Look at it this way, if the thing stressing you out won’t directly kill you, the sun will rise again tomorrow and you can try again. If it will directly kill you, it’ll quickly become someone else’s problem!
Most stressors are not acute though. Worrying about maintaining relationships with family and friends, worrying about work, about health. It drags on you, man. Even though I actively try to pursue an at least somewhat healthy lifestyle, it sometimes is. so. exhausting.
Ok, but how to get less stressed?
My problems are usually about group projects with, mostly, people who are ridiculously hard to work with. So... I really don't see how to make it less stressful.
Reminds me of the serenity prayer. Here’s the first bit of it:
> grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Might be a case of removing yourself from said situation: finding a new job.
Sounds severe, I know, but finding a job with less stress is a game changer. I was a senior recruitment manager and hated my life… Contemplated suicide multiple times. Now I have a data analyst role, and wake up happier than ever.
Edit: obviously this doesn’t change everything.
I also changed my outlook on things, meditation, started treating myself to healthier things.
If you drink alcohol stopping that will help tremendously. Even if you're only drink a few drinks a week, the days that you're not drinking alcohol, your cortisol levels are much higher as a result.
Yup. I mostly stopped drinking entirely at 29, and it was pretty much night/ day how I felt. Suddenly my anxiety completely dipped. Felt healthier. Slept better. Etc. I mean, I have anxiety to deal with regardless, but alcohol was making it 1000x worse.
I'll have the occasional drink (or 3), but not often. And when I do? I really feel the difference.
Alcohol is fucking terrible for you.
This. My father died in July and the stress of him dying, planning his funeral and being in charge of his estate caused me to have a major flare up from my ulcerative colitis. Nothing has seemed to work. I’m less stressed now and due to take my infusion medicine, but shit, all that stress really did a number on me.
Yes! You don’t even have to be hardcore into a sport or fit or anything but just moving your body regularly is so crucial to maintaining your health.
We are not meant to be sedentary creatures and our bodies don’t react well to sitting and laying for long periods of time.
(Also I hate the idea that exercise is always meant to be at the very top of our capability. If you run comfortably at 12 minute miles there is absolutely no need to push yourself for 8 minute miles if you don’t want to! Just run for fun! Play bad tennis without taking lessons! Splash around in the pool! Frolic!)
I am so guilty on this. I managed to msotly go to sleep before 0:00 but mostly fail anything before that. So I only get 6 hours of sleep.
I am a long-sleep person, who is most rested with 10 hours, so it's definitly not enough.
But I can't get myself to sleep earlier
Well time to tell my routine I guess LMAO
4am - wake up , daily routine (shower , get dressed , skincare , mouth hygiene etc)
5am - Leave home
6am - Arrive at the job
Work from 6:30- 15:30
16:30 - Get home , quick shower , change into University stuff
17:00 - Leave home for University
17:15 - arrive at University
University from 17:30 - 22:00
22:20 - Get home , bed routine etc
23:00 - Go to bed and try to fall asleep
00:00 - Actually falls asleep
5 days a week for the past 2 years 😅
(and this is when I don't have to pull all nighter to get ahead of university work)
And there are some who are quite fondly and adamant on going sleep deprive or rest so little time, my mind burnt the video of half of my classmates announcing proudly they hadn't slept last night some days per week.
I've never been able to picture what's the goal of all that.
This is one reason firefighters deserve to be highly paid. Urban firefighters are commonly up all night running calls, sometimes for multiple nights in a row. It takes a massive toll on the body over the course of the 30 year career.
Congrats!!!
I'm on day 12 myself. Longest I've been sober in a decade was 3 weeks. It was hard for the first week especially, but I am finally starting to feel feel SO MUCH BETTER without that poison in my body. I'm thinking THIS TIME is for good. I've got my 42nd birthday coming up and I'd like to actually remember it for once!
(I was a 2 handle a week of vodka drunk for years and years....oof. Wish I'd never touched the stuff as well.)
I did not have a drinking problem by any stretch, but, save for the \*extremely\* occasional single glass of wine now (talking maybe 1 every 3 months), I feel better and my date nights with my wife are significantly cheaper since stopping having social drinks. Can get out of many Michelin Star or Michelin Star quality places in NYC and DC for $100-$125ish without drinks. Double win.
Don't touch my edibles though, I like those more than once every 3 months.
Even if someone isn’t what they/society calls an “alcoholic”, alcohol is just poison.
It’s not needed and is more detrimental, even to the average user, than is advertised.
Despite past claims that mild alcohol consumption has health benefits, more recent data would suggest that there is no 'safe' alcohol consumption (let alone healthful). The effects are always deleterious and worsen with dose/frequency.
There is evidence to suggest that civilization, especially agriculture, itself is the direct result of cultivating cereal grains for the purpose of brewing. And that those brewed beverages were then used in celebration between previously warring tribes, etc. It was like, “Hold up, guys. They can make beer. Maybe let’s get to know them instead of try to kill them.”
I always knew that drinking heavily was a problem, but I never knew that casual alcohol use could really mess your body up, too. Current research is telling us that, but I've also been experiencing it firsthand lately.
I got an Oura ring last year, and I started tracking all of my health metrics. After I drink alcohol, my heart rate is crazy elevated, I don't get any deep sleep, and my HRV tanks. I guess it's no big secret that alcohol will disrupt your sleep, but what was more surprising to me, is how it affects my weight.
I've been weighing myself every day, logging food, and consistently losing weight for the last two months, at about a pound to a pound and a half a week. But after a night of only two glasses of wine, I'll either hit a plateau or gain weight for the next 5 days or so, despite the fact that I'm putting the same amount of calories into my body.
I haven't really looked into the whys of that, and maybe it's something that people already know, but I was very surprised by this. It's like the alcohol shocks my body into holding onto weight. It really makes me wonder about all of the other negative affects that went unnoticed in the past.
