I’m having some personal issues causing some severe depression and anxiety. I’d like to get past this time as fast as possible, and my days are dragging on. I can’t sleep, which would be a good way to make time go fast. But I also can’t just play video games, I don’t have the motivation to play more than a few minutes and it also just makes me realize how alone I am with no friends or anyone I can connect with emotionally and I spiral into my anxiety and depression.
I can do stuff during the day, run, chores, etc. But as soon as I’m done, especially at night, I start freaking out and it seems like time stands still. Does anyone have any suggestions? Activities I can do that are mindless that will just kill time and get me through the night before I can just go to sleep?
I know this question is stupid but I’m looking for at least somewhat serious answers.
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How about chess? I know you said you are not really looking for video games, but chess to me is a bit different to video games.
I had a similar problem to you a few years ago during Covid. I was very stressed and lonely and didn’t know what to do with myself. I am completely addicted to chess now. To the point that I play for like 4-8h a night sometimes. Time passes fast, especially in the shorter time modes. And if you are looking for a more low stakes, slow paced distraction you can play correspondents chess and think about your next move for 1.5 hours. Bonus: if i tell people that i play chess over an hour every day, they often assume i am a genius, even tho I’m just a 800 elo idiot like most people
In combination with the exercise it sounds like you’re doing anyway, have you tried a bit of Yoga and a bit of listening to meditative sounds before/during bed/sleep/end of day? You may have tried similar things already, but if not, maybe worth a go? It’s not going to pass/waste time as such, but might put you into a better position to stop your mind racing with negativity, especially in that crucial pre-sleep phase.
Particularly looking at “Yoga for Anxiety” or “Yoga for Mental Health” type things, moreso than general strength and fitness Yoga. You’ll find a bunch online. You might find something like this Yoga Healthcare Alliance 10 Week Course works for you (it’s promoted by the UK’s NHS for some conditions). It’s focusing on basic de-stressing, de-tensing muscles, breathing focus, and may help you feel calm and relaxed - which may give you a good nights sleep - which could potentially do wonders for beginning to recover.
I’d also suggest combining it with some “sleep headphones” - a fabric headband with some really flat headphone speakers inside it - then listen to a combination of “meditation for anxiety” or “8 hours deep sleep ambient soundscape” type things whilst you lie there.
Ideally you’d do the Yoga sat on your bed, then drop straight into something like “a nice man tells you you’re great and everything will be fine” followed by some sort of “inner peace meditation that lasts 8 hours or longer”. Obviously, you’ll find your own preferred voices/sounds. I’ve also used white noise style “starship engine sound” or “on a night train” audio.
If you watch them on your phone with “Newpipe”, you can save them as videos or just as audio files - which you can then set up as playlists in VLC. No point in downloading the same thing every night.
This whole set of things might not work for you at all, but if you’re up for hours anyway, what do you have to lose?
Personally, I found this process helped me massively on my way out of a similar patch (combined with exercising more, quitting caffeine for a while, CBT therapy - it was a multiple angle approach).
Regardless, I wish you luck and pass you my best wishes in your recovery.
Also if you want some interesting soundscapes, I can recommend exploring mynoise.net. They have a huge variety of natural and artificial soundscapes, including a bunch of musical ones that are all tuned to be compatible with one another, so you can mix & match them. They also have a phone app, but you can only use one sound at a time with it. Also not everything is available if you don’t make a donation. I gave them 5 bucks a couple of years ago and it’s one of the best 5 bucks I’ve ever spent. It wasn’t hard to then spend a few more dollars on the app.
I use them for focus when I’m working, but lately I’ve also used them for sleeping. It works really well for me.
If you can’t sleep and are trying to kill time anyway, why not look into something like mindfulness meditation? It might help you keep some of those anxious thoughts in check to the point where you can actually focus on something to take your mind off of whatever is causing your issues.
I’m sure it’s not for everyone, but it helped me a lot when I was at my worst.
Also, you indicate that your anxiety and depression are due to some personal issues (which it sounds like will no longer be an issue in a month). If I’m understanding that correctly, that sucks for the time being but I’m glad to hear it has an expiration date. If those are feelings you deal with chronically, however, and you have the means to do so, I highly suggest trying to find professional help. The right meds can make an absolute world of difference, and talk therapy can help you straighten out how you approach those feelings.
Whatever route you take, I hope this passes for you soon and you start to feel so much better. Those feelings suck, but life can absolutely get better.
