Mind Hurricane

I can barely concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes these days. There's a million thoughts flying around my head almost all the time. When I'm trying to sleep, sometimes racing thoughts will keep me up. Even my sleeping thoughts aren't safe; some days I have strangely complex and narratively coherent dreams, and I wake up with my head hurting.

I'm sure the media I consume has had a non-zero effect on me. I was proud of myself for not downloading Tiktok, only to end up scrolling on Instagram instead for hours on end. I instinctively open up Reddit the moment I feel even a little bored while working. I don't even know what I'm looking at, my mind is a million miles away thinking of something else. It's like there's a robot swiping on the screen while the real me is hidden deep inside myself, daydreaming.

I really need to bolster my portfolio and apply for internships, so it's frustrating when 8pm rolls around and I've gotten nothing done. I don't even remember wasting time. It's like my eyes glaze over and immediately 5 hours have passed.

I saw a therapist over the summer and we experimented with some ADHD and depression medications, but I didn't feel much different. Unfortunately I had to relocate for a bit so I've paused experimenting with different medications. Maybe I need to take that more seriously.

For now, I want to start working on my productivity and mental health. I'm not cutting fun out of my life, but when I choose to play videos games or scroll Reddit I want to commit to enjoying that activity. And when I designate a work period, I want to solely focus on work without any other thoughts.

Thanks to Bear blog, I've been exposed to other people with similar worries, and I'm going to try a few of their tactics. Here's what I'm committing to:

• hide my phone in another room while I'm sleeping, possibly buy an alarm clock with white noise
• meditate at least once a day with Medito
• use SelfControl to block distracting sites during work hours
• get a rock climbing membership (I've been hearing more and more that exercising has a big impact on mental health)

There's more habits I want to implement in my routine, but I'll start with these. I hope to post a positive update in a couple weeks.