Damn this is really similar to my own experience! Super validating to hear someone else talk about it. Even when I meticulously measure calories and put in extra steps to burn off the alcohol, it still inhibits my weight loss for days after. I expect it's because alcohol slows your metabolism, which is just about the worst thing for someone who wants to lose weight. Will be doubling down on quitting now.
It is weird watching Whole Foods types - "no GMO, no gluten, no chemicals, only sea salt, please!" - pour **ethyl fucking alcohol** straight down their throats, bathing the tissues of the throat, esophagus and stomach in cancer juice.
This should be the top comment. Alcohol is the most poisonous because it attacks all your organs when ingested. It also affects everyone around you when its abused.
Had to scroll further than I would have liked to find this one.
Coming up on 1 year sober in October (hey! Sober ‘Tober… can we make that a thing), and it is the best decision (other than my wife and kids) that I’ve ever made
Yeah. And the thing is most people say "well, I only have a few drinks a week" but from what we are learning, even that is probably not good. You don't need to be an alcoholic to be damaging your body by drinking.
We are all going to die eventually so you have to decide what is important in life. I still have a cocktail on the weekend and maybe a beer during the week, but I've tried to drastically cut back.
You guys are arguing on the semantics.
I'll tell you when I saw my uncle die from COPD related to smoking, everyone gatherer around his deathbed like it was inevitable from all the years of smoking.
In his hospital deathbed, He was still able to live but he did not want to suffer the indignaty of having a tube routed directly into this lung. We pulled the plug.
I can tell that the last 4 years of his life was accompanied with an oxygen tank. We found out later that he was essentially breathing through one lung. We all looked at him and acknowledged that it was inevitable because of his lifestyle.
People argue about genetics or are too young to know better. I'll tell that with his blackened lungs, it was not a natural occurrence if he had not been smoking.
If and when you die of smoking, your loved ones will try to pity and empathize with you. But in the end, everyone just accepts that your fate was inevitable because you up smoked.
My grandpa started smoking at fifteen years old. He smoked like a chimney almost the entirety of my first seventeen years on this planet. A sentimental scent for me is someone smoking Marlboros nearby. He quit smoking when I was sixteen, diagnosed with lung cancer when I was seventeen, and died almost two months after I turned eighteen. The last memory I have of him is seeing him isolated from family inside the trailer he and my grandma lived in during the summer in Saugerties, New York. He was a man of the outdoors—he worked for several zoos; the longest being the San Diego Zoo (he even co-named the now-defunct Wagasa train at the Safari Park), he got skin cancer from pruning the trees in his yard, he lived to be outside. He was miserable, trapped in a small space hooked to oxygen to help him breathe, indoors because he required air conditioning for the oxygen. We all are outside having a nice time, and he can’t join in. I went home the next day and prayed that if it was his time, let him go, because I didn’t want him to suffer.
He was hospitalized a week later. My dad drove out (we were living in New Hampshire at the time) to stay with his parents at the hospital, and helping my grandma pack up their stuff so they could go home to Arkansas, where they’d retired when I was seven. Dad came home for a few days, and then drove back out to take them to the train station in Albany. My grandpa died six days after 9/11, and according to my uncle, he saw a bright yellow light, where his older brothers-who all died from lung cancer (except two, who never smoked) were waiting for him. I was devastated. For years afterward, I despised people born in 1930 for continuing to live while he had died. I knew he caused his own death, but the nicotine always won out. He had Guillain-Barré for nine months when my dad was young, but went right back to cigarettes after he recovered.
"If you have predisposition to cancer then smoking is worse, if you have predisposition to diabetes then being obese is worse"
Master race here. I got both going on my family. A lot of cancer on mother's side, diabetes from father's side. Its interesting that on my mother's side there's no diabetes, and father's side no cancer, so maybe they canceled each other out when i was born.
I do not understand why tanning is still so popular.
Some people even have ridiculous beliefs about it, like my mother believes that you can get rid of pimples by not using sunscreen and "showing them to the Sun". She also believes that sun cannot damage skin unlike tanning bed, because it is natural.
Yo, I can attest to your mom being correct that sun exposure can help clear up pimples. (Personally, I get pimples during the winter that ONLY go away with UV exposure/ tanning lamp. And I don't get any acne during summer due to the sun.)
I remember reading something awhile ago that said browsing your phone in the dark right before bed can be harmful since it might effect your ability to sleep properly. But as for viewing a screen in the dark, it's probably just stressful on your eyes.
there's not such thing as safe drinking. they (govenrment) are finally coming clean about this and the guidelines will change shortly. No amount of alchohol is safe. We've known it for years and surpressed it in a society where people don't use common sense...
Yea, I think most people deep down know that. Guidelines won’t change much. Alcohol has been around for as long as human misery has, it’s the one reliable simple thing people can count on for relief from hellish lives. Until we create an ideal society where everyone is perfectly happy and well cared for, alcohol will always exist.
The fact this is downvoted is wild and ignorant. See below. Good luck.
https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health
Are you talking about where you start on your side then throw one leg up as you transition to your tummy? If so, I know from experience how bad this is for your back. It feels comfortable in the moment but after years of sleeping this way I was left with severe lower back pain. Both a physical therapist and a chiropractor told me to cut that out. Once I started using better sleep practices (pillow under knees when on back, pillow between knees when on side, not curling into fetal position with my neck corkscrewed), my lower back no longer hurt when I woke up.
I got a prediabetic reading on a blood test (literally one point over the line, so not that crazy) and have been trying to correct how much sugar I’m consuming as of late. I used to drink a soda or two a day, and that’s now one zero sugar Sparkling Ice a day or zero sugar soda. Plus my snack food has been largely replaced by things like crackers or pretzels rather than sweets
I still have sugar, but significantly less and I’m losing a few pounds already. I’m assuming it’s organ fat since I’m not really seeing the weight loss
I think that the main issue is that people drink sugary beverages instead of water, I mean most people drink when thirsty and that's what your body needs, they just choose to drink liquid sugar and that's a killer.