If those are feelings you deal with chronically, however, and you have the means to do so, I highly suggest trying to find professional help
It’s a combination of an expiration date as well as chronic. I started therapy recently and I’m on meds as well. We’ll see how that goes. So I just want to get this short period over with, because the combination is pretty unbearable…
Binging TV isn’t pretty or healthy but it does definitely help time travel past those sad times in your life where you need time to heal
Podcasts maybe? That’s my most braindead activity. It’s an easy thing to do in bed while trying to sleep too.
Time also goes by faster at night if youre tired so getting some exercise during the day might help.
Good luck, hope things pick up for you soon.
Time also goes by faster at night if youre tired so getting some exercise during the day might help.
I do a ton of exercise during the day. You’d think I’d be tired at night and able to sleep, but nope. Doesn’t matter how many miles I run or walk or hike.
It’s not the right choice, but alcohol has been doing well for me for this.
Dad died last year due to what I feel is my fault…
Using alcohol as a self-medicating behavior caused me more pain, ruined relationships, lost me jobs, etc. than anything else. Stay the fuck away.
Weed also works extremely efficiently at making doing nothing enjoyable. I heard opioids also make doing jack shit easy.
I dont recommend any of these as a solution see my above comment but this will work if ur ready to commit yourself to a homless miserable life offering blowies for $5 and a pack of smokes.
Then again worse case scenario killing oneself is always an option, ita not a good one i ask you please dont under any circumstances do so. But it would make time pass exceedingly quickly (well depending on ur religion or if u have one etc)
I heard opioids also make doing jack shit easy.
Opiods and benzos help. That is something that will likely happen this month but I only have so many. And it only helps because it’s a change. If I took them every day I’d just need more and shit. So, those will come and help me sleep when I need it, not an every day thing.
Hmm seems ur craving somthing different. And u said previously u got money so there is always travel throw a dart at a world map till it lands on land that isnt a warzone.
Alcohol will temporarily alleviate anxiety and then make it much much worse. I do not recommend this at all. I’m sorry to hear you’re having a rough time.
Stay the fuck away from alcohol, OP.
Alcohol doesn’t help anyway.
We all feel like it was our fault. The coulda/shoulda will eat you. Find something else to occupy your brain.
We all feel like it was our fault
No. I feel like it was all YOUR fault.
Getting books from the library to read?
Not OP but I personally don’t have enough patience to read entire book. I just can’t. I don’t know how other people read whole book in few days.
Audiobooks. Libby app for local library and countless audiobooks already covered by your library card.
I’ve listened to/read so many books. Short ones that are 4 hours or so to entire series where each book is about 20 hours or so.
Long drive? Audiobook. Yard work? Audiobook.
I find myself looking forward to the mundane chores because it gives me an excuse to get back into whatever story/book I’m enjoying.
If I am super interested in a book that I got as a gift, I will tear through it in a few days. That being said, I’ve probably read like 4 adult books since being out of school. Plenty of kids books over the years, (I had mastered Fox in Socks at one point.)
It takes a lot for me to take that much time on a book.
I’m the same. I read super slow, and I just don’t enjoy it really. Audiobooks are hard for me too. I like podcasts sometimes, and I read a lot of articles and stuff like that. But books are just too much for me.
Have you ever tried listening to hardcore history by Dan Carlin? I find he’s the right level of captivating to keep me interested, but slow enough that I can still drift off to sleep
Start with Short Stories or novellas. A whole story from beginning to end in as short as 3 pages or as many as 30 or so. There are entire books of short stories (anthologies) in every genre you can imagine. You say you don’t have the patience. However, in the time its taken you to read this entire thread, you could have finished a short story. You’ve proven you have the patience.
I used to watch favorite TV shows, long series, and try sleeping as early as possible. Watching shows is so passive and easy that it ends up working well. It’s really important to have fun and get good sleep, so I suggest focusing on that until you figure it out.
Ugh I wish I could fall asleep early. It’s sooo hard to fall asleep before 2am or so. And then I haven’t been able to sleep past 7am or so. Which is why I said other than sleep. It’s just really hard for me to sleep, even if I’ve been incredibly active during the day.
Start a project doing something that allows you to enter a flow state. Could be programming, woodworking, knitting, anything you can reasonably do with your interests and budget. If you can find something that holds your attention it will delete time.
