Escaping Learned Helplessness

Greg says

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Xisca

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Yes, he says there is a lack of energy.
Apart from the diet and suplements, traumas explain the lack of energy as well.

When there is learned helplesness, there has benn 1 or more or repeated situations of high energy activation + an impossibility to act successfully.

In the nervous system, the high activation is sympathic activation.
When it is high but inefficient to solve the problem, then the body blocks all, with a huge parasympathic activation that is able to block the already high activation. This can be as strong as the possum reaction with a catalepsy.

Some of this activation can be blocked for years, all life. This burns energy...

When mentionning the social help like in AA, this is also using a parasympathic activation, but the vago-ventral part, which is the part of the parasympathic system that induce social engagement. You can find more in stephen porges polyvagal theory.

I mean that of course you can use diet and supplements, I use them too, AND there is another entry to the problem.
 

Giraffe

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Xisca said:
Oops, we can tremble as animals, but by shaking I meant what a hairy dog do after a bath!
We are animals with the skin stuck on the flesh, and we cannot shake ourselves this way.
Dogs do this shaking all day long, and this is not to put their hairs in order!
What wwe do iinstead is laughing. Laughing makes our body shake ;)
I bet the dogs are laughing too. After bathing our dog always wallowed in the sand. Then it came to where we were sitting on our blankets and shaked. It never shaked where it had wallowed! It came near us to shake! Always! We, the blanket, the foods, everything was covered with sand. Isn't it a means to poke fun at us?
 

tara

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Giraffe said:
Xisca said:
Oops, we can tremble as animals, but by shaking I meant what a hairy dog do after a bath!
We are animals with the skin stuck on the flesh, and we cannot shake ourselves this way.
Dogs do this shaking all day long, and this is not to put their hairs in order!
What wwe do iinstead is laughing. Laughing makes our body shake ;)
I bet the dogs are laughing too. After bathing our dog always wallowed in the sand. Then it came to where we were sitting on our blankets and shaked. It never shaked where it had wallowed! It came near us to shake! Always! We, the blanket, the foods, everything was covered with sand. Isn't it a means to poke fun at us?
:lol:

Nothing like a good laugh for relaxing chronic tension.
 

Xisca

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Dogs migt have some sense of humour...
BUT NO PHYSICAL LAUGH!
I mean be shaked by laughter...
What is important for the system is the shaking.

Sometimes we laugh even without really knowing why, sometimes with tears, and sighs, and we can feel the relief. This is a stronger relief than just letting out the pressured vapour. Of course, what is released depends on all the context.
 
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This is a side of noopept I've never really focused on. Such motivation! Oh god, the dopamine
drool_y.gif
 
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narouz said:
Such_Saturation said:
This is a side of noopept I've never really focused on. Such motivation! Oh god, the dopamine
drool_y.gif

You tried it, Such?

I used up about 2,5 grams over a couple years or so.
 

Blinkyrocket

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Does wanting to be in control of everything (breathing, heart rate, etc.) count as learned helplessness? I've been unable to let go of control and actually get scared sometimes when I relax and feel like I'm not paying attention to my breathing so at any moment my heart could start pounding 160 bpm
 

4peatssake

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Blinkyrocket said:
Does wanting to be in control of everything (breathing, heart rate, etc.) count as learned helplessness? I've been unable to let go of control and actually get scared sometimes when I relax and feel like I'm not paying attention to my breathing so at any moment my heart could start pounding 160 bpm
That sounds more like anxiety not learned helplessness.
With learned helplessness there is more an inclination not to have the energy to make an effort although one can suffer from both as well. The lack of energy is a form of giving up - futility, what's the use?

Regardless, its more important to assess symptoms and respond to them than know what they're called. I say this from my own experience having both spent too much time trying to figure stuff out without proper action and then on the flip side, too much time throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Once I settled into more of a balance, things got easier to access and address. It takes time and great effort because for the most part we are going against the grain and mindset of most of the world. It's an enormous shift in consciousness when taken fully.
 

Blinkyrocket

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4peatssake said:
Blinkyrocket said:
Does wanting to be in control of everything (breathing, heart rate, etc.) count as learned helplessness? I've been unable to let go of control and actually get scared sometimes when I relax and feel like I'm not paying attention to my breathing so at any moment my heart could start pounding 160 bpm
That sounds more like anxiety not learned helplessness.
With learned helplessness there is more an inclination not to have the energy to make an effort although one can suffer from both as well. The lack of energy is a form of giving up - futility, what's the use?

Regardless, its more important to assess symptoms and respond to them than know what they're called. I say this from my own experience having both spent too much time trying to figure stuff out without proper action and then on the flip side, too much time throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Once I settled into more of a balance, things got easier to access and address. It takes time and great effort because for the most part we are going against the grain and mindset of most of the world. It's an enormous shift in consciousness when taken fully.
I didn't think it was learned helplessness and I kept telling everyone who says I'm still anxious looking that I don't actually feel anxious, is it possible that in order to get over agoraphobia I buried my conscious FEELING of anxiety but that it's still there? That was a rhetorical question mostly but still.