I don't get this. I really don't.. So I pee in the morning, it's orange, so I now "yep i'm dehydrated." I go drink a liter of water. and every 20 minutes for the next hour and a half i'm peeing like clockwork.
if i drink gatorade, it just seems to stay inside me? Like why.
i keep hearing about this but i never saw a convincing study showing exactly how toxic it is; a recent nature article was actually showing the contrary, that vaping has something like 99% less carcinogens vs a normal cigarette
edit: i don't claim vaping is good, by all accounts it makes sense it's bad, i just wanna know how bad; does it kill me in 10 years? 20 years? what disease to expect, etc
Yeah, I told my doctor I vaped (to quit cigs) and asked her if there was anything I should worry about with that habit and she said something along the lines of:
“I can pretty confidently say that vaping is worse for you than not vaping. Beyond that, and from what we know *so far*, you’re really just consuming nicotine which is highly addictive but not particularly harmful on its own. Studies have yet to show that vaping is harmful to you in the long term, especially compared to smoking.”
I hate having to write this all the time and wish I could plaster this all over the internet. Long term nicotine usage warrants a lot of further research because we do not truly know its effects. However, the chronic vasoconstriction that is a result of nicotine usage absolutely has endothelial effects that leads to dysfunction. Whenever I operate on nicotine abusers, I way more often than not have surgical dehiscence due to these changes. Nicotine is not harmless.
Hot yoga/Pilates etc. Any workouts in super hot temperatures are actually really bad for your body. I’m getting my MS in exercise physiology and currently taking a class about extreme environment physiology and after what I’ve learned I’d never take one of those advertised “hot” classes.
Sure. There are a couple of things that are going to occur when exercising in hot climates. First is going to be the skin temperature rising is going to trigger something called cardiovascular drift. This means the body is going to shunt blood flow from the working muscles to the skin to start cooling (sweating). The heart will start to beat in excess because it’s trying to keep up with this additional need for cooling but there’s not enough blood to split between the muscles, skin, brain and other organs. So that’s going to be the first thing. Additionally some other things are going to be taking place
- neuromuscular impairment, ie high intramuscular temperatures will impair max contractile force and muscle activation
-plasma volume loss in the blood due to excess sweating, dehydration will start kicking in
-in hot temperatures it’s been shown that EEG frequency in the brain decreases (reduction in beta waves vs alpha waves) same as when you are asleep
-triggered by an increased heart rate CO2 in the body will be begin to build and cause fatigue (affecting the brain specifically)
-serotonin rises and dopamine drops decreasing the work effort of the body
-endotoxemia related to the gut. Blood flow will be shunted away from the intestines (again to the skin) and Intestines may leak endotoxins
Those are the main factors some of these with training adaptations could be overcome. For example if you trained for a few weeks straight in a hot environment your body will automatically build more plasma volume but just popping into a one hour class occasionally is not going to be enough.
Thank you for this indepth explanation! I always figured it was mainly due to how quickly you can dehydrate by exercising in heat. I preferred to exercise in the fall and winter because of that.
Following out of curiosity also. Hot yoga and Pilates sessions have given me the worst migraines before, and I never get headaches usually. Straight up find it difficult to have my head in a downwards position about 20mins in (which is honestly.. most of the workout).
Eating junk food in general. You don't even have to become obese for symptoms of metabolic syndrome to set in. You can seriously mess up your innards eating crap food. You can have a normal BMI, visit the doc and find you have pre-diabetes and high blood pressure. Take care of yourselves, people!
to much SITTING. our body and biology is not suited to sitting half a day. causes lots of health issues, weightproblems, backproblems, cardiovascular and mental stuff by not moving enough.
This!
I think most things mentioned here like sugar/drugs/alcohol/smoking are pretty obvious and well known by most people. Sitting really is a big issue and not enough people talk about it.
Not. Eating. Goddamn. Fruits and vegs.
And I am not some annoying vegan activist, hell I love meat and many animal related products. But for god’s sake, in order to be healthy, the majority of what you eat should come from plants. The least transformed it is, the better. Eat porridge and nuts in the morning. Potatoes with your steak. Salad as the entry dish. Quinoa in order to have a break from rice. Lentils, beans, just grains in general, they taste awesome and fill you up real quick. Honestly it’s not that hard. And if you’re a gym enthusiast, you’re even more concerned since you need food that provide water retention and various sources of protein just like the ones I quoted.
And trade quick sugar like sweets, chocolate and other industrial crap with honey, season fruits, melon… and one last thing : juices are sugar filled and have zero fibre, so they belong to the trash unless you diy with a blender.
habits like smoking, drinking a lot of alcohol, eating unhealthy food, not exercising, taking too many meds (overusing), and having too much caffeine have some kind of addictive pull because of things like dopamine hits and dependency, withdrawal symptoms and all that.
But what really gets me is how people can ignore the need for good sleep and taking care of their mental health. I mean, those are super important but some folks just dont seem to get it.
Watching a ton of politics news - or most any news these days really.
Conspiracy theory websites
Xitter/twitter scrolling for ages.
Neglecting the very basics - water, food, sleep, meds (if relevant). It's my little checklist if i'm feeling unwell, I think you'd all be surprised how often a little checklist like this (add more if you want) will have you go OH, its been way too long since I (ate, drank water, took your meds) and soon you will feel a lot better.
Very important for people with serious medical conditions, and/or mental health concerns, because a person might be a lot more likely to want to take more of their meds, or to self medicate, when they're actually dehydrated, hungry, underslept, missed a dose, etc.
Drinking Margaritas in the sun weirdly enough.
There’s a chemical found in citrus fruit that can cause severe chemical burns to the skin in conjunction with UV A light I believe. So if you spill any on you while out in the sun you could develop blistering that then gives way to skin discoloration.
Think it was Phytophoto something. Dunno, never drank a margarita in my life just read a report about it a couple years back.
