So HealthyGamerGG is a YouTuber who is both a gamer and a licensed doctor in the US. He has an atypical way of communicating which I find easy to relate to, compared to other doctors (also fyi, he...
Exemplary
So HealthyGamerGG is a YouTuber who is both a gamer and a licensed doctor in the US. He has an atypical way of communicating which I find easy to relate to, compared to other doctors (also fyi, he swears sometimes). He comes from an Indian background, which is why he uses the word "vasana" in this video. I highly recommend you check out his other videos.
In this video, he talks about mental habits surrounding and formed by chronic venting. Watching this video reminded me of the recent thread that was deleted due it getting a bit too heated (I wasn't a participant of nor did I read any of the conversations, but I did get to read the article).
Here is the gist of HealthyGamerGG's video.
00:07 - The trend of venting content creators
He's noticed there's an increasing trend of content creators venting about the difficult things in their life, and that their followers/viewers share those venting posts, and also tend to form their own behaviors around their favorite content creator's behaviors. But by doing so, eventually the community/website (or internet as a whole) ends up filled with bad vibes due to people just venting all the time about how terrible their lives are.
03:48 - Venting is “emotion-focused coping”
He says that as children, we go through things we can't control externally and instead end up learning to control our own emotional responses by avoiding addressing the stressful situation in some way. Venting, for example, works fine for situations where we have no control but as we get older we gain more ability to change our lives, so the chronic venting-without-action as a coping mechanism starts to fail us. Instead it builds a mental habit (what he later refers to as a "vasana").
He pointed out that:
Only venting while having no control of the bad situation -> adaptive, good
Only venting while having control of the bad situation -> maladaptive, bad
06:52 - The purpose of venting?
The actual purpose for venting is to decompress the emotions, so you can take appropriate action. Strong emotions motivate us to do something. Since venting reduces the intensity of emotion, if it's done incorrectly it can kill our motivation to fix the thing we're venting about, thus causing a spiral:
Circumstance -> negative thinking & venting -> no motivational energy to take action -> circumstance repeats.
It is supposed to be merely a step along the way to performing healing action(s) by stabilizing our emotional state enough for us to think clearly.
08:35 - What is a Vasana?
A vasana (VAH-sah-nah) is the mental path of least resistance that has been formed by repeated actions/thoughts. It is a mental habit where all it takes is a tiny trigger to make your mind go through some well-rehearsed form of (either good or bad) thinking (ie: negative = incel/femcel forums).
This is a big deal because if you have an exposure to a negative trigger that lasts for 5 seconds and causes a venting response of 30 minutes, then you can end up wasting 2 hours of your life only due to 20 seconds of exposure to triggers. All the while you're just saying/thinking the same thing over and over. The more we do this, the stronger the vasana becomes.
13:35 - The real problem with venting
This trains our mind to have more negative thought than we would have otherwise. Now you end up with a higher risk for mental health problems, and then comes the downward spiral. Ask yourself: When you vent, what do you do to fix the problem afterwards? If the answer is nothing, now you know why you're upset and venting all the time.
So here's how to fix it.
15:45 - Observe the mental habit of your mind
Three things you can do to melt away the vasana is:
Even if the healing action is minimal, do something to help the situation. If you just now felt/thought "it won't matter, nothing I try ever works" (or something along that line) then that is a vasana.
Observe the mental habits of your mind. Watch how, as soon as you experience a trigger, your mind plays something akin to an unskippable ad that you now have to sit through 30 minutes mental ranting. Let the vasana run its course and don't stress about it.
When venting, do so just enough to stabilize your emotions but not destroy your motivation. Just long enough to reduce your emotions to where you can think clearly on how to deal with the issue that caused the emotion/venting. This is what therapists are supposed to do. Not let you vent day after day while taking your money but never helping you to get past wanting to vent.
Once you have vented and are emotionally stable again, consider creating a plan of action before venting to the point of exhaustion. Even if it's just a small step at first.
Now to get a bit meta with venting. Me sharing this with you guys is my way of doing something to try to help the thing I sometimes end up venting about. On the internet, you always end up hearing/reading about how "gamers are so toxic" or "companies are so greedy" (and both can be true) but that's about as far as the conversation goes. It takes away my faith in humanity, makes my thoughts turn sour, and saying these things doesn't really help anything beyond informing someone who genuinely didn't know.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. In fact I know I'm not the only one. There are compilation videos of "restoring your faith in humanity" that show amazing feats and/or generous behaviors of humans. I think I'll go watch one after I post this.
But I was wondering, maybe if we all do something small (or bigger if you're able to) to help with some well known issue, the issue might get fixed. If even a little bit. After all, repeated small steps will eventually take you miles. Of course, this all can be applied to our personal lives as well. Taking small steps can help relieve that feeling of being a one-man-army that I often get overwhelmed by.
