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Comment by agent008t | Hacker News Reader

For what it's worth, it may actually be healthier to not do these, particularly 1 and 3. You may be ruminating, and ruminating is not good for you - it can tire you, agitate you, cause you anxiety; also, you end up being in your thoughts and not in the moment (e.g. when hiking).

It is fine and good if you are doing it with purpose (e.g. tutoring someone else in your mind to understand something better, or trying to work out some problem that has a solution), but bad if you are trying to solve something unsolvable, dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, or just wasting your own CPU cycles.

This is something you can practice as part of mindfulness practice - getting spontaneous awareness that you are engaging in an unproductive internal dialogue and letting it go. Not fight it or stop it, but just let the thoughts come and go without engaging with them.

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Good points, #1 can become especially loopy for me (my fight or flight response is jacked up to 11) to the point of being bothersome. When I notice it veering into unhealthy territory, I try to use mindfulness techniques to reel it in. Still, it's "normal" in that it's not indicative of mental illness other than maybe social anxiety.

But I disagree slightly on #3. My frame of reference is thru-hiking and/or intense solo missions where I'm alone in the backcountry hiking for 10-14 hours a day for days on end. In that setting, I find it impossible to stay mindful continuously. Also, without news/email/social media/etc. as input, I just find that my mind gravitates towards internal dialogues about the same big picture life issues. In that state, I'm actually listening to my body and mind more, not less. Personally, it can be frustrating to worry about whether I'm "in the moment" enough (the quintessential frustration with mindfulness, I know).

That said, I do try to mix it up between fully immersing myself in the wonderment of the wilderness, letting my mind chew on ideas, listening to podcasts/music, and sometimes attempting actual meditation sessions.

Reading this whole thread makes me wonder if such internal dialogue is correlated with a sensitive fight or flight response (on which I can also relate) and anxiety. When I practice daily meditation, limit my computer/phone/internet usage, I find that both tend to subside, so maybe there is something to it, although the cause and effect could all be tangled up here.

One definitely should not be frustrated or worrying about being in the moment! I agree that it is all normal in the sense that one shouldn't be worrying about any of these habits. It's just that for me it was a revelation when after many many years I realized that I do not have to have/follow internal dialogues and that they may actually causing me tension and anxiety.

This is some great advice! Any tips on how to be mindful? Can you direct me to some resources which are helpful?

The go-to resource that is usually suggested is The Mind Illuminated by John Yates. I found it to be a very nice tutorial-like guide to meditation with hardly any spiritual/religious bullshit, and it breaks it down into stages so you get some idea of where you are at and what progress you are making (even though progress is not really something you should be focusing on with this).

The introductory course on the Headspace app I also found good but I think it is better to not stay on it beyond that.

If your thoughts keep you awake sometimes I think you would definitely benefit greatly from this.

The Waking Up app by Sam Harris is a great way to get started - there is an introductory course I found very helpful.

Is there a distinction between "letting it go" and "bottling it up"?

I suppose bottling it up is not actually letting it go. If something bothers you on an intellectual level it will probably keep coming back and you need to resolve it. It's just that ruminating is not helpful in any case. It gives you an illusion of 'working on a problem' without actually doing anything useful.

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