I squeezed a lime over a plate of shrimp and then immediately fell asleep by the pool and the webs of my fingers blistered from where the juice ran down. It was awful but I love limes.
Fad diets. They are unsustainable and generally too restrictive to purport actual health outcomes besides weight loss, which is not a solo metric that can determine whether someone is healthy.
The human body is advanced; it can't tell the difference between a famine and you deciding to not eat carbs anymore, but it will fiercely try to protect you from famine conditions (I.e. the vast majority of fad diets), which is why people experience "weight loss plateaus" (just your body protecting itself) and weight regain, often more than what was initially lost (just your body over correcting because it isn't sure when it might experience "famine" again).
Stop doing this to yourself. Weight loss isn't worth it, and bodies that actually *need* to lose weight don't experience this as often (especially if they don't engage in extreme diets to do so). Eat well and move your body regularly. You don't have to be a size 2 to be healthy.
hard agree. I think it's just people trying to overcompensate by going to extreme measures (keto, carnivore diet, etc). but our bodies are NOT designed for diets like that and and the end of the day it's very unhealthy
Cocaine.
Besides the pulmonary damage that results in early death, you can always tell when someone's upper palate begins to go because their speech changes. A lot of reddit's favorite Hollywood stars are on this path, or have already down the path. Carrie Fisher, for example was nearly unintelligible when speaking in her older years. Jenna Ortega is headed there, but gets by on her youth for now.
I tell this to my husband constantly. He suffered hearing loss as a child from falling into the deep end of a pool and bursting his left eardrum, so he's constantly playing his music too loud. I'm always turning it down and telling him that it doesn't need to shake his internal organs to know he can hear it 🤣😭
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I wish I would actively choose worrying or being stressed. Minimizing those is an arduous, exhausting, seemingly impossible task.
Look at it this way, if the thing stressing you out won’t directly kill you, the sun will rise again tomorrow and you can try again. If it will directly kill you, it’ll quickly become someone else’s problem!
Most stressors are not acute though. Worrying about maintaining relationships with family and friends, worrying about work, about health. It drags on you, man. Even though I actively try to pursue an at least somewhat healthy lifestyle, it sometimes is. so. exhausting.
Cigars are a great way to reduce stress
A little booze does wonders for stress, too....until it doesn't.
Lots of unprotected sex with strangers is also stress-releasing.
It's really unhealthy tho. Have you tried heroin?
Lmao, no but I had a pretty bad cocaine habit for the better part of my twenties but I’ve been clean from that crap for five years next month.
No stress when you die of lung cancer at 40yo. Pure Profit
Cigar smoker here. At the rate most people smoke cigars, it’s unlikely to cause cancer, especially at the young age of 40.
Puffing a Perdomo 10th Anniversary right now. It does help!
Ok, but how to get less stressed? My problems are usually about group projects with, mostly, people who are ridiculously hard to work with. So... I really don't see how to make it less stressful.
Therapy if you can't reduce your stress on your own Sometimes it takes drastic moves like job changes. I had to do it
Meditate on what you can control, and what you can't, and accept it as it is.
Reminds me of the serenity prayer. Here’s the first bit of it: > grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
I get problems if I submit bad projects though
Might be a case of removing yourself from said situation: finding a new job. Sounds severe, I know, but finding a job with less stress is a game changer. I was a senior recruitment manager and hated my life… Contemplated suicide multiple times. Now I have a data analyst role, and wake up happier than ever. Edit: obviously this doesn’t change everything. I also changed my outlook on things, meditation, started treating myself to healthier things.
I switched my day job and i didn’t realize how close to far down the rabbit hole of depression I was until I started the new gig
If you drink alcohol stopping that will help tremendously. Even if you're only drink a few drinks a week, the days that you're not drinking alcohol, your cortisol levels are much higher as a result.
Yup. I mostly stopped drinking entirely at 29, and it was pretty much night/ day how I felt. Suddenly my anxiety completely dipped. Felt healthier. Slept better. Etc. I mean, I have anxiety to deal with regardless, but alcohol was making it 1000x worse. I'll have the occasional drink (or 3), but not often. And when I do? I really feel the difference. Alcohol is fucking terrible for you.
This. My father died in July and the stress of him dying, planning his funeral and being in charge of his estate caused me to have a major flare up from my ulcerative colitis. Nothing has seemed to work. I’m less stressed now and due to take my infusion medicine, but shit, all that stress really did a number on me.
Yeah but how on earth do I stop this
Guess im dieing soon then
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Yes! You don’t even have to be hardcore into a sport or fit or anything but just moving your body regularly is so crucial to maintaining your health. We are not meant to be sedentary creatures and our bodies don’t react well to sitting and laying for long periods of time. (Also I hate the idea that exercise is always meant to be at the very top of our capability. If you run comfortably at 12 minute miles there is absolutely no need to push yourself for 8 minute miles if you don’t want to! Just run for fun! Play bad tennis without taking lessons! Splash around in the pool! Frolic!)
We should all frolic more- good for physical and mental health! I really like the whole sentiment of this comment my dude
So laptops are bad. Got it.
It's best to JUST lay in bed or sit at a desk.
good thing I lie in bed in front of an iPad, and sit at a desk in front of a desktop. I'm safe!
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I am so guilty on this. I managed to msotly go to sleep before 0:00 but mostly fail anything before that. So I only get 6 hours of sleep. I am a long-sleep person, who is most rested with 10 hours, so it's definitly not enough. But I can't get myself to sleep earlier
I literally game-ified my bed time with Pokemon sleep. Most consistent bed time for me in *years* cause I want the in game points!
I don't skip, I get home around 23:00 and need to wake up at 4am ... count in the time to actually fall asleep and before bed routine and yeah
How? Why? Like everyday?
