[HN Gopher] To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe
___________________________________________________________________
To boost your intelligence, learn how to self-soothe
Author : mbellotti
Score : 113 points
Date : 2021-07-02 03:28 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bellmar.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bellmar.medium.com)
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| Acknowledge problem.
|
| Accept problem.
|
| Attempt to solve problem.
|
| Accept outcome.
|
| Rinse and repeat. Don't waste cycles on the emotions of having
| problems.
|
| (not saying that emotions don't matter, often times they distract
| one from making progress)
| jporwal05 wrote:
| I have improved so much since I started thinking this way. Once
| I started realising that I made a mistake and that it was
| really my mistake, other things, a lot of things started coming
| into perspective.
| Xc43 wrote:
| She is saying more than that.
|
| She is saying learn to confront discomfort/pain with self-
| soothing. Once you know how to address the pain associated with
| being seen as an inexperienced/disabled person, you can
| confront it in many situations.
|
| Be it in learning from another or from a book.
|
| Distracting emotions are part of you and have to be addressed
| eventually. Soothing yourself reinforces the motivation for
| progress and acknowledges obstacles.
|
| "Pursuing X causes pain. It is alright. It is worthwhile. It is
| unavoidable and I will make due."
| cartoonworld wrote:
| >Rinse and repeat. Don't waste cycles on the emotions of having
| problems. > >(not saying that emotions don't matter, often
| times they distract one from making progress)
|
| You got it, but then you missed it.
|
| Every single one of those great, useful, true steps is hindered
| by emotions. There are well-known cognitive biases and
| behavioral patterns (Dunning-Kreuger, Motivated Reasoning,
| Confirmation Bias, Learned Helplessness) that will affect your
| outcome while trying to conquer each of these steps. These
| aren't _bad_ per-say, but a result of our biology and millions
| of years of evolution. If I were wagering on my own arrogantly
| assumed competence vs. my evolved biology.... man, I 'm putting
| it all on Red.
|
| It is such great advice that, as you correctly state,
| "[Emotions] often times distract one from making progress" but
| this is not easy to achieve, an obvious course of action, and
| it feels wrong when you're in it. _Even if someone told you and
| you believe them_.
|
| Take a contrived example--PTSD. In WWI this was called "Shell
| Shock", and a lot of people up until yesterday and beyond are
| still smacking people on the back, giving the misguided, but
| sincere pep talk: "Walk it off, kid! Power through it! Get
| ahold of yourself! What's wrong with you? Why can't you take
| the win?"
|
| The truth of the matter is that the solution is obvious, but
| even if something is obvious, easy, and effective, people often
| simply require someone to _tell them_ the answer and more than
| that, be trusted enough to let them coach them through it. Once
| you know, maybe it really is easy, maybe it still takes a lot
| of work, luck, perhaps counseling or therapy (EMDR therapy
| sounds like bullshit but it sure is real)
| dasyatidprime wrote:
| To add a note to that, caricatured for demonstration: Why
| would you _ever_ execute on an answer which no one with the
| right kind of status has told you is okay to execute on?
|
| In the harder domains of STEM? Okay, sure, maybe the answer
| is self-proving and once your weird innovation works great
| your detractors will have to eat their words. But subjective
| things like emotions? You _know_ what happens to people who
| have some _wrong_ emotion, _don 't you_? Even if your
| conscious mind doesn't, what's underneath sure might. Highly
| not recommended to put it that way to yourself raw! And yet.
|
| Emotional processing infrastructure is an important part of
| society, and its blueprints an important part of culture. I
| suspect that the more densely packed our sociopsychological
| world is, the more the equivalent of mental building codes
| and city utilities are something that has to be negotiated to
| make life workable. Hindbrain Owners Association, anyone?
| sdwr wrote:
| Great point about of the value of mentorship, legacy, chain
| of knowledge. The emotional landscape can be complicated,
| scary, and full of conflicting information. Having a
| trusted example of something _working_ is a huge advantage.
|
| Take Donald Trump as a (not entirely positive) case study.
