Technically, I (42f) have ptsd from doing cpr and watching my husband die right in front of me and the images and sound of the paramedics working on him once they got there after about 10 minutes.
The last few days my flashbacks have not been of that as that like usual. I’ve been reading some of my favorite books again recently. I read one that, well, filled my head with memories. For 4 days now I can’t get them to stop. They play over and over like movies stuck on replay. Most of them are very good. For the first time in a year and a half, I was filled with contentment and maybe even happiness. Made me feel, made my heartbreak not so painful. But, starting yesterday, they fill me with heartbreak and sadness.
I’ve tried everything I can think of to get them to stop, but I can’t. I’m constantly on the verge of tears. I randomly can’t function like I’m in a trance just watching them. Wondering what they mean, what I could have changed.
I need more ideas on how to get a handle on this. I fear if I can’t, it will only get worse.

My brother, in his mid-40s, was diagnosed with executive function disorder. I would like to help his family, but I am unsure about what I could do (asked them, but they’re not sure either).

He has 2 kids between 7-10 years old. His wife is completely at a loss with all of this ( he is now in the hospital because of a heart problem). He might lose his job, his finances are really bad and they’ve been slowly isolating themselves from the rest of the family.

I suggested that I bring or make a meal once a week, or take care of the kids while they rest or tackle some financial stuff.

Anyone has any other ideas of what I could do or not do to help?

It would be nice to have the input of someone who has this disorder, or someone who knows or live with a person with this disorder, but any suggestions are welcome.

Many thanks.

As title says, I get really really stressed about it and it’s on my mind all the time and I can’t seem to get it off. My girlfriend is super patient and really loving but I constantly feel like she wants to break up or cheat even though there is no reason to think it and sometimes I mention it and over the years it’s added up and although she is extremely patient she is slowly getting pissed off by it, so please can you try and help me because i dont know what to do? Thanks a lot.

For example, it could be a harsh encounter with a stranger, an inflammatory post online, or the like.

I've heard of people staying sober using this, but it works with everything. Instead of putting pressure on yourself with "I should keep this up for my whole life" in terms of fitness for example, just do something today and have the same mindset tomorrow. I've found it helps me with uni as well. Studying something I'm not necessarily down to do my whole life, it is much easier to go to lectures today, than for the next two and a half years.

I (38m) have two boys, ages 2 and 4. I’m a naturally loud talker, have been my whole life. Sometimes purely by accident people actually think I’m shouting—or at least raising my voice—when I’m actually not. This means the natural changes in my voice that occur when I’m particularly happy or excited can lead to others thinking I’m upset…and this includes my little boys. Sometimes they think I’m yelling at them and they’ll even start crying. And the crying begins as soon as they detect loudness, so there’s no time for me to read their nonverbal cues and adjust my volume accordingly.

I think I need to learn to speak softer, and then I have to get so good at it that I do it without thinking. Does anyone have any psychological tricks I could use to help me train myself?

Sometimes we burst into laughter in situations we shouldn't. The more we suppress, the more difficult it is to be serious. For e.g. see this clip of Grandmaster Caruana in an interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymF6xTQking

Is there a technical term for this state of mind? Trying to learn. If not, is there a common English word for this?

My psychologist suggested this method to me. She calls it Autonome training but I couldn't any info on it, so it may be called different for others and I must have translated poorly.

So, it's about cloing your eyes, laying down or sitting in a "trucker position"(meaning sitting up straight, your legs are realxed, your head a bit forwards and your hands between your tights) and repeating two sentences in your head in a cycle for a few times. The senteces are: My right(dominant hand) hand is completly relaxed. You repeat this six times, the other is: I'm completly relaxed. You repeat this one time.

My problem is, whenewer I close my eyes and try to focus to "nothing", my muscles starts unvolunterly twitching and spasms, pulses or something like that. For this reason I incorporate the sentence: The twitching is not important.- between the others.

This helps, but the twitching in my neck and my hand remains (mostly only in my neck and head). My queastion is, what do you guys recommend for this? It's getting more annoying, always has been.

Yesterday, I studied form 8:00 to 1:00 midnight continuously. I was feeling energetic and was high on mood. But right now, goddam! I am in so low mood that I don't feel like doing anything. Just scrolling through Reddit and just procrastinating.

I promised myself that I would study more today before I feel asleep yesterday but here I am doing nothing and sitting on bed and waiting for someone to tell, 'Study, mf! You have boards tomorrow."

