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Random

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  1. Great point! It does seem a bit strange like that. Maybe it's easier to concentrate on more stimulating stuff. But still, I think the concentration gets worse with time even in games. Isn't it like every high elo players tip #1 to take breaks between matches?
  2. Day 6 Long story short, today for particular reasons I decided to take my daily walk to the office. I have one minor work task to do during this month, so I figured might as well go to the office and see my colleagues at the same time (I could also do it remote). Everything went just fine until my direct superior told me that due to some changes I might need to take on more responsibilites when I go back to work. Basically more direct contact with the clients. Started to stress out really badly. Goddamn social anxiety and general anxiety. Fuck, if it goes through, I'm not sure if I can take it. I just stress way too much, lose sleep over these things very easily. One reason why I took the sabbatical from work was that I was starting to feel really burned out, then I promised to go back because the thesis wasn't progressing anyway and the isolation at home started to have bad effect on me. I'm lost now, I don't know what I am doing anymore. The news at work sent me to new lows moodwise... I am now seriously considering to get professional help again for depression and social anxiety. Maybe this week I will reserve an appointment. Otherwise I see very little hope in the future. Visiting work reminded me how I used to feel before starting the sabbatical. Daily goals almost completed. I still have 1 hour to go with the thesis, but honestly I'm not sure if I have the energy meet it today. We'll see.
  3. Day 5 Daily routine at the moment: 5 minute mobility exercise after waking upGo for a walkDo the 15 minute stretching routineWork on thesis for atleast 2 hours.Day by day. My routines are still lacking a social component. The goal for tomorrow is to call someone but I need something to the routine as well. Probably not daily though .
  4. Thanks! Somehow revealing the thesis/field of study feels really uncomfortable and I've been thinking a long time how to answer you. (It's a very small field). Even the country flag showing my country gives me a bit of creeps. (can I turn it off somehow? ) I guess I'm afraid someone could use the very personal information against me somehow. The odds are extremely small though... Anyway, I'm overthinking this by far already. I'll PM you about the thesis just to keep my sanity .
  5. I think nobody can concentrate very efficiently after one hour. Attention just plain diminishes with time. It would probably be easier to just work on shortening the breaks, than developing a super brain.
  6. Welcome and thanks for sharing. Having a community supporting the quitting really helps. I'm on day 5 now and one thing that keeps me going is that I don't want to let these great people down by giving in to gaming (even though really the only person I would let down by doing so is myself).
  7. This thought often crosses my mind. Most people are doing just fine enjoying games. But hey, here I'm writing stuff to gaming addiction support group. I am by definition not like them, I am not like most people when it comes to gaming.
  8. Welcome to the fray! I've also thought about selling the steam account, but the are some problems with it. If I've understood right, you would forever be able to "steal" your sold account back, contacting Valve and proving that you are the original owner (Your purchase history, original email, etc). I could see some success in selling the account to someone you actually know, and who can trust it won't be a scam. OR gifting it to someone who is able to enjoy it in a healthy way .
  9. Day 4 Added a minor thing to the daily routine. 5 minute mobility excercise after getting up in the morning. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoyy3bKtD84) Other than that, just grinding it out with the other routines and other stuff. Been enjoying listening to music, some fiction reading, cooking, internet browsing, etc. Daily routine at the moment: 5 minute mobility exercise after waking upGo for a walkDo the 15 minute stretching routineWork on thesis for atleast one hourFrom tomorrow I'll increase the time with thesis to 2 hours. At one point I'll probably have to plan a rest days, but for now I'll just grind every day, easier to keep going that way. I hope I don't turn into a robot from all these routines, but actually, I don't even mind because I already were a robot that had only one routine, playing computer games.
  10. I did the selling of old stuff a couple years back and it surprised me how quickly the things sold for prices that weren't even that low in my opinion. I'm intrested about the investment ideas if you want to share. If you have no intention to play with the cards ever again, I'd just sell them. But then nobody else but you can decide whether keeping them as a memory is worth more to you than the selling value and maybe more importantly the freed storage space.
  11. Does this count for being productive?
  12. Day 3 Had a dream about gaming last night. Also more flashbacks of games during waking hours. Experienced some tiny urges to play. Sticking to the routines and about to leave the house for the gym.
  13. It's true that quickly multiplying your investments in the stock market is mostly luck and not something everyone can work out. But investing in certain things, be it direct stocks, mutual funds, etf's, real estate, is mathematically a thing everyone should do. Are you familiar with the financial independence movement? The subreddit side bar has a list of blogs which I think fit your description of planning everything and working for it. www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence I see you've already taken action by building up your emergency fund savings which is the first necessary step. I think generally 6 months of living expences is adviced to be held in a bank account. After that, most of the savings should be invested. In your shoes my immediate next steps would be: Look into your spending and try to find any spending that doesn't give enough value for the money spent. For me such spending would be, buying candy and sugary drinks, eating in restaurants too often, etc. This will speed up the filling of emergency fund.Read investing blogs/books from people in your country. (index investing is one good way to invest in stocks)Sorry if you were thinking about something else completely, just you mentioned financial freedom and I've been into this stuff for many years now.
