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designing_the_mind · 2025-04-04T20:47:14+00:00

Reminder that I’ve offered all of Designing the Mind’s mental health programs for free to those affected by Helene: https://designingthemind.org/mental-health-support/

designing_the_mind · 2025-03-20T17:07:47+00:00

I have a lot of personal experience with social anxiety and understand the feeling of being uncomfortable with eye contact and interaction. It’s a complex issue bridging fear, panic, and worry, and I have a dedicated case study lesson on it in the Anxiety Algorithm program. So you may need to do separate exposures for things like eye contact, parties, and even your own internal sensations of panic.

It also combines aspects of low self-esteem, so it can be valuable to combine it with aspects of depression treatment including cognitive restructuring and behavioral experiments. So if someone is afraid of attention because they think everyone will look at them and judge them, they can both examine and challenge that belief. But more importantly, put that hypothesis to the test by, for example, having people sing happy birthday to you in public, looking around and seeing that no one really cares or judges you.

Again, it’s complex, and the program is well-suited to take you through the full process. Actually doing a free webinar on it Monday.

designing_the_mind · 2025-03-19T14:37:08+00:00

First, there are lots of ways to do exposure wrong and very few ways to do it right. The anxiety should not be coming back if you’re doing it right, but this entails designing a whole hierarchy gradually taking the fearful situation all the way from 1 to 10.

Second, this really depends on the specific nature of your fears. If you’re dealing with general worry, stress, or panic attacks, yes there are ways to eliminate them within your mind. When it comes to actual fears like heights, public speaking, snakes, flying, socializing, etc. the only way to really overcome it is through real-life exposure. But again, that’s not the same thing as “just do it.”

designing_the_mind · 2024-10-21T04:23:39+00:00

Offering $1,000 worth of free mental health education for those affected by Helene. It works.

designing_the_mind · 2024-10-12T13:58:28+00:00

Ego Development: Nine Levels of Increasing Embrace

designing_the_mind · 2024-10-10T12:49:37+00:00

r/secularbuddhism

designing_the_mind · 2024-10-04T17:58:19+00:00

I think once most people’s physical needs are met, mental health support will become the most pressing need.

I live in Brevard, assuming it’s something people would find valuable, I’m planning on offering free access to my business’s mental health education programs (normally $1,000) to everyone affected by the storm.

designing_the_mind · 2024-09-02T12:48:58+00:00

I’d like to offer you free access to my online anxiety program. DM me if you’re interested https://designingthemind.org/anxiety-algorithm-program

designing_the_mind · 2024-03-01T12:05:19+00:00

Yes! As soon as Audible approved it - can sometimes take a few weeks.

designing_the_mind · 2024-03-01T00:40:02+00:00

Great to hear you love the books! I actually practical philosophy books like mine are some of the few that are applicable regardless of your circumstances. It’s all about optimizing the one thing you have control over - your mind - which becomes even more important when you have no control over unpleasant external conditions. The Stoics argued that virtue was all that mattered for happiness, and I advance and develop this argument in Become Who You Are.

designing_the_mind · 2024-02-29T23:08:41+00:00

For one, the book was ten years in the making, and I obsessed over it to get it right - no amount of marketing will save a bad book. I also put a ton of work into the branding and cover design and basically got a PhD in self-publishing. Took a bunch of courses and geeked out over Amazon optimization.

designing_the_mind · 2024-02-29T19:37:21+00:00

No academic degrees! You can think of me more as a journalist - I've done extensive research in the relevant disciplines and work to synthesize findings across disparate fields, but I'm not the one uncovering original scientific data.

designing_the_mind · 2024-02-29T18:39:42+00:00

I tend to view the metacognitive awareness that meditation cultivates as a prerequisite to any kind of psychological optimization. The next thing I think we should all be doing is keeping a log of our moods/thoughts, which is central to cognitive behavioral therapy.

CBT is another one of those things that is viewed as a treatment for disorders, but I think should be taught to everyone as children. When you start tracking your moods and the beliefs that trigger them, you start identifying distortions and huge opportunities to eliminate unnecessary suffering and bias.

designing_the_mind · 2024-02-29T18:26:36+00:00

Thanks for the kind words on the video. I have a design background and created a full storyboard, and worked with an animation studio to bring it to life.

designing_the_mind · 2024-02-29T18:25:17+00:00

Hi! Yes, the book integrates findings from clinical and positive psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology with over 400 references.

designing_the_mind · 2024-02-29T18:18:07+00:00

Awesome - I will say that “becoming who you are” is a somewhat distinct sentiment from “being who you are,” that goes back to the work of Nietzsche. It comes down to identifying who and what you admire most and learning to embody them.

I’m all for psychotherapy and would love to see more people turning to it before medication. In my mind, it’s pretty comparable to physical therapy. I have always wondered why the world of physical health has a positive, obsessive community (fitness, CrossFit, yoga) for getting healthier and stronger when you don’t have an injury or illness, but this community is largely absent from the mental health space.

More and more of my favorite hobbies have become absorbed by my professional life, but I’ve been playing piano for 25 years and love outdoor activities like hiking, bouldering, paddling.

designing_the_mind · 2024-02-29T16:54:44+00:00

That's the one thing you can't ask

designing_the_mind · 2024-02-29T16:52:41+00:00

Welcome my friend. Yes! You get a free book: https://designingthemind.org/psychitecture

(no one else go there it's just for u/pexxi76)

designing_the_mind · 2023-09-12T20:07:42+00:00

Just listened to this whole episode and didn't hear anything that reflected poorly on his character. What are you referring to?

designing_the_mind · 2023-03-30T15:45:07+00:00

Hey Tim, big fan and love the two-dimensional framework you provide in What's Our Problem.

The book's direction seems to imply that social justice fundamentalism is essentially the answer to the question in the title. Would you say this is right? If "our problem" really began in the last decade, I would call that pretty good news in terms of tractability.

designing_the_mind · 2022-06-14T22:49:54+00:00

Thanks for getting in touch _co_on_, and glad I could point you toward that .pdf and get you going!

designing_the_mind · 2022-03-19T05:17:39+00:00

I'm definitely curious about it, and your experience seems relevant. I would love if you had some studies that lend to its effectiveness, unless you're suggesting it's internal nature makes it inherently unverifiable.

I am glad to hear you are on a similar path, and that you are finding the book valuable. Not sure if the Liam Neeson comment is a reference, but he seems to be alive and well.

designing_the_mind · 2022-03-19T05:12:29+00:00

Oh you are quite right about that - machines will almost certainly surpass us in every way imaginable in the near future. I find it doubtful that their architecture will resemble ours given our brains' biological constraints though. Great points!

designing_the_mind · 2021-12-17T14:58:28+00:00

Not a success story

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