Spacing Out A Lot (Not Painful but Annoying)

I seem to be mostly spacing out and daydreaming and would really like to be able to switch modes from thinking, feeling, and doing well. I don't want my sensitivity to be an obstacle but something that helps me.

 

What's wrong with letting yourself space out and daydream? Is it negativity affecting your life?

 

It happens more often than is practical.

 

Ah, I see. How structured is your time rn? I know you're a student, but do you have any hobbies or interests outside of your studies that engage and pull you into the present moment?

 

Mainly writing, listening to music, and mini workouts.

 

Sounds to me like what is quickly becoming a well-recognized phenomenon of the pandemic. Just today I was reading a NYT article about it, and here are the excerpts that I copied for myself, to remind myself it's not just me:


- "It’s like a whole new math. I have more time and fewer obligations, yet I’m getting so much less done.”

- “People are saying they’re less productive, less engaged, that they don’t feel as successful,”

- In the most recent Household Pulse Survey, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37 percent of those surveyed reported feeling anxious or depressed (in 2019, the figure was 11 percent)

- Things take longer to get done, she said, in part because she doesn’t want to do them. “I’m out of ideas and have zero motivation to even get to a point where I feel inspired,”

- “When people are under a long period of chronic, unpredictable stress, they develop behavioral anhedonia,” Dr. Wehrenberg said, meaning the loss of the ability to take pleasure in their activities. “And so they get lethargic, and they show a lack of interest — and obviously that plays a huge role in productivity.”

-...a professor of psychiatry at McGill University who specializes in memory and the brain, said the longevity of the pandemic — endless monotony laced with acute anxiety — had contributed to a sense that time was moving differently, as if this past year were a long, hazy, exhausting experience lasting forever and no time at all. The stress and tedium, she said, have dulled our ability to form meaningful new memories. “There’s definitely a change in how people are reporting memories and cognitive experiences,” Professor Rajah said. “They have fewer rich details about their personal memories, and more negative content to their memories.” This means, she said, that people may be having a harder time forming working memories and paying attention, with “a reduced ability to hold things in their minds, manipulate thoughts and plan for the future.”

- “The staring at the wall contributes to the time warp. I’m like, ‘I spent the whole day, and I really didn’t do anything.’ Not that I did anything fun, either. It’s like, ‘Wow, I don’t even know what I did.’”


Hang in there, everyone. This too shall pass - probably not without more pain and suffering and brain fog - but it will.

 

For me a lot of that gets triggered when I'm on my phone or computer for too long. Just having real, physical activities can feel better. I also want to make more time for calling my friends etc.