| Without the example of his father, he would never have had
| the confidence to be so scummy and provocative, or to
| desecrate the role of president.
|
| I'm sure there are plenty of nice examples out there too.
| That's just where my head jumped to off the bat.
| theIntuitionist wrote:
| If you view life as a series of problems to be solved, then
| life will become a bleak series of problems needing to be
| solved. The approach outlined in the parent comment here would
| fail to solve any essential human needs beyond a few of the
| most basic ones. Finding purpose, not burning out, nurturing
| family, communicating with others- even in professional
| settings- and so many other parts of being human require us to
| engage emotionally.
| cartoonworld wrote:
| >If you view life as a series of problems to be solved, then
| life will become a bleak series of problems needing to be
| solved.
|
| I disagree with this, conditionally.
|
| It depends on how you perceive "Problems" and "Solve", as
| pedantic and Clinton-esque as that comes across.
|
| Perceiving your "problems" not as barriers that hinder your
| progress, but identifying winnable opportunities in your own
| capabilities is a hallmark of the Growth Mindset[0] This is
| such a good quality, one that everyone can cultivate given
| the motivation and effort.
|
| [0] - https://fs.blog/2015/03/carol-dweck-mindset/
| theIntuitionist wrote:
| Any choice we make that is grounded in subjective decision
| making suffers from this reframing. And, i'd posit that the
| vast majority of choices are fundamentally subjective. Just
| take a moment when engaged in "problem solving" and ask
| yourself "why?", then question that answer again. You get
| to motivation, identity , "needs" (and not just the basic
| food and shelter needs) or some other emotion very quickly
| this way.
|
| Is choosing a life partner a "problem"? What about
| something as simple as choosing what to wear in the morning
| or what beer you want from the bar? Even within traditional
| engineering problems so much of our decision making process
| can only be evaluated subjectively. Some examples are:
| naming variables (your compiler doesn't care what you name
| them), making choices around encapsulation (there are very
| often many possible ways to do this. we frequently chose
| the "simplest"- a subjective assessment), choosing a
| framework or language (a decision which is one part right
| tool for the job one part joining a likeminded community),
| etc.
|
| At the root of it, we're emotional beings, not logical
| ones. Outsource the logical problems to computers,
| machines, institutions and focus on what makes you human.
| Otherwise somebody else will make the important choices for
| you in ways you certainly wouldn't chose for yourself.
| qq4 wrote:
| What is the rational behind your first sentence? Solving
| problems is progress, and that is anything but bleak.
|
| > Don't waste cycles on the emotions of having problems.
|
| I don't think you're reading what the parent comment is
| actually saying. Finding purpose, not burning out, etc are
| all categorically problems and the common goal is to solve
| them. Don't get buried in emotion due to _having_ the
| problems.
| theIntuitionist wrote:
| How much satisfaction do you really get from checking
| something off the list? There was some motivation that put
| the item on the list in the first place, and 9 time out of
| 10, that motivation goes back to an emotional drive of some
| sort. Ignoring that motivation during the process of
| satisfying it is fundamentally missing the point.
| heytherebud69 wrote:
| Mind sharing where that process is from? I like it.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| My initial reaction to the idea that emotions can distract one
| from making progress is that there may be unaddressed issues
| present. Emotions are bodily signals. You could say they are
| the result of information processing. They don't come from
| nowhere. Emotions need to be processed and responded to.
|
| Maybe we can find common ground with the idea that some
| emotional issues take a long time to resolve, and, in the
| meantime, one needs healthy coping tools which may include
| different ways of soothing / calming down the emotional
| response when one needs to be functional.
| Disruptive_Dave wrote:
| Not OP, but I would hope the original comment was intended to
| imply that emotions should be _responded_ to (as you noted)
| and not _reacted_ to. Responding involves understanding,
| "naming your enemy," and contextual consideration. Reacting
| is thoughtless, immediate, animalistic.