  14. @phpsmith Thank you! Day 2 Meeting the friend yesterday was just great! Ended up talking for 6 hours, which now seems like a really long time. I generally have a very low desire to socialize and mostly just feel drained afterwards. But this was not one of those occasions. The beers definitely helped with keeping the conversation going though. I'm very happy to have this guy as my friend. We both have the "silent guy" personality in large groups. But when there is just the two of us in a quiet pub, it works really well. I've taken a long walk everyday and today I included a bit of chin ups and afterwards did 15 minutes of stretching. I followed a stretching routine I used to do often, and noticed that while my flexibility hadn't suffered that much in other parts, hamstrings were extremely unflexible. So I'll add the stretching to my daily routine. Still have to spend the 1 hour with the thesis for today. Motivation is still very low, but I will do it, just for the sake of keeping up the chain. Overall feeling very good about the gaming detox. Haven't had this feeling in quite a long time, but maybe things will actually be alright. I'm hopeful. Daily routine at the moment: Go for a walkDo the 15 minute stretching routineWork on thesis for atleast one hour
  15. Thank you all for the welcomes and encouragement. Day 1 Managed to spend the planned 1 hour with the thesis yesterday. I have the same goal for today. It's not much, but it's something and I just made a plan to build a routine and increase the time spent gradually. Let's say 1 hour each day for the remainder of this week and 2 hours starting next week. Of course, more is allowed if I can't stop myself. Some thoughts about gaming: I used to think that gaming is just plain awesome, best thing in the world and a great hobby too and that I'd want to continue gaming for the rest of my life. But some years ago my thoughts on gaming changed completely. Purely rationally, I no longer want to play at all. I don't want to be able to play in moderation one day. For me, games don't serve to any need I couldn't fullfill elsewhere and better. And needless to say I don't wish to demonize gaming to those who truly appreciate the experiences gaming offers. Here are of some things from the top of my mind I currently value highly: spending time outside preferably close to natureenduring physical hardships, being tired after physical activitytaking care of my body physically and in terms of food intakecreating/repairing things with my handscreating/solving things with my mindimproving in skills/knowledge I can be proud ofNow I will take a look at how gaming holds with my values: My gaming mostly happens indoor.In my gaming, the only physical hardships are my aching wrists and backMy gaming habits are the exact opposite of taking care of my body physically. Even though I have a decent chair and try to maintain a good posture, when I focus deeply in fast paced games, afterwards I find myself hunching badly. Also I don't feel hunger when I'm really into a game so I often eat too little and don't have time to cook because I just play.My gaming has nothing to do with creating/repairing things with my actual hands.Many games include creating things with my mind so that's a plus.In competitive multiplayer games I always want to improve my skills and get my rank high in the clouds. When I win I think: "Wow, I'm really good at this. Such a talented guy I am. On my way to the top." But when I lose, I can't help but to think: "I wonder how many hours that person has spent on this game. Probably thousands. My skills are nothing in comparison, but if getting that good will take thousands of hours of practising this useless skill, I don't even want to do it." And that thought is what makes me uninstall.So, my gaming works towards 1/6 of the values and specifically works against 2/6 of the values. With simplified math, I could say that gaming actually takes from me and drags me down. For me, it's not even a neutral activity but negative. Just to name one hobby that is in line with my values and that I would like to do more of is hiking/camping. Haven't had any real urges to play. Just a few flashbacks from games. I guess a part of my brain uses the flashbacks to remind me of an easy way to get the chemicals flowing again.
  16. Keep hitting the gym, reap the rewards and soon girls will do all the talking for you. This comes off as a motivating joke, but it has a lot truth to it.
  17. I couldn't fall asleep last night. My mind was still racing after 10+ hours of gaming. I stopped playing at midnight and realized I had only eaten one portion of oatmeal and some Christmas chocolates during the day. Quickly snacked something from the fridge and went to bed. Yet another day wasted, another day when I only moved further from all my goals in life. Here I was lying in the bed at 2 am, eyes wide open and thoughts still in the game I had been playing. Disgusted at my lack of willpower to not binge on games, I once again decided that I will uninstall all games once I wake up the next morning. I've gone through the same motions multiple times during the past year, but always after a week or two I've come into the conclusion that my life is still miserable, so I might as well start playing again to escape it all. However, last night I found this site, the idea of a 90-day detox and the journals and I feel I’m better prepared this time. For example, I learned that watching streams and videos of games will probably result in a relapse (surprise!). I knew from experience that the determination to quit will probably be gone once the sun rises, so here's what I did: On my phone, I wrote a message to my fiancée who was sleeping next to me. I described to her why I want to give a dedicated go at the 90-day detox. Rules are no games, no game streams or videos. If I fail, I will give her 100 €. For a moment I hesitated on sending the message, because I know how hard this will be and I would not like to pay a 100 € fine. I sent the message. Today is day 0. Everything good so far, uninstalled steam successfully. Went for a walk and because I wasn’t in a rush to go back playing, the walk ended up taking more than an hour. Also arranged to go for beers with a friend tomorrow. I can already see the benefits from this detox (), because I basically never suggest any social activity with anyone, because I’d always prefer to be gaming. Now I have plenty of time to get bored and I need to come up with activities. The text is getting really unorganized at this point but what the heck. My history with games is the same old story. Got a Game Boy when I was 3 years old and it’s been a downhill ever since (). I’ve been battling with depression all my life with better and worse periods but I don’t blame gaming for it. I’ve lately realized, that gaming is my thing to numb the anxiety. I know that stopping gaming and facing the anxiety and depressive thoughts will probably make me feel worse in the short term, but better in the long term. This too I know from experience, because a few years ago I went to a psychiatrist because of the depression, and among other things he suggested that I would take a few weeks off any form of electrical entertainment, even internet browsing. To emphasize the severity of my situation, I will introduce one more issue, but I’ll keep it short. Basically it’s now week 5 of my two month sabbatical from work. I got the sabbatical so that I could get my master’s thesis started and going so that I’d hopefully graduate during 2017. But I’ve used maybe 10 hours total on the thesis and rest of the time on playing games, watching streams and videos. Feels bad. For today my meager goal is to spend 1 hour with the thesis. Reporting back tomorrow.
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