revelation about my fear of failure and how it relates to my parents that I've never had before. Thanks for sharing this.
I've been meditating almost daily for several years, and I've read numerous books and tried many different methods. I found this app very helpful, and I'll probably incorporate it into my routine. The technique relates closely to the root of most, or maybe all, mindfulness practices, which revolve around feeling your emotions and their sensations in your body. At the same time, it is a very simple practice, not heavy on theory, that anyone can try immediately. Really, really excellent work--thank you for building and freely sharing this.
I don't want to disparage anyone, and I will take a look at the app when it's back up, but I'm not even sure what depression is anymore. Mild flu symptoms is not a phrase I'd used.<p>It's great that more people are talking about their mental health, and that it's becoming more acceptable to seek help. But the word "depression" has become so murky to me, I rarely know what people mean when they use it.<p>Maybe I just don't understand the word...
This isn't how he built it; it's why he built it. It doesn't describe what the app does at all, just its goal ("help you deal with emotions").
Hey! I've spent a half hour using your app and it's great! I was feeling a bit tense, confused and unmotivated this morning and going through the technique with your app really made a difference. Thanks!<p>For those not in the know, this is based on what's sometimes called the Sedona Method. There's a popular book about it by Hale Dwoskin [0] and the questions (and phrasing) in this app are almost exactly the same (the self-questions are an important part of the technique).<p>I've been geeking out about psychological self-help for a long time and this is by far the simplest and most effective (especially in terms of the ratio between accessibility and effectiveness) method I've come around. The idea, to summarize it crudely, is that you can just let go of feelings. You're a layer cake of stuff and the more you take off the better things get. At first it sometimes feels like "ok, I've let go of this basic thing, but I'm no better off" (it's a bit like the situation you'd find yourself in if you started shoveling a landfill). The technique, apart from the basic insight that you can let go, provides troubleshooting and guidance that let's you get a lot of results from something that is so simple. One of the things that originally attracted me to it was the feeling I had that, whatever the mechanism behind my hangups is, it's simple, but with emergent behaviour, and this really satisfied that part of me, and has been otherwise very rewarding as well.<p>My favorite book on the topic is Letting Go by David R. Hawkins [1], which is also one of my favorite books of all time. I could sing praises for it for a long time; it's been a big deal for me. If I need a spiritual pick-me-up, that's the book. It's a really good instruction manual for your mind, feelings, emotions. If you think you might lack emotional intelligence, this book is a good place to start too.<p>If you feel like this method is working for you and you want to learn more, I recommend going back and forth between the two books. They have very different approaches on the same thing. I found that at different times I needed more of the one or the other.<p>In the app, I noticed that the voice-over "letting go might be new for you" kicks in every time you're going through a new emotion. Might be better if it was there only for the first time.<p>I think I'll be coming back to this app a lot. Thanks again! Are you considering open sourcing it?<p>[0] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sedona-Method-Happiness-Emotional-Well-Being/dp/0971933413" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Sedona-Method-Happiness-Emotional-Wel...</a>
[1] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Letting-Go-M-D-David-Hawkins/dp/1401945015" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Letting-Go-M-D-David-Hawkins/dp/14019...</a>
I'm kind of confused. As a highly empathetic person you're offering a "solution"? I'd assume others have experiences other than your own and that might not be particularly applicable in their individual situations?<p>I apologize if I'm not getting this.
This app is based on 'The Sedona Method' which has helped me in the past, but treats symptoms. For more permanent change I would suggest REBT, which has helped me even more.
Your depression couldn't have been that bad if you could create an app against it. Regular therapy would probably have been more effective and less dangerous for others.
If you managed to finish the app, you weren't very depressed.<p>Depression acts primarily on willpower. The bad feelings come as a consequence of not being able to get anything done.