Ask HN: How do you "step through" your own anxiety?

2/13/2026 at 2:51:15 PM

I relate to this a lot. For me, noticing the loop is already half the battle, but it doesn't mean I can exit it.

What's helped is switching from "debugging" to "externalizing". Writing the thoughts down, like logs, makes them feel less real and less recursive. Once it's on paper, it loses some power.

One small thought exercise I picked up from The Power of Now that surprisingly works for me: when I'm deep in a rabbit hole, I take a few deep breaths and ask myself, "What will my next thought be?" For a moment everything just goes quiet, and the mind kind of resets. I've used this hack multiple times.

Another thing that matters more than I expected is just building basic habits. Exercise, walking, sleeping on time, eating properly. Nothing fancy, but having a pattern makes the bad loops less frequent.

I've also learned anxiety isn't always something you can reason away. Sometimes it's just a physical state and you have to change the input before the mind follows.

by avin01

2/13/2026 at 9:54:59 PM

Writing down what you are feeling and thinking is really effective in reducing your anxiety. It does not need to be fancy or well written, just get it out of your head and unto a page.

Also helpful is developing a practice of observing yourself. Just make a mental note of what is going on. Something like "I am feeling sad", "My chest feels very tight", etc. The key here is to create some distance between yourself and these emotions.

My last recommendation is to develop acceptance. Most things lose their scariness once you accept them. Once you are fine with whatever scenario is causing you stress, it loses its sting. This can be hard to do but is extremely effective in quieting your mind.

by takinola

2/13/2026 at 5:41:33 PM

Two things:

Decades of reiterating to myself it's none of the verbose semantics and socialized sensory memory my brain tries to feed me (imposter syndrome for example), but is just biochemistry habit from exposure to social memes.

4-5 mile walk as often as possible. Any less and a sense of reset does not kick in.

by longfacehorrace

2/13/2026 at 12:09:25 PM

Feeling Good and/or Feeling Great by David Burns. It should be on everyone's bookshelf, imho. It has the exact step by step process that you're looking for.

by yef

2/13/2026 at 3:43:56 PM

Learning to regulate your nervous system. We are not chased by tigers as prey as much anymore, but when nervous system is in prolonged fight/flight/freeze states an email from your boss can trigger similar reaction

by ducktastic

2/12/2026 at 10:49:11 PM

CBT - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy

If you are building tools to help with such problems, that is great. But if you need to ask what frameworks exist, you probably should catch up on what resources are already available before jumping into your own solutions, otherwise you risk re-inventing the wheel.

by codingdave

2/12/2026 at 11:35:00 PM

You're right that I should know the landscape. I do — CBT, ACT, DBT, the whole alphabet.

The gap I see: CBT is clinical, structured, requires commitment. Most engineers I know won't do the worksheets, won't book the sessions, won't say "I need therapy."

They will, however, debug a performance issue at 2am.

Stillpoint (the app) isn't reinventing CBT. It's translating the method into a format engineers actually use: 10 messages, no login, no "mental health" framing. Just pattern recognition.

Have you seen tools that bridge that specific gap — clinical method + zero-friction interface?

by schneak

2/12/2026 at 10:51:00 PM

My take is that's wrong, you don't want "mind-full-ness" but rather "mind-empty-ness".

I had a lot of anxiety when I was young and it went away, gabapentin was probably part of it, but I think also life experience was another.

I think preparation is the answer to performance anxiety. For about a month I have been "going out" as a character for doing photography and handing out business cards which has been a stupendously effective "flywheel" to the extent that students regularly flag me down. Unlike other street performers who frankly annoy people being aggressive I frequently get approached by several people a day and my answer is having the right props and a system that "works itself"

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/tagged/foxwork

I am working on improving my repertoire but the consistent theme now is that anything new is tuned up to be "self-working" so I can do it without any effort. Similarly I have had certain situations where I "lose my shit" and I focus on not getting into those situations.

by PaulHoule

2/12/2026 at 11:37:11 PM

"Self-working" systems that remove effort — this resonates deeply.