Any advice on this.

Imposter syndrome navigation.

Hi there, I’ve been attending long term therapy and it’s been life saving. We have moved onto the business aspect: imposter syndrome and it’s been something diagnosed professionally.

It’s cash upfront, and claim back. So I was hoping if there were any audio books by psychologists, or anything in relation that would be beneficial to assist whilst I navigate this process.

I would like to learn in my off time, with motivation as I guide this next journey. I’m holding myself back from something I know I deserve. But such is life and where I’m at right now.

I haven’t been a student in a long time, and this is unrelated to academia, but this sub is named “AskProfessors,” and I’m genuinely curious about something.

My job is to call people who have applied for public/low-income housing and try to get them to come to appointments to screen for eligibility. Obviously, I talk to a lot of mentally ill, disadvantaged, and elderly people.

I have noticed that a huge number of the people I talk to tend to repeat themselves dozens of times during a phone call, even when what they’re saying is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It’s frustrating. They seem to think I have some sort of say or influence regarding housing rules/approval of their application, which I absolutely do not. I try to make that clear.

My cousin, who has autism severe enough that she will not be able to live alone, does the same sort of phrase repetition pattern when she’s upset (although much less often now that we’re in our 30s).

Is there some sort of psychological/scientific explanation for repeating the same phrase or story over and over? Is there some sort of trick I could use to get it to stop?

I need to make hundreds of calls a day, and all of the applicants deserve a chance. I cannot spend 15 minutes on the phone with each person. I started as an office temp- I don’t have any training for working with abused and/or mentally ill people, and I want to treat everyone with empathy and kindness. The numbers of people in need and the emotional fatigue involved is just overwhelming.

Dear members, could you give some recommendations on lowering high neuroticism/sensitive nervous system? Cold showers, exercises, and good sleep temporarily help me. But what does have a longer effect?

This may sound weird but hear me out

I used to get unbearable hiccups, going from annoying to painful. So one day I trained to stop them.

I visualized a light switch in my brain. ON when having hiccups so I would "turn it off" when having them.

I visualized a light switch and when I had hiccups I would "turn it off" in my brain, it took some practice but I can legitimately say I can turn hiccups "OFF" on command 100% of the time.

I just visualize flicking an off switch and saying "Off" and they stop immediately. Took a lot of practice of visualisation but it became so easy I can stop them on command.

Hey there.

I'm desperate. Due to life events I get triggered easily.

If someone neutrally comments my appearance: triggered

My partner changing his tone: triggered

Slightly different body language: triggered.

I know where they come from and even tho my mind understands my feelings won't calm down. I feel so anxious and stressed 24/7 that I need a remedy.

Therapy only covered what to do if it's to late but not how to solve triggers and heal them.

Are there techniques? Books? Anything that really has an effect on healing your nervous system? German and English Literatur ist Welcome.

The only person who comes close describing the issue and offering a solution is ThaiHa Sloan.

But it's 3000 dollar. Not that I find it unfair, I'm just not in the financial situation to afford it and I don't even know if her method that she is offering helps since she's not saying generally how it would work. She just described my problems on point.

I'll bet you're thinking "well friendship JUST HAPPENS" and why would anyone need to KNOW this? Turns out a HUGE percentage of people in the Millennial and even down to older Gen Z range are lonelier than prior generations. Seems like we're more connected by technology, but actually lonelier in person.

And here's the thing, people can spend YEARS floundering around as adults wondering why they're having such difficulty making friends. It's like this big mystery, and lots of times they just give up on it, and totally rely on their significant other.

Anyway, my point is that there's actually a PROCEDURE you can use that will greatly improve the odds of making friends as an adult. I wrote up a little article on it, and I'm going to share the technique with you:

###How To Make Friends As An Adult

I recognize that it's somewhat an oxymoron because instant and productive doesn't go together, but I have a very strongly addictive personality and I am wondering how I can channel my addictive nature towards productive activities?

Hi, for a school project we have made a survey about the first impression. It’s a very interesting and short survey of 5 minutes or even less and completely anonymous. It’s due very soon, so you would help us out greatly by filling it in! Sharing it with your parents or grandparents, or anyone above age of 50 would help a lot as well. Thank you very, very much!🙏🏽🙏🏽 https://forms.office.com/e/wXaYP6CBcQ

Hello, I was reading much up until I had a smartphone with a constant network connection. Now I hardly read, I force myself to read and when I start I dive into the book but l'll not start doing it. Most of the time I'll just pass time with other hobbies. I read from printed books, from a Kindle device and from my phone. But it's never consistent or enough. Appreciate if you have advice worked on you!