I'd like to encourage more discussion of small, realistic actions we all could take in response to whatever happens to be the newest sour topic in our news feed. I'm not saying we never have advice/good vibes here (Tildes is a LOT better than the other site). I'd just like more of it I guess? To combat the occasional losing-faith-in-humanity feeling I get when reading about some greedy corporation as well as the more... pessimistic(?) comments that follow. I'm not sure that "pessimistic" is the correct word for what I mean, but I hope you get what I'm trying to say.
Yes! I'm so glad this helped you :) I also posted about another video that focuses on our ability to focus. In that one, the lady was researching what attention was and stuff and discovered that...
Yes! I'm so glad this helped you :) I also posted about another video that focuses on our ability to focus. In that one, the lady was researching what attention was and stuff and discovered that meditation helps to stabilize attention and focus.
I need to start meditating by the sound of both your comment and that other video. Lol. I'll try it when I wake up in the morning.
Venting is like using painkillers. It does not solve the issue but it gives you temporary relief. When my wife helps people with back pain and similar issues, she always tells them to skip...
Venting is like using painkillers. It does not solve the issue but it gives you temporary relief.
When my wife helps people with back pain and similar issues, she always tells them to skip painkillers for the visit. They need to be in touch with the pain to notice where exactly it comes from and when it goes away as the issues are being worked out.
In my experience, being bothered by a situation stops when you resolve yourself to action. Then the pain turns into strength.
If you bitch about your job, you can make it a year or two more with the relief from bitching. If the place truly sucks, the atmosphere goes dark pretty fast for everyone, though. Finally when not even venting is cutting it, you resolve yourself to quit. To face your boss and tell them you are burning the bridge, getting away from the abusive relationship and they can go f*ck themselves.
As soon as you decide on that, you feel relieved. You are the boss now. You are king of the world!
Now imagine that the disgruntled people just said "I want this and that to change like that. It would be nicer that way, don't you agree?" loud and clear early on. Without the bitching, but with full knowdge that if this goes on, they will have to become once again masters of their own life. So why not become one a little bit earlier?
The painkiller analogy is interesting. For the therapists I've seen in the past, it seems that this venting/painkiller treatment was how they kept me coming back. I felt "better" because I was...
The painkiller analogy is interesting. For the therapists I've seen in the past, it seems that this venting/painkiller treatment was how they kept me coming back. I felt "better" because I was venting to them (akin to a doctor giving their patient a pill), but I never felt cured or anything, and I'd be back in two weeks. Eventually, I got sick of it, like how you were saying about a crappy job environment, and I fired them. I know there are good therapists in the world, but I'm scared to waste more time on a bad one.
Regardless, my current doctor is trying to help encourage and motivate me to find one. I'll likely get there in the end. :)
I am sorry about your experience. You can also talk to people who you believe have the issue sorted out and ask for their perspective (not advice) and experience. It often helped me expedite my...
I am sorry about your experience. You can also talk to people who you believe have the issue sorted out and ask for their perspective (not advice) and experience. It often helped me expedite my own thinking.
So HealthyGamerGG is a YouTuber who is both a gamer and a licensed doctor in the US. He has an atypical way of communicating which I find easy to relate to, compared to other doctors (also fyi, he swears sometimes). He comes from an Indian background, which is why he uses the word "vasana" in this video. I highly recommend you check out his other videos.
In this video, he talks about mental habits surrounding and formed by chronic venting. Watching this video reminded me of the recent thread that was deleted due it getting a bit too heated (I wasn't a participant of nor did I read any of the conversations, but I did get to read the article).
Here is the gist of HealthyGamerGG's video.
00:07 - The trend of venting content creators
He's noticed there's an increasing trend of content creators venting about the difficult things in their life, and that their followers/viewers share those venting posts, and also tend to form their own behaviors around their favorite content creator's behaviors. But by doing so, eventually the community/website (or internet as a whole) ends up filled with bad vibes due to people just venting all the time about how terrible their lives are.
03:48 - Venting is “emotion-focused coping”
He says that as children, we go through things we can't control externally and instead end up learning to control our own emotional responses by avoiding addressing the stressful situation in some way. Venting, for example, works fine for situations where we have no control but as we get older we gain more ability to change our lives, so the chronic venting-without-action as a coping mechanism starts to fail us. Instead it builds a mental habit (what he later refers to as a "vasana").
He pointed out that:
Only venting while having no control of the bad situation -> adaptive, good
Only venting while having control of the bad situation -> maladaptive, bad
06:52 - The purpose of venting?
The actual purpose for venting is to decompress the emotions, so you can take appropriate action. Strong emotions motivate us to do something. Since venting reduces the intensity of emotion, if it's done incorrectly it can kill our motivation to fix the thing we're venting about, thus causing a spiral:
Circumstance -> negative thinking & venting -> no motivational energy to take action -> circumstance repeats.
It is supposed to be merely a step along the way to performing healing action(s) by stabilizing our emotional state enough for us to think clearly.
08:35 - What is a Vasana?