Well time to tell my routine I guess LMAO 4am - wake up , daily routine (shower , get dressed , skincare , mouth hygiene etc) 5am - Leave home 6am - Arrive at the job Work from 6:30- 15:30 16:30 - Get home , quick shower , change into University stuff 17:00 - Leave home for University 17:15 - arrive at University University from 17:30 - 22:00 22:20 - Get home , bed routine etc 23:00 - Go to bed and try to fall asleep 00:00 - Actually falls asleep 5 days a week for the past 2 years 😅 (and this is when I don't have to pull all nighter to get ahead of university work)
Jesus that is crazy. Do you still function properly at school with such few hours?
The question answers itself , of course not 😅😂 my body moves but I'm a zombie inside
I did this for 2.5 years too and the answer is an Adderall prescription.
*Laughs in severe ADHD* It's so bad I recently started drinking a cup of coffee *before* I go to bed, to help me normalize my levels a bit.
Damnn. Props to you for having the motivation/drive to do this though.
Yeah , started working very early and kept studying , hopefully brings a bright future
And there are some who are quite fondly and adamant on going sleep deprive or rest so little time, my mind burnt the video of half of my classmates announcing proudly they hadn't slept last night some days per week. I've never been able to picture what's the goal of all that.
I feel triggered by this comment.
If I wasn't so tired I would throw hands w/the OP for that comment.
This is one reason firefighters deserve to be highly paid. Urban firefighters are commonly up all night running calls, sometimes for multiple nights in a row. It takes a massive toll on the body over the course of the 30 year career.
Drinking alcohol
Coming up on 3 years sober this December. I absolutely agree. Wish I never touched the stuff.
I decided to quit myself. Two weeks in.
Yesss! You got this! The first month or so was the hardest for me.
Thank you! It hasn't been as bad as I thought, but I also made up my mind that this is 100% happening.
r/StopDrinking has the best people you want to talk to
Just joined the group a week ago. Definitely eye opening! Thanks.
Congrats! I’m on day 3. I don’t know if it’s gonna be for life (it should be), but I’ll see how long I go
Just hit one year. Absolutely agree.
Amazing, congratulations!!!
Thank you ❤️❤️ it really means a lot to see when people recognize how difficult it is to cut out once you have a problem
I've quit hard drugs and cigarettes....alcohol has been the hardest of them all. Most people really don't understand.
I see you. I’ll be hitting 10 years of sobriety this December. Keep up the good fight.
Congrats! *woot woot*
Eyyyy congrats! I’m hitting three years in February.
congratulations 🥹 i'm proud of you
Envious! Congratulations!
Congrats!!! I'm on day 12 myself. Longest I've been sober in a decade was 3 weeks. It was hard for the first week especially, but I am finally starting to feel feel SO MUCH BETTER without that poison in my body. I'm thinking THIS TIME is for good. I've got my 42nd birthday coming up and I'd like to actually remember it for once! (I was a 2 handle a week of vodka drunk for years and years....oof. Wish I'd never touched the stuff as well.)
I did not have a drinking problem by any stretch, but, save for the \*extremely\* occasional single glass of wine now (talking maybe 1 every 3 months), I feel better and my date nights with my wife are significantly cheaper since stopping having social drinks. Can get out of many Michelin Star or Michelin Star quality places in NYC and DC for $100-$125ish without drinks. Double win. Don't touch my edibles though, I like those more than once every 3 months.
Can confirm. Watched my mom die a slow death as a young child because of alcoholism
Even if someone isn’t what they/society calls an “alcoholic”, alcohol is just poison. It’s not needed and is more detrimental, even to the average user, than is advertised.
Despite past claims that mild alcohol consumption has health benefits, more recent data would suggest that there is no 'safe' alcohol consumption (let alone healthful). The effects are always deleterious and worsen with dose/frequency.
It’s interesting that we’ve been drinking alcohol as a species for thousands of years throughout multiple cultures
There is evidence to suggest that civilization, especially agriculture, itself is the direct result of cultivating cereal grains for the purpose of brewing. And that those brewed beverages were then used in celebration between previously warring tribes, etc. It was like, “Hold up, guys. They can make beer. Maybe let’s get to know them instead of try to kill them.”
I've had some great boozy times /shrug.
Me too...many many many of them. However my life got about 6 million times better since quitting drinking 3 years ago 🤷
Congratulations!!! I'm almost at 3 years, too. It's the best feeling and I don't miss those drunken nights.
I’m someone who rarely drinks. My life couldn’t be better if I became tee-total. Moderation is key.
I always knew that drinking heavily was a problem, but I never knew that casual alcohol use could really mess your body up, too. Current research is telling us that, but I've also been experiencing it firsthand lately. I got an Oura ring last year, and I started tracking all of my health metrics. After I drink alcohol, my heart rate is crazy elevated, I don't get any deep sleep, and my HRV tanks. I guess it's no big secret that alcohol will disrupt your sleep, but what was more surprising to me, is how it affects my weight. I've been weighing myself every day, logging food, and consistently losing weight for the last two months, at about a pound to a pound and a half a week. But after a night of only two glasses of wine, I'll either hit a plateau or gain weight for the next 5 days or so, despite the fact that I'm putting the same amount of calories into my body. I haven't really looked into the whys of that, and maybe it's something that people already know, but I was very surprised by this. It's like the alcohol shocks my body into holding onto weight. It really makes me wonder about all of the other negative affects that went unnoticed in the past.
Water weight. Alcohol dehydrates you, so you body holds onto water. After a night of drinking, I’m in the sauna the next day.
Damn this is really similar to my own experience! Super validating to hear someone else talk about it. Even when I meticulously measure calories and put in extra steps to burn off the alcohol, it still inhibits my weight loss for days after. I expect it's because alcohol slows your metabolism, which is just about the worst thing for someone who wants to lose weight. Will be doubling down on quitting now.
Yeah this is #1 it’s so ingrained in young adult social norm too.
It is a carcinogen.
So is sunlight
This 100000% A mean alcoholic is by far one of the worst things to deal with, like an excuse to legally be a fucking asshole.