| marcusestes wrote:
| You say thoughtless, immediate, and animalistic as if it's
| a bad thing;)
|
| Sometimes it's exactly the right strategy for decision
| making and almost always for creativity and play.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Great answer! I'll post some notes I have on responding vs
| reacting:
|
| Reactions limit choices. Responses give choices.
|
| Reactions are unconscious, automatic, and based on negative
| emotions which stem from unmet needs. Responses are
| conscious, considered, and based upon the actual needs
| underlying the negative emotions.
|
| Reactions often move us further away from getting our needs
| met. Responses usually move us towards getting our needs
| met.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Look into "somatic psychotherapy": healing the mind through
| the body
| [deleted]
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| The article describes my actual life precisely. Yet it's kinda
| clickbait. I forced myself to read it carefully from top to
| bottom (which is hard when you have ADHD) in hope of finding
| advises on how to actually do that but didn't find any.
| [deleted]
| armatav wrote:
| Is everyone an 'eccentric genius' with some magical disorder
| these days? Or just bloggers?
|
| And where's the source for the white matter structural deformity
| "delaying" signal processing by "a fraction of a second", I'm
| very interested in how that works since it makes no sense that a
| signaling channel in the brain would suffer a large delay like
| that.
| smoldesu wrote:
| I too am tired of reading about self-proclaimed geniuses on
| Substack/Medium, calling out to their (oftentimes paying)
| followers, and throwing up another invisible goalpost that
| represents intellegence.
|
| It's all so tiring.
| falseprofit wrote:
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221315821...
|
| "Microstructural abnormalities of fibers in primary sensory
| tracts and/or in tracts connecting multimodal association areas
| may result in loss of the precise timing of action potential
| propagation needed to accomplish accurate sensory processing
| and MSI."
|
| They're measuring properties of this microstructure, not the
| delay it supposedly is responsible for.
|
| But I'd point out that calling "a fraction of a second" "large"
| is making a big assumption about the fraction.
| username90 wrote:
| There are by definition many millions of people in the top 2%
| of intelligence and that is enough to be called a genius at
| school.
| flylikeabanana wrote:
| Showed this to my partner, who I find pretty intelligent but
| struggles with a lot of the symptoms the author presents in this
| piece due to dealing with a variety of medical trauma in her
| youth. The relation to anxiety rings especially true, in that
| she's perceiving herself to be failing at a simple task but in
| reality she's working with a model she can't trust - inherently
| very difficult! To her it just adds fuel to the anxiety and the
| problem gets worse and her performance suffers more, etc.
|
| I agree with the author that tackling the cycle at the anxiety -
| being able to self soothe - seems to be the ticket to not only
| finding a card in her purse or whatever minor task a sensory
| processing disorder makes tougher but also to success in general.
| Being able to name our demons is helpful for contextualizing our
| experience. This is not a country that keeps people sane, so
| having alternative explanations beyond "I guess it's ADHD, try
| some speed" is great.
| loceng wrote:
| It's complex, can be multiple differing sources/causes
| individually or compounding, and what most of the world does is
| to follow a protocol of experimentation and practices for
| people to go through on their own to see what alleviates
| different dis-ease states - or where at least there is a net
| benefit found/experienced. The "solution" of psychiatry to deal
| with mental health IMHO is pure regulatory capture, a cheap,
| lazy solution requiring little to no skill or deeper
| understanding or experience by the administrator - and
| providing a recurring revenue model that seems to most often
| cause dependance.
| bloqs wrote:
| In case anyone is wondering, there is no way to boost IQ.
| Whatsoever. You can obviously remove things harming cognitive
| ability, but that's the extent of it.
| comicjk wrote:
| True, but almost a tautology: IQ tests are designed to be a
| metric of intelligence that is stable over time. They indeed
| have that property. Other correlates of intelligence are less
| stable. The everyday things by which one's intelligence is
| judged, like ability in tasks, can clearly be increased.
| nxc18 wrote:
| Evidence?
| [deleted]
| hollander wrote:
| It's generally acknowledged that IQ measured by well known IQ
| tests like the WAIS are fairly consistent over time. You may
| score a few points lower or higher, but it won't change much.
