Not sure, but I had 'lighter versions' of that sound before getting a migraine after this(never had migraines before the tia): those episodes immediately caused extreme anxiety, as in: it is happening again, while I knew it was not because I had no speech issues or foggy brain, just an aura floating in front of my eyes. This is a long time ago and the way of getting rid of all of this was getting rid of and learning to cope with stress. Now I work more hours and take on far more responsibility than I did at the time but I do not feel any stress, at all. Never had any migraines or other symptoms I used to have anymore. For people who do not know what it is: chronic stress is living hell and dangerous. Better recognize it in time so you do not lose years of your life.
How do you not feel stress anymore? I started taking on less and expecting less in order to manage my stress levels and it worked. I also started listening to my own rhythm but that translates sometimes to brain dead days and other times with very productive days. I accepted that and am no longer pushing. But I still take on things but at a slower pace. Id still avoid taking on as much as I was doing in my early 20s, that would not end up well for me. How do you manage it?
I'm not tluyben2 and really interested in his secret, but here's what helped me most:
– not taking what my inner critic says too literal. I imagine someone else saying such critical things to me – it would be ridiculous and I'd tell them to go to hell. So I just accept that something fuels my inner critic and take care of it in a different way.
– enjoying the little things in front of me instead of obsessing about processes which outcomes I can't control.
This has a purely hedonistical side too: I can focus on the pure pleasure on squashing this software bug. My food tastes so much better if I actively taste it.
When I look outside the window, I see trees moving in the wind or some other tiny movement. It would be laughable to even try to imagine a world where I control the wind in the trees, so why obsess about other complex things outside my control?
– do some imagination/self hypnosis exercise. Write them for myself. Some (lizard) parts of our brains can't distinguish between imagination and reality, so it's exactly these parts that get anxious/stressed. I find it helpful to just dictate some calming exercise (a story how everything goes right) and listen to it in a relaxed state. It works really well since it's my own voice.
I wrote an exercise for a friend and just yesterday did a recording of it:
https://rybakov.com/blog/being_an_octopus/
one thing for me, was to realize that whatever is happening, its not about "me"
i think sometimes we internalize situations and make it about "us", and while we do indeed cause our own stressful situations sometimes, usually things are in motion (work, poliics, environment) that have really nothing to do with us and internalizing it, as if we are "100% responsible for it" can make one more stressed than it should be
another bad situation to be in is, being responsible but not "in charge", meaning one gets blamed but is powerless to fix the situation (work), then in those cases again, its better to not internalize because in a lot of those cases its politics or bad general management etc... better to see the big picture and put things into perspective...
then even if something was "100% our fault" then just take it as a learning experience "debugging reality", we can do everything right and still completely fail, and that is normal... better to learn and move on (easier said than done, i know)
at least for me, this kind of thinking helped alot with overcoming stress
For me: accepting I have "down" days. And trying to never push during those days. Put breaks, read a book (not related to work, not reading it to be better at anything because thats work as well), go out, exercise. Learning to say no. Not overengineering things (because thats a time sink and I have to throw away 2/3 of the prototypes I'm making anyway). Freeing weekends (or free days). Taking time to talk to people about things not work related. Reduced the "arguing because someone is wrong" (on the internet or not) helped as well, it takes a LOT of emotional energy.
I forgot! Reducing caffeine from coffee and using tea instead when I feel stress is increasing or when I didnt sleep well (thats the worst time to drink coffee for me as it starts a tiredness and anxiety circle that may last a few days). This reduced my anxiety a lot. And I also noticed that coffee increase my procrastination. Not sure why but I would likely put that on increased anxiety.
I'm curious about this too. I have also experienced this at times, although I wouldn't have found these words to describe it. I don't think it's been tied to any particular conditions like heat or stress. Usually it happens when I'm in bed and beginning to fall asleep.
Mentioning the falling asleep part reminds me of a few cases myself. I have trouble sleeping myself and when I fall asleep very slowly I've noticed similar 'illusions'. flashes of light, voices, fractal patterns, a conscious state while dreaming and the very rare loud noise that comes from nowhere. Usually the noise doesn't prevent me from finally falling asleep. I've always wondered how many people experience these effects.
>Despite the name, the sufferer's head does not actually explode.
Hallucinations, particularly the auditory ones, are relatively common when falling asleep. If you haven't already, you could consider seeing a sleep medicine doctor to help with falling asleep and sleeping "deeper", which could also fix the hallucinations.
Purposefully inducing the "out of body experience" (whether it's imaginary is besides the point) is almost always accompanied by this rare roaring sound during the transition moment. I guess that most people freak out and snap back to the normal awake state. Edit: I find the wiki article describing the "problem" highly entertaining. It reminded me of a quote (from that gervais principle book probably) that the modern healthcare manufactures well adjustedness, i.e. they try to square peg everything unusual into their rigid grid of normalcy and if something unusual doesn't fit the square hole, the healthcare system doubles down with rough chemicals.
I've had that as well. Especially in stressful or tiredness situations. Exercising and better food made them go away. That may be a spurious correlation with my n=1 but I guess exercise and better food will help long term anyway.