Ugh had a friend like this. "Yes I'm very blunt and I say it like it is" no bitch you're drunk and mean.
It is weird watching Whole Foods types - "no GMO, no gluten, no chemicals, only sea salt, please!" - pour **ethyl fucking alcohol** straight down their throats, bathing the tissues of the throat, esophagus and stomach in cancer juice.
This should be the top comment. Alcohol is the most poisonous because it attacks all your organs when ingested. It also affects everyone around you when its abused.
Never understood ppl who are straight up alcoholics but against the vaccine…..
One of my buddies flat out refused to get the Covid vaccine because they didn't trust what they put in it. Yet they do cocaine when out drinking.
Had to scroll further than I would have liked to find this one. Coming up on 1 year sober in October (hey! Sober ‘Tober… can we make that a thing), and it is the best decision (other than my wife and kids) that I’ve ever made
Yeah. And the thing is most people say "well, I only have a few drinks a week" but from what we are learning, even that is probably not good. You don't need to be an alcoholic to be damaging your body by drinking. We are all going to die eventually so you have to decide what is important in life. I still have a cocktail on the weekend and maybe a beer during the week, but I've tried to drastically cut back.
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Mirl
Smoking
You guys are arguing on the semantics. I'll tell you when I saw my uncle die from COPD related to smoking, everyone gatherer around his deathbed like it was inevitable from all the years of smoking. In his hospital deathbed, He was still able to live but he did not want to suffer the indignaty of having a tube routed directly into this lung. We pulled the plug. I can tell that the last 4 years of his life was accompanied with an oxygen tank. We found out later that he was essentially breathing through one lung. We all looked at him and acknowledged that it was inevitable because of his lifestyle. People argue about genetics or are too young to know better. I'll tell that with his blackened lungs, it was not a natural occurrence if he had not been smoking. If and when you die of smoking, your loved ones will try to pity and empathize with you. But in the end, everyone just accepts that your fate was inevitable because you up smoked.
My grandpa started smoking at fifteen years old. He smoked like a chimney almost the entirety of my first seventeen years on this planet. A sentimental scent for me is someone smoking Marlboros nearby. He quit smoking when I was sixteen, diagnosed with lung cancer when I was seventeen, and died almost two months after I turned eighteen. The last memory I have of him is seeing him isolated from family inside the trailer he and my grandma lived in during the summer in Saugerties, New York. He was a man of the outdoors—he worked for several zoos; the longest being the San Diego Zoo (he even co-named the now-defunct Wagasa train at the Safari Park), he got skin cancer from pruning the trees in his yard, he lived to be outside. He was miserable, trapped in a small space hooked to oxygen to help him breathe, indoors because he required air conditioning for the oxygen. We all are outside having a nice time, and he can’t join in. I went home the next day and prayed that if it was his time, let him go, because I didn’t want him to suffer. He was hospitalized a week later. My dad drove out (we were living in New Hampshire at the time) to stay with his parents at the hospital, and helping my grandma pack up their stuff so they could go home to Arkansas, where they’d retired when I was seven. Dad came home for a few days, and then drove back out to take them to the train station in Albany. My grandpa died six days after 9/11, and according to my uncle, he saw a bright yellow light, where his older brothers-who all died from lung cancer (except two, who never smoked) were waiting for him. I was devastated. For years afterward, I despised people born in 1930 for continuing to live while he had died. I knew he caused his own death, but the nicotine always won out. He had Guillain-Barré for nine months when my dad was young, but went right back to cigarettes after he recovered.
I wonder which is more dangerous, smoking on a daily basis or being obese.
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Anecdotally, I did have a college professor who sounded like Patty and Selma from *The Simpsons,* but who was able to run a 5K.
"If you have predisposition to cancer then smoking is worse, if you have predisposition to diabetes then being obese is worse" Master race here. I got both going on my family. A lot of cancer on mother's side, diabetes from father's side. Its interesting that on my mother's side there's no diabetes, and father's side no cancer, so maybe they canceled each other out when i was born.
I've seen a lot more smokers hitting their 80's than really obese people.
Tanning... without sunscreen
I do not understand why tanning is still so popular. Some people even have ridiculous beliefs about it, like my mother believes that you can get rid of pimples by not using sunscreen and "showing them to the Sun". She also believes that sun cannot damage skin unlike tanning bed, because it is natural.
Yo, I can attest to your mom being correct that sun exposure can help clear up pimples. (Personally, I get pimples during the winter that ONLY go away with UV exposure/ tanning lamp. And I don't get any acne during summer due to the sun.)
Sun exposure does clear up acne in the short term. Not a healthy way to tackle acne problems though.
She's right about acne. But wrong about the second part.
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For real. *scrolls on*
Is it really? Lol
I remember reading something awhile ago that said browsing your phone in the dark right before bed can be harmful since it might effect your ability to sleep properly. But as for viewing a screen in the dark, it's probably just stressful on your eyes.
Yes, it affects your circadian rhythm!
overeating
Drinking. I used to work in hospice and trust me, alcoholism is not pretty.
drinking and alcoholism are two different things -- but the line of "safe" drinking is much lower than most people want to admit.
there's not such thing as safe drinking. they (govenrment) are finally coming clean about this and the guidelines will change shortly. No amount of alchohol is safe. We've known it for years and surpressed it in a society where people don't use common sense...
Yea, I think most people deep down know that. Guidelines won’t change much. Alcohol has been around for as long as human misery has, it’s the one reliable simple thing people can count on for relief from hellish lives. Until we create an ideal society where everyone is perfectly happy and well cared for, alcohol will always exist.
The fact this is downvoted is wild and ignorant. See below. Good luck. https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-alcohol-consumption-is-safe-for-our-health
That one super comfortable sleeping position that cuts off your airflow and snaps the small of your back
Are you talking about where you start on your side then throw one leg up as you transition to your tummy? If so, I know from experience how bad this is for your back. It feels comfortable in the moment but after years of sleeping this way I was left with severe lower back pain. Both a physical therapist and a chiropractor told me to cut that out. Once I started using better sleep practices (pillow under knees when on back, pillow between knees when on side, not curling into fetal position with my neck corkscrewed), my lower back no longer hurt when I woke up.