Hi this question requires quite a bit of ww2 history context. I hope this is an ok sub to ask as the question isn't about psychology tricks just psychology😅

I'm reading the Laws of Human Nature & it referenced Stalin on the chapter of narcissism. It talked about Stalin being the type 'The Complete Control Narcissist' & his decline into being basically super paranoid and a micromanager wanting to manage every aspect of the war. It seems that he has reached an extreme and would be extremely hard to change.

So what made him decide when Germany seemed to be winning, for Stalin to be able to change his mind and reorganise the Soviet Union completely, which included him relaxing his control on his generals and letting them take the lead (if I'm not wrong) ? It proved to be a great decision as Russia eventually won. I would like to understand if there was a change in his mentality, that might maybe hint that he was able to snap out of his narcissistic nature?

Additionally/seperately (im not sure lol) the book writes, still talking about Stalin, "these types will end up destroying themselves, because it is actually impossible to rid the human animal of free will" What does this mean?

i’m not sure if this is even possible, but hear me out.

i’m 15 years old, and both my dad and my best friend are terrified of clowns. i am not. about a year or two ago, my dad showed me the reason why he first became scared of clowns: if you want to know, it’s the clown from the polyergeist movie, specifically the part where the kid is dragged under the bed.

to make him feel better, i started acting like that clip also freaked me out, and that he made me scared of clowns. i have been doing this for about a year or two since, thinking that it might make me more scared of clowns and pick up some sort of sympathy type of thing… it has not.

i honestly want to know what it’s like to be that scared of clowns, or scared at all to be honest. sure, i’m not so unafraid of them i’d willingly be around one, but to be actually scared of them is something i haven’t felt and i don’t want to keep acting like i am. are there any tricks or ways to make me more scared of clowns?

What is it called when someone apologizes for what they did but then try to punish you? Real life example, there was a disagreement with someone, we were initially talking about an event and the conversation steered a bit, there was a really small disagreement, I got upset about something they said and they sincerely apologized and then was like “I am not going to said event anymore forget it.” We were both excited about going and had it planned out by the way. What kind of manipulative tactic is this? I see it happen a lot from different people, it’s supposed to be some form of punishment to make me feel bad I guess, well good job because it did, but is there a name for this in psychology?

Hi! Is there a psychological basis to or a reason behind my company spending the past couple of months keeping its bad figures on repeat? They keep saying how bad we are doing financially. We get a raise every year and it’s announced in two weeks from now. I kinda feel like it’s working on me because I initially wished for 20% but now I feel like I’d be happy with 15%. Could this be intentional? Sorry I’m not a native speaker.

Psychology Book of the Day (10/05/2017):

• ** What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People** by Joe Navarro (Link To The Book)

Body language is a notoriously hard subject to master. It’s easy to be overconfident when judging a person’s emotions, but this self-assuredness can, ironically, obfuscate rather than reveal true intentions. For example, if we learn that when someone crosses their arms they must be feeling uptight, we may mistake the times when they’re merely pensive or cold as an exhibition of defensiveness.

However, just because body language is a tough to master that does not mean it is unlearnable—far from it. For Ex-FBI agent Joe Navarro, his living (and sometimes his life) depended on being able to accurately judge the motives of those around him. In his body language masterwork, What Every BODY is Saying, rather than giving the reader a definite set of “rules” for decoding human behavior, Navarro instead draws from his extensive professional experience to provide you with tried and tested “patterns”, underpinned with practical, scientific explanations.

After reading this book you will be able to tell when someone is feeling agitated, hostile, or devious even when they’re trying desperately to conceal such emotions and what they are saying with these emotions.

Note: While all of the books mentioned in Psychology Book of the Day will deal with the human mind, not all of them are purely scientific. Some books deal with persuasion, productivity, social interaction, or look closely at consumer behavior. With that caveat, let’s begin.

Career advisor hasn't responded to message. I am going to follow up one last time, or maybe call them as a follow up. What do you suggest I say during the call or text?