The pattern I trace: anxiety often comes from unconscious loops (rumination, comparison, "what if"). The mind is busy but not productive.

Your "mind-empty-ness" sounds like what happens when the loop is seen clearly — the effort drops away.

Question: When you were building your "foxwork" system, did you ever catch yourself in a mental loop about the system? (Perfectionism, "is this good enough," comparison to other performers?)

I'm curious if the preparation method itself ever became the source of anxiety — and how you stepped out of that.

by schneak

2/13/2026 at 2:21:32 AM

I went at it slowly and always empirically and had the luxury of it being "low stakes"

About two years ago I felt I got an invitiation to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsunetsuki and then a year ago I found a book that talked about fox mediums in China that made it seem like everything I wished it could be and started keeping an altar. I had some idea of the outlines of the practice but other than making regular offerings didn't really do much, in fact at one point my son was surprised when I told him I was still into that.

Around the end of November I was watching an anime where there was a character who had an animal ear hood (as opposed to a headband) and realized I could get away with wearing that and got the hood and when I started "going out" and the physical adjustments fell into place pretty quickly.

I got into taking photographs as-a-fox because I just take photographs when I go out so of course I would. By this point I had the brand promise, design rules and such figured out and one of them was "no explaining, no being reductionist, no matter what you are not going to come across like Larry Summers". Early in January I got into the first situation where I felt I had to explain it and realized I'd screwed it up and how. That weekend I was a little panicked but I came up with the "cover story" that "this is a character I do to put people at ease when I do street photography" which put my wife at ease because she was worried about how she was going to explain it to people.

Between having the tokens and that story I'm never worried now that I'm going to get tongue tied. I mean, I really wish I had the "voice of the fox" both in terms of the vocal adjustments and the writing down better than I do. But I have enough of the character working and the proof that people believe in it so sometimes I feel like the 1960s Peter Parker who finds that the community believes in Spider-Man even when he doesn't which makes me feel like I can face what is in front of me today, that if I don't feel brave enough to try something it's OK, never push on a string, and always been thinking how to structure things so I don't have to be brave.

Once I settled into the "foxographer" role and felt I had purpose I quit worrying entirely about going off brand. Like I used to never program a computer or talk about my personal history while wearing the hood and now I do what I want.

Sometimes I think "Why couldn't I have figured this out 20 years ago?" but I'm glad I did now.

by PaulHoule

2/13/2026 at 3:33:28 AM

This is remarkable. The arc from "invitation" to "never push on a string" — you found a form that carries you when you can't carry yourself.

The part that strikes me: "if I don't feel brave enough... never push on a string." You stopped fighting the loop and built a system that works with the resistance.

Most people try to "fix" their anxiety. You gave it a form, a practice, a community that believes even when you don't.

Thank you for sharing this. It's a different path than the one I'm building, but the same destination: not "mind-full-ness" but structure that holds you without effort. The fox works. That's enough.

by schneak

2/13/2026 at 9:18:36 AM

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by cindyllm

2/12/2026 at 11:18:42 PM

[dead]

by cindyllm

2/13/2026 at 10:06:16 AM

review ,carefully , some other incident that was traumatic, but wait, not the incident itself, try, as you might, to remember how you felt two weeks after that incident.......crickets, right

my latest method to help deal with a crunch is to "spend down my larder" and burn through excess resources, and every time I come out leaner and meaner, cut, chearfull, less fucks to give

by metalman

2/13/2026 at 11:42:44 AM

I hear you. When the crunch comes, you burn the excess, strip to essentials, emerge lean. The "less fucks to give" is relief from the maintenance cost of caring.

Do you track/note what triggers the spend-down? Or does the crunch announce itself only when you're already in it?

When you come out "cheerful," is it clarity or just the quiet after the fire?

I've seen engineers use this method. It works until the larder doesn't refill.

by schneak