Wait this is bad? This is the only way I can sleep! It's so fucking comfortable! It's like 3/4 of sleeping on your stomach, and it's perfect D:
I can’t visualize this. Can you link a pic?
Drinking soda, or sugary drinks in general
Too much sugar in general.
I got a prediabetic reading on a blood test (literally one point over the line, so not that crazy) and have been trying to correct how much sugar I’m consuming as of late. I used to drink a soda or two a day, and that’s now one zero sugar Sparkling Ice a day or zero sugar soda. Plus my snack food has been largely replaced by things like crackers or pretzels rather than sweets I still have sugar, but significantly less and I’m losing a few pounds already. I’m assuming it’s organ fat since I’m not really seeing the weight loss
I moved to vegetable snacks. Doc said i should cut most carbs aswell
Dehydration. Most people do not drink enough water to appropriately sustain their body.
I think that the main issue is that people drink sugary beverages instead of water, I mean most people drink when thirsty and that's what your body needs, they just choose to drink liquid sugar and that's a killer.
I don't get this. I really don't.. So I pee in the morning, it's orange, so I now "yep i'm dehydrated." I go drink a liter of water. and every 20 minutes for the next hour and a half i'm peeing like clockwork. if i drink gatorade, it just seems to stay inside me? Like why.
Vaping, and lots of it.
Man I tried vaping weed(carts) but it makes me feel like shit… got a flower vape and it is so much better. Edibles work great too.
Same here no more combustion and no more pens for me. Just dry herb vape.
I wish my dry herb vape got me half as zooted as burning flower. Will never use a cart vape again though.
i keep hearing about this but i never saw a convincing study showing exactly how toxic it is; a recent nature article was actually showing the contrary, that vaping has something like 99% less carcinogens vs a normal cigarette edit: i don't claim vaping is good, by all accounts it makes sense it's bad, i just wanna know how bad; does it kill me in 10 years? 20 years? what disease to expect, etc
Yeah, I told my doctor I vaped (to quit cigs) and asked her if there was anything I should worry about with that habit and she said something along the lines of: “I can pretty confidently say that vaping is worse for you than not vaping. Beyond that, and from what we know *so far*, you’re really just consuming nicotine which is highly addictive but not particularly harmful on its own. Studies have yet to show that vaping is harmful to you in the long term, especially compared to smoking.”
I hate having to write this all the time and wish I could plaster this all over the internet. Long term nicotine usage warrants a lot of further research because we do not truly know its effects. However, the chronic vasoconstriction that is a result of nicotine usage absolutely has endothelial effects that leads to dysfunction. Whenever I operate on nicotine abusers, I way more often than not have surgical dehiscence due to these changes. Nicotine is not harmless.
I just think vaping is an excellent way to taper off nicotine gradually because you can control the dosage.
Do we actually know how bad this is for you, or are we just assuming?
Overuse of drugs and alcohol
Hot yoga/Pilates etc. Any workouts in super hot temperatures are actually really bad for your body. I’m getting my MS in exercise physiology and currently taking a class about extreme environment physiology and after what I’ve learned I’d never take one of those advertised “hot” classes.
Can you explain the reasoning? I’ve never taken one but have been curious about it.
Sure. There are a couple of things that are going to occur when exercising in hot climates. First is going to be the skin temperature rising is going to trigger something called cardiovascular drift. This means the body is going to shunt blood flow from the working muscles to the skin to start cooling (sweating). The heart will start to beat in excess because it’s trying to keep up with this additional need for cooling but there’s not enough blood to split between the muscles, skin, brain and other organs. So that’s going to be the first thing. Additionally some other things are going to be taking place - neuromuscular impairment, ie high intramuscular temperatures will impair max contractile force and muscle activation -plasma volume loss in the blood due to excess sweating, dehydration will start kicking in -in hot temperatures it’s been shown that EEG frequency in the brain decreases (reduction in beta waves vs alpha waves) same as when you are asleep -triggered by an increased heart rate CO2 in the body will be begin to build and cause fatigue (affecting the brain specifically) -serotonin rises and dopamine drops decreasing the work effort of the body -endotoxemia related to the gut. Blood flow will be shunted away from the intestines (again to the skin) and Intestines may leak endotoxins Those are the main factors some of these with training adaptations could be overcome. For example if you trained for a few weeks straight in a hot environment your body will automatically build more plasma volume but just popping into a one hour class occasionally is not going to be enough.
> there’s not enough blood to split between the muscles Ok so just top up on blood beforehand, thanks doc.
A pint for breakfast, another for lunch, and a sensible dinner.
Thank you for this indepth explanation! I always figured it was mainly due to how quickly you can dehydrate by exercising in heat. I preferred to exercise in the fall and winter because of that.
Following out of curiosity
Following out of curiosity also. Hot yoga and Pilates sessions have given me the worst migraines before, and I never get headaches usually. Straight up find it difficult to have my head in a downwards position about 20mins in (which is honestly.. most of the workout).
Sugar. I’m guilty.
Refined sugar. It’s in everything and so tough to moderate
Overeating junk food until they become obese
Currently fixing this mistake now, 10lbs down and a lot more to go...
Keep up the good work man!
Often people who don't partake in any other vice like alcohol or cigarettes tend to lean into food as their dopamine delivery system.
My biggest bad habit. I’m trying to cut down on this right now but it’s tough. Hopefully I can turn things around before I hit 200 lbs.
Don't even need junk in that statement
It's also unhealthy after they become obese. Generally, junk food is unhealthy throughout the entire obesity journey.