Because I don't feel anxious, gosh dang it, no feeling of pounding heart or other things related to adrenaline.
 

4peatssake

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Blinkyrocket said:
4peatssake said:
Blinkyrocket said:
Does wanting to be in control of everything (breathing, heart rate, etc.) count as learned helplessness? I've been unable to let go of control and actually get scared sometimes when I relax and feel like I'm not paying attention to my breathing so at any moment my heart could start pounding 160 bpm
That sounds more like anxiety not learned helplessness.
With learned helplessness there is more an inclination not to have the energy to make an effort although one can suffer from both as well. The lack of energy is a form of giving up - futility, what's the use?

Regardless, its more important to assess symptoms and respond to them than know what they're called. I say this from my own experience having both spent too much time trying to figure stuff out without proper action and then on the flip side, too much time throwing spaghetti at the wall.

Once I settled into more of a balance, things got easier to access and address. It takes time and great effort because for the most part we are going against the grain and mindset of most of the world. It's an enormous shift in consciousness when taken fully.
I didn't think it was learned helplessness and I kept telling everyone who says I'm still anxious looking that I don't actually feel anxious, is it possible that in order to get over agoraphobia I buried my conscious FEELING of anxiety but that it's still there? That was a rhetorical question mostly but still.

Because I don't feel anxious, gosh dang it, no feeling of pounding heart or other things related to adrenaline.
There's more to an anxiety disorder than feeling anxious. ;)
The part in your post where you say you want to be in control of everything and get scared to relax is pretty classic anxiety. :mrgreen:

But as I said before I think it's wise to focus less on proper labels and get my food straightened out, using my symptoms as a guide.

:2cents
 
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narouz said:
Such_Saturation said:
narouz said:
Such_Saturation said:
This is a side of noopept I've never really focused on. Such motivation! Oh god, the dopamine
drool_y.gif

You tried it, Such?

I used up about 2,5 grams over a couple years or so.

So...you recommend it?

Yes. Try it with coffee!
 

Hugh Johnson

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gummybear said:
Xisca said:
gummybear said:
Very interesting thread, thanks. Is there any other ways to get out of learned helplessness? Is it just high serotonin that is the cause and the immidiate reaction is then to lower it?

Serotonine or any neurotransmetor seems to me a consequence more than a cause, a way to make the body react.

Lerned helplessness is when the 2 main reactions of the body to danger do not work. When you cannot flee or fight, then... So when it is repeted over time, you do not even try, you "know" it is useless. The reaction is just automatic.

Flee and fight are the 2 first Fs, but there is a third which is called Freeze. This is the possum reaction, the stress of death just makes him "fall like dead". He does not play it actually, this is an automatic autonomous response. This can be life saving! So this is not a useless reaction.

The problem seems the difficulty humans have to go out of the freeze response after a stress, small or big. Animals do it by shaking. Shaking is just a concentrate of back and forth movements, which are the useless flee and fight responses that were stuck in the body.

That's interesting, thanks for your answer. So you are suggesting...dancing? Lsd? Mushrooms?

There is a fourth reaction called 'Fawn'. This is when stress causes you to try to make yourself pleasant to people. Usually happens with people who were unable to fight or escape. Abused kids for example.
 
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gummybear

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Hugh Johnson said:
gummybear said:
Xisca said:
gummybear said:
Very interesting thread, thanks. Is there any other ways to get out of learned helplessness? Is it just high serotonin that is the cause and the immidiate reaction is then to lower it?

Serotonine or any neurotransmetor seems to me a consequence more than a cause, a way to make the body react.

Lerned helplessness is when the 2 main reactions of the body to danger do not work. When you cannot flee or fight, then... So when it is repeted over time, you do not even try, you "know" it is useless. The reaction is just automatic.

Flee and fight are the 2 first Fs, but there is a third which is called Freeze. This is the possum reaction, the stress of death just makes him "fall like dead". He does not play it actually, this is an automatic autonomous response. This can be life saving! So this is not a useless reaction.

The problem seems the difficulty humans have to go out of the freeze response after a stress, small or big. Animals do it by shaking. Shaking is just a concentrate of back and forth movements, which are the useless flee and fight responses that were stuck in the body.

That's interesting, thanks for your answer. So you are suggesting...dancing? Lsd? Mushrooms?

There is a fourth reaction called 'Fawn'. This is when stress causes you to try to make yourself pleasant to people. Usually happens with people who were unable to fight or escape. Abused kids for example.

Reminds me of the book anxious to please. But yes it makes sense.
 

Xisca

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Very interresting!
I just wonder if this is a reaction of the autonomous nervous sustem, or of the cortex.
Freeze can ba partial, it is not always as clear as a total colapse. Shyness is also a form of freeze, you want to speak or act and cannot.
Make people laugh, be pleasant etc, looks more like a strategy don't you think so? It is trying to undo the bomb with the right words, to calm down the agressor for example.
 

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