Introduction

Recently I've been attempting to put a damper on my ruminations. Sometimes they can get out of control and be somewhat self-sustaining. These negative, repetitive thoughts can be harmful and make depression worse. Accordingly, I've been looking for techniques to help manage this.

In a previous post, I talked about how I stumbled onto a way to track emotions through kinesthetic memory. Specifically, I am using a checkmark gesture to mark negative thoughts, and at this point it has become semiautomatic. The results have been quite interesting.

A little later, someone wanted to know about the process in detail. My first impulse was to shout "MU!". It seems contradictory to try to use words to describe something that is inherently and intentionally a nonverbal process. However, I decided that is was worth a shot. Below, I cover the skills that you will need, how the process works, and my personal experiences with it.

I've been trying to manage my negative thoughts and I've stumbled on an interesting technique. In order to increase my mindfulness of my ruminations and my thoughts. I started making a check mark on a piece of paper when I had specific thought. I didn't feel like I had the emotional strength to battle every thought, but at least making a little checkmark was easy. Then, deciding I wanted to do this anywhere, I started instead making a quick checkmark gesture with my pointer finger.

The results have been interesting. One effect is I can now more easily sense the heartbeat of my mood. Usually, I could tell how I was feeling at any one time, but I never noticed the flow of things. But with gestural movement, I can remember how often I've been doing it. I can also see if I'm doing it every few minutes or every few seconds.

There's another result that's very interesting and offsetting. Sometimes, the movements are semiautomatic. This fits in with a modular theory of the brain, I think. So, I'll have a fleeting negative thought, reflexively make the gesture, and go "Oh, I just had a negative thought, I didn't notice that. Maybe I should do something." It feels a little strange from the inside.

So, just something that was interesting to me. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or interesting information.

Sorry if someone has covered this before, but I had an interesting thought. Sometimes I'll make a deal with myself, I'll say I'll goof off for X minutes but then I have to work for Y minutes afterwards. Often times, when the time is up, I won't follow through on the deal. What's interesting is I that feel like a causal agent being asked to just leave the money that's lying right there. I'm only going to give myself chances to goof off if I trust myself to get back to work but by the time the time for work comes, I'm in some sense a different person, no longer bound or endangered by old agreements. Omega (old me) is gone and never coming back. This all of course ignore long term goals, moral satisfactions, etc.

I've been trying to learn how to drive and unfortunately I suck at it. Some combination of a stressful teacher and hyperfocusing have made it very difficult to learn. My biggest problem is with the multitasking aspect. Remembering to put on the turn signal while stopping and and checking my speed and watching out for other cars, etc. It's difficult for me, I forget or miss things. One thing I was considering may possibly help is using dual n-back to boost my working memory. Does anyone have any thoughts on the likely effectiveness of this?

I was reading the wiki article on Paranoid debating and I noticed that there was no good source of facts for the game. I suggest anyone interested in it check out a party game called Wits and Wagers. It's an interesting game where everyone is given a trivia question with a numerical answer. Everyone writes down their guess, then bets on the answers, with the more extreme answers paying out better. It's a cool game and a good source of numerical trivia.

From my understanding, people on the autism spectrum have difficulty reading people's emotions and general social cues. I'm curious how these people develop these skills and what one can do to improve them. I ask this as a matter of personal interest; while I am somewhat neurotypical, I feel this is an area where I am very lacking.

(Sidenote: would this be considered an appropriate used of the discussion section?)

I've seen boredom before being used as a way to detach from the world. Is there any material on boredom being used as a defense mechanism?