I’ve know my friend, I’ll call him C, for a few months now. I’ve known his crush, I’ll call her D, for about 4 years. D has admitted to me that she knows how to manipulate people and will do it for her own gain. She specifically said she does this to get things she wants. I know she tried to do this to me when I first met her, but I somehow got her to stop doing this to me and my girlfriend. I thought she stopped doing it to everyone, but now I’m not so sure. C has liked her for a while now and I’ve become close friends with him because of it. He is very kind and he is very clingy to D. He has had very bad relationships in the past and none have ended well. He adores her and finds her amazing. D claims she’s a very touchy person, she needs hugs and affection. C is also like this. D claimed to love him and care about him. But for some reason, D keeps pushing him away but also keeps pulling him back. She’s making him crave more without telling him she loves him or without giving him the time of day. She tells him “I just need time, I love you” but then walks away from him and grins when we tell him that he wants a hug. She never hugs him, and doesn’t hold his hand when he grabs it. She moves further away from him when in front of others, never sits next to him when given the chance, ignores it when he’s upset or sad, and never truly tells him “I love you” unless asking for something. She also doesn’t seem to care if he harms himself.

I just want to know how to help him realize what she’s doing.

I tend to prefer it when video games are realistic, which I think is reasonable, as lots of people are in the same boat. But no video game is perfectly realistic or even close, for a number of reasons.

Typically this surfaces when it comes to AI in video games, because, especially in sports games that I like, if a lack of realism means that the AI can be exploited, it makes the game too easy for me, and that completely ruins the experience.

Example for anyone who follows basketball: In NBA 2K24, if you post up a PF or a C (or even a strong SF) on a guard, the other four AI defenders won't bring any help defense, when it would happen 9.9 times out of 10 in real life. Since the help defense doesn't come, it turns into an easy basket.

And I honestly refuse to simply NOT take advantage of that situation, because that would rarely happen IRL, and the reason I play these games is to replicate a real-life basketball experience. I enjoy using strategies that would be used in a real-life environment.

The thing is, though, relatively minor things like this are not deal-breakers for lots of other people who also care about realism just like I do. They still find a way to enjoy the game (understandably so, since it's a very good game and extremely polished and well-made outside of this one flaw).

I want what they have.

Hi, i'm wondering if their is a name or theory or research on this. Google isn't helping but i may not be wording it right.

I was working a couple of shifts in a food truck at night time, serving food to people. I was kind of anxious as most of the customers were drunk people (worked at a bar and it was horrible, drunk people can be unhinged) but at the food truck this is never an issue. If someone is rude or people start bickering or fighting in the queue it is much easier to get them to behave or listen to you or be nice than it was at the bar. Basicly they are much more submissive and easier to handle than when i worked at the bar. Other thing i'm noticing is i'm getting hit on more than i have ever been in my life on these shifts. Girls are complimenting my eyes, voice, hair, asking for my socials or when i get of my shift and etc.

The only common denominator i can think of is that in the food truck i'm literally towering over the people while leaning out of the window to serve them or talk to them. They have to look up at me to communicate. Their heads are where my waist is so as i say i'm towering over them. Is this an affect that has a name? Or has any theories or research on? That people treat you differently and respond in such ways. Generally just curious as i'm being treated a lot different on these shift than in any other situations by people and customers.

This is kind of both a relationship hack and a creativity hack. It's really about liberating your brain to find creative ways to be more fun, and to bring more fun to your relationships with others. (Which in theory should improve your odds of having more friendships)

I think people view others with 'fun personalities' as being something you're born with and you're just kind of stuck with whatever you've got now. (Even if it's not particularly fun!)

Instead I think it's like any self improvement thing -- you need to change some habits, adjust your approach, enhance your mindset, and start developing some better routines. Then, as you start becoming more fun THE THING SNOWBALLS.

You get better at it, more confident, and suddenly people start viewing you as "the Fun Person!"

Doesn't that sound FUN? (Does to me!)

So I wrote a whole article on this with about a dozen ideas on Improving Your Fun Quotient. The article is kinda too long to put the whole thing in a post, hopefully it's okay if I link to it (on another subreddit) and you can see if it resonates with you.

Bottom line: You can ALWAYS learn to BE MORE FUN. It's a habit like any other. You just need to know where to start and what to practice. The world needs more fun, and WE can be the ones to bring it.

Here's a link to it:

###Fun 101: Intro To Life As A FUN Person!