| Training can help a bit, but only so much. Health issues,
| mental problems, stress, tiredness, drugs or alcohol can all
| influence your score, mostly in a negative way. So I suppose
| that influences like these are filtered out of this research.
| They are interesting to research, to see what their influence
| is, but to study the consistency in test results over time,
| they should be left out.
| hollander wrote:
| Maximizing or optimizing your potential would be a big win.
| This is what education for the poor is about. In an
| unstimulating environment, children don't grow up to their
| potential. There is so much to win here, not only for these
| children and their families, but for the society in general,
| not only financially but also mentally and socially. People
| feel better, have better health and have the money to pay for
| healthcare. Not in the least, it's a win against crime when you
| have a better alternative.
| torginus wrote:
| For the sake of the argument, I'm going to take the authors
| appraisal of her own impressive intellect at face value, however
| I'd like to add that I have met a few 150IQish individuals who
| had a far more modest view of their mental abilities.
|
| My interpretation is that she was a genuine genius who, for
| whatever reason, had some learning disabilities/behavioural
| problems that prevented her from taking advantage of her own
| gifts. While I congratulate her for overcoming these challenges,
| I can't help but feel that an intellectually more average person,
| who also doesn't share her difficulties, would get far less out
| of the methods she describes in the article, or someone else who
| also has the same learning difficulties as her wouldn't get to
| join the intellectual elite just by following in her footsteps.
| stkdump wrote:
| I can't say I know that you can improve your own intelligence.
| But it does seem to help better understand the world when you
| try to be open to the idea that you might be wrong in your
| opinions, if just for the fact that you haven't (yet)
| experienced what others have. And I think the personality trait
| openness (which to me seems to be connected) has a relatively
| strong correlation with intelligence.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| what is this author's experience and reputation to make such a
| claim on intelligence? Does she work in this field as a
| neuroscientist?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" To keep reading this story, get the free app or log in."_
| sensorsbroken wrote:
| This describes me well. As a kid, I scored off the charts in math
| but was decidedly average in verbal. I can read technical
| literature all day long, but most works of fiction, historical
| writings, etc, are lost on me completely.
|
| I was in G&T throughout grade school, anyway, since I was among
| the top students in math. My learning disability was unidentified
| until adulthood, unfortunately.
|
| Now, as a middle aged adult, I'm broken, homeless, and destitute,
| socially and reputationally ruined, and a bit beyond the level of
| youthful neuroplasticity needed to engage in meaningful continued
| education, contemplating suicide day in and day out for years and
| decades on end. It's a miracle I'm still here.
|
| The takeaway here is to take to heart the idea that such early
| disparities are indicative of a learning disability. Please
| address the child's disability concurrent to nurturing the
| child's talent.
| Aulig wrote:
| Wow, it sounds like you've been through a lot. I hope things
| get better for you somehow.
| rendall wrote:
| Heartbreaking to hear. I hope you can find peace, shelter and
| safety. Hang in there, please.
| jjeaff wrote:
| I hope things get better for you. And while everyone is
| different, a lot of studies these days are leaning towards
| neuroplasticity actually continuing pretty strongly even into
| old age. So don't give up. You may need to find good treatment
| for any learning disabilities, but you can always learn more.
| elcritch wrote:
| There's also data to indicate that SSRI's working mechanism
| is actually by stimulating neuro-regeneration meaning they
| can help restore some neuroplasticity. They can be worth
| considering.
|
| Or more extreme treatments like ketamine research that
| appears to promote neuroplasticity.
|
| Both of those require some changes in cognitive behaviors.
| CBT appears the best technique. The best thing about
| universities is that they normally offer excellent mental
| health services for free (or part of tuition).
|
| To the OP: hang in there!
| sensorsbroken wrote:
| Thanks! I'm probably a lost cause. There's a much better
| ROI focusing on children.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| king_magic wrote:
| The single most impactful thing you can do to boost your
| intelligence is learn how to effectively self-soothe
|
| This sounds like absolutely unscientific, completely unfounded,
| feel-good-blogspam bullshit. And hey, maybe it isn't - maybe it's
| legit. But I see no sources, no studies that indicate that "self
| soothing" does anything for boosting general intelligence.