A vasana (VAH-sah-nah) is the mental path of least resistance that has been formed by repeated actions/thoughts. It is a mental habit where all it takes is a tiny trigger to make your mind go through some well-rehearsed form of (either good or bad) thinking (ie: negative = incel/femcel forums).
This is a big deal because if you have an exposure to a negative trigger that lasts for 5 seconds and causes a venting response of 30 minutes, then you can end up wasting 2 hours of your life only due to 20 seconds of exposure to triggers. All the while you're just saying/thinking the same thing over and over. The more we do this, the stronger the vasana becomes.
13:35 - The real problem with venting
This trains our mind to have more negative thought than we would have otherwise. Now you end up with a higher risk for mental health problems, and then comes the downward spiral. Ask yourself: When you vent, what do you do to fix the problem afterwards? If the answer is nothing, now you know why you're upset and venting all the time.
So here's how to fix it.
15:45 - Observe the mental habit of your mind
Three things you can do to melt away the vasana is:
Even if the healing action is minimal, do something to help the situation. If you just now felt/thought "it won't matter, nothing I try ever works" (or something along that line) then that is a vasana.
Observe the mental habits of your mind. Watch how, as soon as you experience a trigger, your mind plays something akin to an unskippable ad that you now have to sit through 30 minutes mental ranting. Let the vasana run its course and don't stress about it.
When venting, do so just enough to stabilize your emotions but not destroy your motivation. Just long enough to reduce your emotions to where you can think clearly on how to deal with the issue that caused the emotion/venting. This is what therapists are supposed to do. Not let you vent day after day while taking your money but never helping you to get past wanting to vent.
Once you have vented and are emotionally stable again, consider creating a plan of action before venting to the point of exhaustion. Even if it's just a small step at first.
Now to get a bit meta with venting. Me sharing this with you guys is my way of doing something to try to help the thing I sometimes end up venting about. On the internet, you always end up hearing/reading about how "gamers are so toxic" or "companies are so greedy" (and both can be true) but that's about as far as the conversation goes. It takes away my faith in humanity, makes my thoughts turn sour, and saying these things doesn't really help anything beyond informing someone who genuinely didn't know.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. In fact I know I'm not the only one. There are compilation videos of "restoring your faith in humanity" that show amazing feats and/or generous behaviors of humans. I think I'll go watch one after I post this.
But I was wondering, maybe if we all do something small (or bigger if you're able to) to help with some well known issue, the issue might get fixed. If even a little bit. After all, repeated small steps will eventually take you miles. Of course, this all can be applied to our personal lives as well. Taking small steps can help relieve that feeling of being a one-man-army that I often get overwhelmed by.
I'd like to encourage more discussion of small, realistic actions we all could take in response to whatever happens to be the newest sour topic in our news feed. I'm not saying we never have advice/good vibes here (Tildes is a LOT better than the other site). I'd just like more of it I guess? To combat the occasional losing-faith-in-humanity feeling I get when reading about some greedy corporation as well as the more... pessimistic(?) comments that follow. I'm not sure that "pessimistic" is the correct word for what I mean, but I hope you get what I'm trying to say.
Yes! I'm so glad this helped you :) I also posted about another video that focuses on our ability to focus. In that one, the lady was researching what attention was and stuff and discovered that meditation helps to stabilize attention and focus.
I need to start meditating by the sound of both your comment and that other video. Lol. I'll try it when I wake up in the morning.
Venting is like using painkillers. It does not solve the issue but it gives you temporary relief.
When my wife helps people with back pain and similar issues, she always tells them to skip painkillers for the visit. They need to be in touch with the pain to notice where exactly it comes from and when it goes away as the issues are being worked out.
In my experience, being bothered by a situation stops when you resolve yourself to action. Then the pain turns into strength.
If you bitch about your job, you can make it a year or two more with the relief from bitching. If the place truly sucks, the atmosphere goes dark pretty fast for everyone, though. Finally when not even venting is cutting it, you resolve yourself to quit. To face your boss and tell them you are burning the bridge, getting away from the abusive relationship and they can go f*ck themselves.
As soon as you decide on that, you feel relieved. You are the boss now. You are king of the world!
Now imagine that the disgruntled people just said "I want this and that to change like that. It would be nicer that way, don't you agree?" loud and clear early on. Without the bitching, but with full knowdge that if this goes on, they will have to become once again masters of their own life. So why not become one a little bit earlier?
The painkiller analogy is interesting. For the therapists I've seen in the past, it seems that this venting/painkiller treatment was how they kept me coming back. I felt "better" because I was venting to them (akin to a doctor giving their patient a pill), but I never felt cured or anything, and I'd be back in two weeks. Eventually, I got sick of it, like how you were saying about a crappy job environment, and I fired them. I know there are good therapists in the world, but I'm scared to waste more time on a bad one.
Regardless, my current doctor is trying to help encourage and motivate me to find one. I'll likely get there in the end. :)
I am sorry about your experience. You can also talk to people who you believe have the issue sorted out and ask for their perspective (not advice) and experience. It often helped me expedite my own thinking.
If that's applicable.