I tend say "I mean..." before saying things. No one has ever pointed it out. but I'm very aware of it and catch myself doing it all the time. Sometimes 2-3 times in a discussion.
I used to do that. Now, I loooove getting in my bed and cutting out the light and it’s “night night”!
Same. I will potter around until 5 or 6 am and then hate myself as I have a meeting in the morning that I will either need to drag myself out of bed for or sleep until lunchtime and lose half the productive day.
You're doing great. What helped me quit when I was a teenager was to always know where my nail clippers were, and have fast access to them. So whenever I had an urge due to an uneven nail edge, I'd just smooth it out with clippers or a nail file. Really made it simple to quit.
I used to do it, what helped me break it was keeping a rubber band on my wrist and every time id bite, id snap my self with the rubber band, took ~1.5 weeks for me to stop
What helped me quit was a manicure. Spending $40+ on my nails helped me not want to bite them. By the time the gel chipped off, I broke the habit, so I didn’t go back. I still pick off hangnails and the uneven structure, but having a file next to my desk at all times helps with that. I also have a cheat nail where I mess it up if I need to.
Reading.
Hear me out! I have always been an avid reader, get very sucked into plots. I got diagnosed with ADHD in June. Since I've been medicated I've read $15,000 worth of library books. A little of that amount was before June, but most has been since then.
I will walk around the house making food while reading. If I am doing something that requires my hands then it's a podcast or audiobook. This all being said a lot has been manga or graphic novels but there have been days when I read 10+ books.
Probably doesn't sound like the worst problem but it's something that has started to impact my life in ways I did not expect.
Thanks for reading!
I haven't done the math on "value" read, but I do 15-20 hours of audiobook (because 2x speed) on work days. It definitely can make finding new reads a challenge.
That's kind of cool. I'd need to combine a lot of different sources to get a number, though. I use all of Libby and Hoopla from my library, a scribd subscription (sorry, everand, I guess now), Audible, and Apple Books to handle my audiobook needs (and more for ebooks, though I have less time for that).
you've 'spent' as much on books in five months as i have in, like, twenty years. but i don't always actually check books out. i often just go there (it's only a block away), grab a book, find a sofa to sit on, and read it.. cover-to-cover, then put it back where i found it.
Mmmh that sounds lovely but I unfortunately do not have that luxury as I do not live in the same town as my library.
I have tried several different ways, and I will try the alarm again since you've suggested it - thank you by the way - but I often get laser focused in such a way that I don't hear my partner speaking when he's beside me on the couch.
That's fair. You could try one of those classic bell-based alarm clocks, that shit will jolt even the most concentrated of people
I tried an air raid siren one and it helped a bit.
But maybe like an actual alarm clock not just an alarm on my phone.... Hmmm thanks !
Yeah there's something about phone speakers that just never does the job for me. I dunno, the alarm sounds just lack...presence. I use a bell-based alarm clock to wake me up and when that thing goes off, you're getting the fuck up no matter how deep a sleep you're in. Phone alarms? I've slept through too many to count.
Obviously your use case is different, I'm just thinking if it can snap out a deep sleeper like me, it might help break your hyperfocus too.
I've been sucked into a depression fueled reading hole where I just read and lay in bed for several days. What's weird though is after a couple of days I start to narrate my dreams and if long enough it begins to make its way into my waking life?
Ever experienced anything like this?
Ah okay, I figured it had to be a situation like that. Although I was hoping you were just rich, lol.
Sorry to hear that. I hope I didn't offend you.
You didn't, sorry if it came off that way, it's my innate passive aggressive Canadianness, comes out sooo hard in text form.
I'm also sometimes a dick so that doesn't help either heh !
I think if I were rich I'd just buy books and then I wouldn't be rich anymore.
Late night snacking
Waking up feeling slightly sick has been the norm for me for the past 5+ years
I regularly eat right before bed and I don't have this, in fact if I don't do it I wake up really hungry. It's still a bad habit on my part. Maybe something else at work?
Sounds awful. Do you know what causes it? Otherwise this might not be in your control. Worth seeing a holistic therapist to find the root cause and hopefully feel better.
Biting my nails. Been doing it for as long as I can remember. I think I stopped once but went back to it as soon as I realized I stopped.
I have the same problem, except I'll sometimes end up chewing them so much that one finger will bleed in-between the finger and nail on the side. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have dried blood under one of my fingernails.
I used be a an absolute fiend for biting my nails. What fixed it was buying a little Swiss army knife nail set. It's got a wee little nail clippers and file. It fulfilled the need for nervous movement.
There is invisible nail polish that works well.
It makes nails taste horrible, and you will be reminded even if you bite your nails absent-mindedly.
Should give it a try if you really want to stop.
Oh I can relate with this. I've recently managed to stop (hopefully for good) for the silliest of reasons. I want nice long nails.