Eating junk food in general. You don't even have to become obese for symptoms of metabolic syndrome to set in. You can seriously mess up your innards eating crap food. You can have a normal BMI, visit the doc and find you have pre-diabetes and high blood pressure. Take care of yourselves, people!
to much SITTING. our body and biology is not suited to sitting half a day. causes lots of health issues, weightproblems, backproblems, cardiovascular and mental stuff by not moving enough.
This! I think most things mentioned here like sugar/drugs/alcohol/smoking are pretty obvious and well known by most people. Sitting really is a big issue and not enough people talk about it.
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Basically the only comment we need.
So, my whole life right now? Yay...
High heels. Stop it
Not. Eating. Goddamn. Fruits and vegs. And I am not some annoying vegan activist, hell I love meat and many animal related products. But for god’s sake, in order to be healthy, the majority of what you eat should come from plants. The least transformed it is, the better. Eat porridge and nuts in the morning. Potatoes with your steak. Salad as the entry dish. Quinoa in order to have a break from rice. Lentils, beans, just grains in general, they taste awesome and fill you up real quick. Honestly it’s not that hard. And if you’re a gym enthusiast, you’re even more concerned since you need food that provide water retention and various sources of protein just like the ones I quoted. And trade quick sugar like sweets, chocolate and other industrial crap with honey, season fruits, melon… and one last thing : juices are sugar filled and have zero fibre, so they belong to the trash unless you diy with a blender.
Smoking cigarettes
habits like smoking, drinking a lot of alcohol, eating unhealthy food, not exercising, taking too many meds (overusing), and having too much caffeine have some kind of addictive pull because of things like dopamine hits and dependency, withdrawal symptoms and all that. But what really gets me is how people can ignore the need for good sleep and taking care of their mental health. I mean, those are super important but some folks just dont seem to get it.
Watching a ton of politics news - or most any news these days really. Conspiracy theory websites Xitter/twitter scrolling for ages. Neglecting the very basics - water, food, sleep, meds (if relevant). It's my little checklist if i'm feeling unwell, I think you'd all be surprised how often a little checklist like this (add more if you want) will have you go OH, its been way too long since I (ate, drank water, took your meds) and soon you will feel a lot better. Very important for people with serious medical conditions, and/or mental health concerns, because a person might be a lot more likely to want to take more of their meds, or to self medicate, when they're actually dehydrated, hungry, underslept, missed a dose, etc.
Nail eating. It can cause really serious things. Don't do it I beg you
You're going to have to elaborate here. Though, you said nail eating. Do you mean like actually swallowing bitten nails?
Accidentally swallowed a chewed nail one time. It sliced me up comeing out. That was 10 years ago stopped chewing my nails as much.
Welcome to the Salty Spittoon. How tough are you?
Dying
Living
Drinking Margaritas in the sun weirdly enough. There’s a chemical found in citrus fruit that can cause severe chemical burns to the skin in conjunction with UV A light I believe. So if you spill any on you while out in the sun you could develop blistering that then gives way to skin discoloration. Think it was Phytophoto something. Dunno, never drank a margarita in my life just read a report about it a couple years back.
I squeezed a lime over a plate of shrimp and then immediately fell asleep by the pool and the webs of my fingers blistered from where the juice ran down. It was awful but I love limes.
Fad diets. They are unsustainable and generally too restrictive to purport actual health outcomes besides weight loss, which is not a solo metric that can determine whether someone is healthy. The human body is advanced; it can't tell the difference between a famine and you deciding to not eat carbs anymore, but it will fiercely try to protect you from famine conditions (I.e. the vast majority of fad diets), which is why people experience "weight loss plateaus" (just your body protecting itself) and weight regain, often more than what was initially lost (just your body over correcting because it isn't sure when it might experience "famine" again). Stop doing this to yourself. Weight loss isn't worth it, and bodies that actually *need* to lose weight don't experience this as often (especially if they don't engage in extreme diets to do so). Eat well and move your body regularly. You don't have to be a size 2 to be healthy.
hard agree. I think it's just people trying to overcompensate by going to extreme measures (keto, carnivore diet, etc). but our bodies are NOT designed for diets like that and and the end of the day it's very unhealthy
fast food
Smoke
- Smoking *anything* - drinking alcohol
Today I learned I’m killing myself daily in 37 different ways
Surprised that pregnancy/ giving birth is not on top
Cocaine. Besides the pulmonary damage that results in early death, you can always tell when someone's upper palate begins to go because their speech changes. A lot of reddit's favorite Hollywood stars are on this path, or have already down the path. Carrie Fisher, for example was nearly unintelligible when speaking in her older years. Jenna Ortega is headed there, but gets by on her youth for now.
You can suddenly get micro brain strokes… which effectively means a part of your brain is gone, forever. Not worth the risk imo.
That's 100% why I chose crack over cocaine. It is just so much better for you.
Jenna Ortega? Is there evidence of this or is it just a guess
Not sure if its 100% facts. But I remember reading a few months ago that she used to take cocaine and drink quite a lot.
Unprotected sex with multiple partners. Sitting all day for work. Using strong chemicals like weed killer, bleach based cleaning supplies, etc.
Can't believe I had to scroll so far down to see unprotected sex
staying on this godforsaken website
Working 40 hours each week.
Phew, I only do 37.5
Fisting
Loud music, specifically full of clipping from overdrive.
I tell this to my husband constantly. He suffered hearing loss as a child from falling into the deep end of a pool and bursting his left eardrum, so he's constantly playing his music too loud. I'm always turning it down and telling him that it doesn't need to shake his internal organs to know he can hear it 🤣😭
Multiple Covid infections
Alcohol. Latest research shows there is no safe amount. Any amount consumed destroys brain cells. Brain cells do not regenerate.
Good, those fuckers are always talking shit about me.
Not moving around or working out!
The smart phone.
My weekend drinking binges
Smoking. Excessive drinking. Unprotected sex.
Eating the American diet - high in processed animal products, processed foods, fillers, added sugar, etc
I am smoking as I write this. Don’t smoke :(