|
| Absent sources that confirm the author's position, this feels
| like a pretty intellectually dishonest piece.
| hpoe wrote:
| The wonderful quote that appears halfway through supports your
| conclusion
|
| "There are many theories about the connection between sensory
| processing and intelligence but my personal belief having lived
| it is"
| jhap wrote:
| I wonder what the actual single most impactful thing you can do
| to boost your intelligence is?
|
| Besides going to school for 20 years, being well-fed and
| rested, presumably it's taking modafinil?
| Theizestooke wrote:
| Twenty years ago I heard stories about people taking
| Piracetam, but afaik it's for Alzheimer patients and not
| healthy individuals looking to boost their intelligence.
| frumper wrote:
| I read this as learn to reign in your extremes so you don't
| stop yourself from learning. Extreme distractions, emotions,
| actions all will pull you away from what you'd like to
| accomplish or learn. Soothing the anxiety that prevents you
| from doing something, or calming the anger that blinds you to
| reason are effective ways of getting through challenging times
| to help you do what you originally set out to do.
| toomanyducks wrote:
| This may be true, but it's important to recognize that science
| isn't exhaustive, and it's frequently conflicting. It's also
| not definitive, and when there's a complex issue, science, a
| form of inductive reasoning, can only answer narrow questions.
| Broad questions require personal experience, and that's what
| this is. Unsourced means unscientific, not worthless.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't fulminate._"
|
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
|
| " _Have curious conversation; don 't cross-examine._"
|
| " _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
| calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be
| shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| If we control for those guidelines, your comment reduces to a
| verbose, and frankly rather nasty "citation needed," which is a
| shallow dismissal in its own right (not to mention an internet
| cliche), so in fact it reduces to nothing. Please don't post
| like that in HN threads.
|
| There's nothing at all wrong with someone writing a speculative
| blog post based on their personal experience. There's lots of
| curious conversation to be had about such things.
|
| If it doesn't gratify your personal curiosity, that's ok--there
| are lots of other links to look at--but please don't post like
| this. It ends up poisoning the conversation for others,
| especially once it attracts the swarm of upvotes that angry
| rants usually do. I'm sure that wasn't your intent, but it
| happens all too easily anyway.
| [deleted]
| king_magic wrote:
| Fair enough, feedback taken.
| dang wrote:
| Appreciated!
| kqr wrote:
| Well, maybe not exactly the same as what this person is talking
| about, but in general a calm and secure brain is wildly more
| capable of rational thought than a stressed or anxious brain.
| This link between stress and cognition is well established,
| famously in our circles by that Google study that revealed
| psychological safety as one of the best indicators of
| performance in their teams.
|
| Of course, it's more complicated than that, but for a first-
| order approximation, calming yourself down will allow you to
| use more of your brain for rational thought.
| nostrademons wrote:
| The author's sensory processing disorder is showing through in
| the writing, but there's an important insight there. People see
| through their emotions. Not just ones with sensory processing
| disorders or ADHD, but everyone. Emotional states influence
| what sensory information is able to enter our consciousness,
| and hence our decision-making process. Change how people feel
| and you can influence what they believe.
|
| If you want the scientific background for this, you can Google
| something like [effect of emotional states on cognitive
| processing], and it'll take you to articles in neuroscience
| journals like [1][2].
|
| This is also the principal by which therapy leads to better
| life outcomes. Learn to manage your emotions, so that your
| baseline emotional arousal goes down, and you'll have a clearer
| picture of the world around you and will be better equipped to
| make rational decisions. It's also spawned a whole multi-
| trillion-dollar industry (advertising & media), which is all
| about increasing your emotional arousal so you're more
| receptive to certain messages. Sex sells and if it bleeds it
| leads, because that's what generates heightened arousal states
| that make you more receptive to product messaging.
|
| [1] https://direct.mit.edu/jocn/article-
| abstract/28/3/446/28496/...