It’s hard to get the motivation to do a project. I’m really looking for something totally mindless. Like, exercise is a good one, but I do a lot of that during the day and it starts to get unhealthy and unproductive. I end up at night doing a lot of pacing, or stuff like that. I was hoping for something the equivalent of pacing but that isn’t physical. I don’t know. I think I’m just grasping at straws that there’s some solution to this that I haven’t thought of.
Yeah motivation can be tricky and I actually missed the bit where you’re specifically looking for something to do at night before getting to sleep instead of pacing around.
Uhh… Rubix cube? Puzzle? If you don’t want to walk around something where you use your hands and that takes some mental focus might help. Hopefully you find something!
Jigsaw puzzles, the bigger the better. It keeps you constantly mentally engaged and the act of reaching for pieces and looking around is good physical activity too. I get back ache if I do a jigsaw session for the first time in a while. It really tires me out before bed and can prevent that rumination before falling asleep. Finally it’s really cheap, there are limitless puzzles in charity shops and even some libraries lend them.
Do more things, start doing something at home that will take a long time and keep doing it until you’re so tired you can’t keep going.
That’s kind of exactly what I’m asking. What kinds of things would fall under that?
What are you into?
Learn to draw? Build/make something?
Learn to program?
Shoot videos with your phone and learn to edit (davinci resolve is a free editing software). Shoot whatever, little stories/vlogs/clips for friends.
Clean everything in your house, inside the fridge, the whole shower (above/below), dust the walls, go through your closet/drawers/bookshelfs/etc. The places you’d never otherwise pat attention to.
Move furniture in your home and reorganize the layout of your stuff.
Learn to cook, really dig into how to make sauces, properly cook steaks/fish/etc. Practice cutting veggies and perfect your knife skills.
I mean, there’s a million things to do.
Paint a wall in a certain pattern, using multiple colors. It needs time for planning, time for buying tools, and time for execution.
Fix something. Replace dying batteries for electronics, take a look around the house, anything you can find parts on ifixit for. It requires focus and skill, gives you a sense of pride and accomplishment, and you benefit from your items longer. Also cheaper in the long run.
Tinker around the house. There’s always something broken or in a bad condition. Repaint stuff, reapply stuff.
Build something with your hands. Try woodworking.
Gardening unfortunately is usually done outside and during the day, but you could try indoors hydroponics or vertical gardening. Try to automatize it.
Learn programming. Learn hobby electronics. Arduino is easy to learn and requires both. Could help with the automatization above. You can find cheap clones and parts. You mainly work with DC under 12V, so it’s relatively safe.
Be curious. Watch Youtube videos about any subject you might find interesting, learn how stuff works, no matter how familiar or not they are. A lot of times I don’t have the patience to watch a show, but I find myself getting into a Youtube / Wikipedia rabbit hole about cryptography, programming, how games are made, how mechanical pinball machines work, lockpicking, painting, large buildings fails, quantum physics, astrophysics, photography.
Watch Cosmos, presented by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Would you consider volunteering at an animal shelter? Doing good for others helps you feel less bad about yourself.
I actually occasionally do volunteer at a shelter. It’s a good idea, but I’m mostly asking about things to do once all the available “activities” are over. Let’s say, starting at 9pm or so
I take melatonin so I can sleep instead of lying awake with my thoughts
I do a similar thing, melatonin but I’ll put on TV. Simpsons, futurama, bob’s burgers are all good sleep shows.
I’ve been listening to a great book series called dungeon crawler carl on audible…there’s like 6 books and they are pretty long .that could eat up time… I listen to them whilst exercising
Haven’t listen to dungeon crawler Carl, but He who fights with monsters is also a good series
Mines a wild departure in tone but the Wandering Inn is both long and engaging.
Well, let’s see…
Time in your local frame of reference slows down the closer you are to a gravitational force. This will give you the perception the rest of the universe is going much faster. However, you’d need a pretty strong gravitational force to notice any effect of it.
A black hole is one of the most powerful sources of gravity out there, but if you don’t want to waste millions of years travelling to some far away celestial body, you can find an even stronger gravitational force much closer to home:
Your mum.
Some people take Baldrian before bed in Germany. You can (probably) get it without a prescription. It has a calming effect that might help you, without going down the road of stronger medicines.
I take melatonin, which helps a lot. But the issue is I just have trouble sleeping right now in general. I’d love to be able to sleep 14 hours a day all month. But I’m lucky if I get 6-7
