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Comment by jaynetics | Hacker News Reader

It never ceases to amaze me how different people are. For me, all effects have been the exact opposite. Less going out, so more cooking and healthier eating. Less tired from open office noise, so more energy for sports. More free time without commute, so I picked up some long forgotten hobbies again.

This means my advice might not apply to you, but if I may still recommend one thing: ignore most of the news for a while. The sensationalism can get infectious. There won't be anything deserving of the name war in your country (the US, I assume).

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I actually feel a lil guilty about how well things are going for me. Its not really been any change for me, same schedule - same job. I think the key is as you said, mostly avoiding the news. Every day or two, I skim over the headlines on CNN but mostly I avoid it. I do check the stock market in the mornings - I swear the DJIA is just a yo-yo. But it's just out of curiosity as I still have 15+ years before I can retire...So not stressing about it even on bad days.

I think previously, I was just way too wrapped up in the news cycles.

I have found that avoiding news all together has definitely had a positive impact on my days. This includes social media.

HN is about the extent of my social media... I always found the signal-to-noise ratio of facebook, twitter, etc. to be too low to make them worthwhile.

On the other hand, I can spend hours sucked into random tech books, blogs, etc. So I guess time wise it balances out.

Agree 100%. I've felt a little guilty too. I started working from home full time about 4 months before covid landed in US. I'd built a nice above garage office. Kids homeschooled already. Planted a garden that's doing well, had more time for home projects, etc. I have friends not doing so well. I have donated to individuals and organizations since I feel I have an obligation to help people in need.

News is the biggest drag on my mental well being. It is important to be informed, but I genuinely feel that media is so driven by ad revenue and has optimized itself into being as negative and outrageous and _loud_ as possible, to the detriment of sane balanced information and opinion. I need to know the sides of current issues, but not loudly 24x7 with as much vitriol on all sides. I blocked several news sites and social media I habitually check in my hosts file, but somehow my browser still resolves the names. I need to fix that.

HackerNews is really one of the few sites I can expect to find calm reasoned discussion and information.

Don't forget that you have to explicitly block every host name (including subdomains), if you are using the hosts file method.

For example:

127.0.0.1 reddit.com

127.0.0.1 www.reddit.com

>I blocked several news sites and social media I habitually check in my hosts file, but somehow my browser still resolves the names. I need to fix that.

DNS over HTTPS maybe ?

For macOS dscacheutil --flushdns

One thing that might help is more variety in your news-scanning.

CNN will show relentlessly negative headlines until the election is over. Fox will be overly positive. There are other sources on both sides.

For your mental health-- get a variety. You don't have to agree with all of it, but get diverse inputs.

Same here. I do daily exercise now since I don't have to waste 3 hours every day commuting. I'm spending more quality time with family. It just feels that I have more time to do more things. I'm also more productive at doing my work for whatever reason.

But, I see anxiety and depression around me and I'm talking about people that didn't had a bad economic or job impact. It's just uncertainty and insecurity that breaks people. I try to support them.

Try to be creative with your time. Take it easier and have fun with your family. Don't stick to social media because it fills your day with negative content and disappointment. And don't waste your time with Youtube and Netflix because deep down you will feel pointless if you do that. And speak up and share your pain with others.

Also remember this is not the end of world. It only has been a few months and the amount of uncertainty, pain, and insecurity that you feel right now is million times less than what people have to deal for many years in some countries with civil war, sanctions, dictatorships. And they are holding up. So don't suddenly feel that you living in the worst time ever. We have everything needed to overcome this.

It's obviously different for different people and it's easy to give advice. I also know people that lost someone which makes it much harder. Don't stay alone and find something that motivates you.

Although it’s easy to give advice, in this case yours is very valuable. I’m trying to follow the work out every day thing too, bringing in my family for it too.

I feel like the traditional office/working culture is built around extroverts and not compatible for introverts, since extroverts value face to face conversations and feel stimulated and prefer the open office and other noises.