|
| [2]
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.0145...
| king_magic wrote:
| And that's cool and all, but - again: The
| single most impactful thing you can do to boost your
| intelligence is learn how to effectively self-soothe
|
| That's a pretty big statement to make. The _single, most
| impactful thing_ , eh? Reaaaaallly?
|
| I don't doubt that there might be _some_ scientific
| background, particularly for folks with sensory processing
| disorders - but to phrase this like the author did - as
| though it applies to general intelligence for pretty much
| anyone - just feels very intellectually dishonest.
| sergioisidoro wrote:
| I tend to agree with your statement, but I have to acknowledge
| that emotional intelligence is massively important for what we
| consider "intelligence"
|
| Recognising when you are in "defensive" mode in an argument,
| when you're just defending your pride instead of reason, is one
| of the most valued skill you can learn.
|
| So I can get behind the statement that self-soothing, and being
| able to put your ego in the passenger seat is indeed something
| that can boost your "intelligence" (as in, capacity of acting
| on reasoning and logic).
| Xenograph wrote:
| The first step in conducting scientific inquiry is formulating
| hypotheses, which are typically based on intuition and
| anecdote.
|
| This blog post is clearly telling an anecdote from the author's
| own personal life experience. From these experiences they have
| formed their hypotheses about behaviors that may affect
| intelligence. This blog post presents their experiences and
| conclusions.
|
| There's nothing unscientific about this. Perhaps you think that
| it is important for the author to attach a disclaimer that this
| blog post is not asserting definite scientifically proven
| truths about reality. But it's fairly obvious to me that the
| author was speaking from their own experience and opinions
| rather than attempting to share scientifically proven facts
| (why even write a long blog post to do that? The research would
| speak for itself).
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| People are willing to believe all sorts of unscientific
| nonsense about general intelligence because the science gives
| us inconvenient conclusions.
| username90 wrote:
| > The single most impactful thing people can do to improve their
| intelligence is to learn how to soothe the shame and anxiety that
| comes from confronting the possibility that the world is not how
| you see it and experience it.
|
| This includes learning from criticism even when it doesn't come
| in a neatly packaged easy to digest form. Dismissing feedback
| just because it wasn't what you wanted to hear is the best way to
| never learn uncomfortable truths, and the more you do it the
| harder going back and fixing it gets.
| lyx0 wrote:
| https://archive.is/s7DuX
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| Honest question: does "sensory perception disorder" come out of
| evidence-based science? Is it diagnosed just based on symptoms,
| or can they actually tell something's going on with the brain
| specifically? I ask because isn't it possible that this could be
| a sort of "vanity disorder"? Not saying it's good to have it, but
| people might be tempted to think they do.
| phlofy wrote:
| > One school board member remarked to my mother that my high IQ
| and learning disability would just cancel each other out over
| time
|
| Yikes
| hinkley wrote:
| I've met some pieces of work in my time. One class that stands
| out is the people who, on purpose or subconsciously, will hammer
| on someone, manipulating there sense of rightness (and often lack
| of self-soothing skills) to extract... I don't know what.
| Overtime? Self-esteem/aggrandization? Something else?
|
| I have a vivid recollection of a moment where I was explaining
| how we were actually going to fix a deep problem while in the
| corner of my vision I watched the face of the person who brought
| it up fall like a rock. He was clearly expecting a dodge, and I
| pulled some sort of 5 Why's judo move on him with a, "yes,
| and...".
|
| Incidentally, one of the superpowers of being someone that people
| can have a frank and potentially confidential conversation with
| is that people will bring you 'maybe problems' that sometimes
| turn out to be nothing (teach them how to do it themselves next
| time) or a potentially very bad situation. Having even a half
| hour head start on people to start thinking about a big problem
| makes you look a hell of a lot smarter in the OMGWTF meeting that
| follows. If you save people from looking or feeling stupid in
| front of others, they will pay you huge dividends, including
| Right of First Refusal on all sorts of things.
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(page generated 2021-07-02 23:01 UTC)