I know it sounds silly, but I've switched from biting my nails to running my finger tip along one of my nails instead. I admire how nice they feel and it somehow takes the biting impulse away.
One thing I do need to do is an almost daily filing to keep them completely smooth. I know that I'll resume biting if I find an irregularity or a jagged edge.
Same here, did it for about 3years and decided to stop when I saw the conditions of my nails.
Forgetting time, space and everything else while I write code.
Not that I've almost set the kitchen on fire before by forgetting the pizza in the oven while writing "this one little function".
I'm curious as to what you program/work in. I'm the same way when I'm invested into a configuration/template (I work with the cloud)
It doesn't really matter for me what it is, as long as it is a project I'm working on xD
I think at the time I was migrating a discord bot I to use PostgreSQL - or setting up auto backups for it.
When I'm baking bread, I have to set timers for myself to make sure it doesn't overproof or burn in the oven.
The feeling is wild. I sit down, set a timer for 1-2 hrs, start work, and with the snap of a finger I'm torn out of my zone by my alarm sound.
If it was harmless, why would I care to break it?
If you strive to break a habit, it likely is because it has done harm, no?
They have identified that the habit is harmful. Not all harm is associated with pain or injury. You can cause a person practical/emotional/financial harm, and those are still forms of harm.
Because it may actually not be? And maybe you already know that it isnt harmless but it could still seem to be.
I love caffeine, but it messes me up bad. Absolutely debilitating headaches. I'll go six months or something without, and then relapse until I get woken up by a jackhammer in my skull and give it up again. Sigh. I don't understand the studies that actually suggest it's good for you.
I have occasionally tried giving up caffeine, and once the initial withdrawal headache passed, all that happened for me was more migraines (even after several months without it) and about 3 lb of weight increase. Daily caffeine does help me to prevent headaches.
Funny how caffeine for me causes headaches, and for you prevents them. I used to get bad migraines (the throwing-up-painful kind) when I was young. I wonder if that has something to do with it.
Yeah, it is so strange to me too, I expected it (quitting) to help but it does the opposite. I do get the migraines still, just fewer if I do daily pattern of caffeine. Relaxing is my biggest trigger now, it was periods before, those were the absolute worst.
It's weird to ask, but are you young? I've seen it suggested that migraines tend to recede in those 35+. I was very, very grateful for them going away as I got older. As long as I stay away from the caffeine, the worst headaches I get these days are just a mild annoyance. Especially compared to the I-wanna-kill-myself ones I got when I was in high school.
No, I am in my 50s now. Migraines started at 18, were worst in my 30s, so painful that I didn't understand when the doctors asked to rate the pain, so bad that when I went through natural childbirth my only comment was "well, it wasn't as bad as a migraine, at least.". And yes almost always with vomiting. Turned out it was birth control pills making them more intense but I didn't know that until I stopped them. Hormonal IUD did not have that effect, nor does menopausal hormone treatment. Now I do still get them, much less often and they do vary in severity now, not straight to 11 on a scale of 10.
I will also say they are well managed with the sumatriptan injection, 90% of the time or better it works and doesn't even feel dopey, just fixes it. For 20 years now, it's worked. The problem was that when it didn't work it sometimes was a 3 day thing and I couldn't drink at all, even a sip of water caused vomiting. This bad has only happened like 6 times total, you used to be able to go to the doctor and get pumped full of something like heroin, it didn't touch the pain really but put me so far away from it and I'd sleep and wake up without the headache. But now, because it didn't really work, and there's such a backlash against opiates, they won't - even though this is a once every 4-5 years thing and nothing else works either. Now nobody but emergency room will touch it and all they do is IV liquids so you don't die from dehydration, and something in it to stop the puking. But it leaves the headache there.
Oh crud, your case sounds far worse than mine. Glad you have them somewhat under control.
If I suggested my migraines were worse than childbirth to my wife, she'd kill me. Our child was, uhh, very reluctant to joint the world.
Whoa, I find it weird that people get withdrawal symptoms. I drink too much of it every day and I've never had so much a slight headache from quitting cold-turkey.
It sounds like a rare reaction. Some people are allergic to water but you wouldn't say, "that doesn't sound harmless."
Maybe the diuretic nature (u pee more) gives you a headache. Next relapse, drink a glass of water or three.
Caffeine. For the love of god, why isn't this drug legalized legislated like Alcohol and Nicotine is?!
I get a headache if it is late enough in the morning and I haven't had caffeine yet. I get a headache if I have too much caffeine.
laughing a stupid little laugh after I'm done talking. probably comes off as nervous and awkward. I hate it.
Whenever I'm typing and there's a character limit, if I'm closer to the limit than I am to having zero characters, I try to fill the limit with precision even if I don't need to.