This change made introverts more comfortable, because all the other distractions are gone. I feel the same way like you do, I have more time and I was able to improve my daily life.

Like anything, the introvert/extrovert dichotomy is actually more like a scale. Few people are entirely on one end or the other.

I can generally prefer personal time and a quiet place to mull my thoughts, but at the same time miss the spontaneous discussion and emotional attachment that an office provides.

> ignore most of the news for a while

This has been the number 1 thing that I've started doing recently that has improved my mental health. I've been incredibly depressed and anxious this year, and realized how much of that has been tied to the news cycle. I've mostly ignored the news for about a week now, and I'm feeling much better. I still have an underlying current of anxiety that I need to deal with, but overall I'm feeling better.

Rather than reading the news constantly, I ended up subscribing to the print edition of The Economist, so I'll read that once a week rather than constantly flipping over to Google News every hour.

I don't think theres that much of a difference. Most of the people who're doing well are staying at home with a partner or family and have a healthy relationship.

I can't imagine anyone in my situation of being cut off from almost all human contact (young+single+alone) for 4 months being "better than ever".

> I can't imagine anyone in my situation of being cut off from almost all human contact (young+single+alone) for 4 months being "better than ever".

That is me and I feel better than ever.

I too was having a pretty decent time, setting up an apartment I’d moved into right before the pandemic hit my city.

Then recently I traveled and stayed with my GF for three weeks, and now she is here for two weeks, and I’m more tired than ever.

After this my parents will want me to visit, but I will be taking some time to myself in between and have asked my girlfriend to go home a week early.

I want to get back into my nice routine of waking up and making coffee and breakfast and working out, and reading before bed, and working on personal projects after work.

I fear, as much as I like her that she may be far less independent than I am. And it’s a bit troubling. But for now I am just looking forward to being on my own again for a while.

I do miss the office though, I had a nice ten minute walking commute although am happy to be less distracted at work.

It’s all ups and downs really.

I hope GP and everyone else adversely affected by this comes out strong on the other side and is able to receive the help they need or overcome the challenges they face. We’ve all got them, but it’s just different magnitudes on different dimensions of an incredibly complex space.

And spilling my coffee twice would give me a conniption! It’s locally roasted organic gosh darn it!

> the US

India :(

(though I stay in the US)

We just had a minor skirmish with China with around 60 deaths total. The messaging from China is very similar to the run-up to the 1962 war.

This isn't meant to be a provocative question: What's the messaging from India been like?

India is actually being quite slow in their response. The general feeling seems to be that India doesn't want escalation, but also do not want to be seen as being bullied by China.

The situation right now is being described as 'tense but calm'.

China changed all of the nation's maps to now include an added claim on a new piece of land in Ladakh. China also works very closely with their new proxy Govt (Oli's Nepal). So, at the same time Nepal is also changing their maps and laying claim on new land that they did not previously stake claim to.

So now technically India is occupying Chinese property, and they China been clear in wanting to use force to claim it.

They have been claiming Arunachal Pradesh from a long time.

We are still in a semi-lockdown and daily cases are still increasing. It's definitely a bad time to go for a war and the government knows that. More efforts are being put into decreasing the nation's reliance on Chinese imports. Previous tresspasses by the PLA were addressed through diplomacy and the results were good. Same approach is being tried now too.

India is seen as too soft by us in the West, for good or for worse.

That's fair. For decades we did not have enough will to retaliate against our adversaries. The result was there were terror attacks in almost every major Indian city. It's only in the last five years that the leadership has shown some resolve to irradiate terrorism. The perception of India being soft will take some time to wear off.

There's no forward policy this time and diplomacy is being prioritised from both sides.

The last thing China needs right now is another hit to its GDP, which would be quite substantial if it was subjected to similar international sanctions as Russia was for its actions in Ukraine.

I think most people in tech are more introverted, but some of us are huge extroverts, and this has been incredibly trying. Clamping down on news coverage has helped a lot in my case, because it feels like I'm in some Black Mirror mass insanity episode!

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