A question for artists (1 Viewer)

[RayRay]

Exercise helps me. Going for a run, cycle, swim, etc...

I've recently got a new gaf and doing diy shit in it has affected my writing/guitar playing. Basically I dont have the time for it and my mind is also off it funnily enough. When i do play its way more constructive then it was before. I'm not sure it that will help you with your issue though i tend to have the opposite problem over the last while.

 

[Anthony]

was that the storytelling thing? A mate in work was at it, said it was deadly.

We weren't there for any of the equinox shenanigans. Didn't even know it was on.

 

[snakybus]

Gaz yer suffering from the unbearable lightness of being. Become a house painter and ride loads of women wearing bowler hats.

 

[washingcattle]

Back on topic


Here's some advice for how to shut down. I put this to the test while writing an album and a dissertation ad putting together my final years work in college all at the same time. Greatest year of my life actually.


1. Use you bedroom for riding and sleeping only.

Your brain has to make a connection between your bed and sleep, it's like Pavlov's dog. If you see your bed in any other context then you don't make the same connection between bed and sleep so that's a problem. Don't read in bed, don't watch moves in bed, don't use your bedroom as a recording studio.

2. White Noise.

I love white noise. It's part of my sleeping routine. I go to bed, I turn on the white noise maker and the ritual makes my brain know that it is time to stop and so it does so. White noise is great because it covers other noise, like tinnitus or police sirens. But also it's hypnotic to listen to.

3. Ritual.

The other two are part of my ritual but it could be anything. You should start winding down slowly, so for example I'll have a smoke, brush my teeth, read for a while turn on my white noise maker and lie down, mostly all my thought processes have ceased by then and so it's easy.

4. Be regimented in your waking hours.

If you can't sleep at all, stay awake. Don't just lie there. Get up and stay awake. No napping. Assign yourself a bed time for the next day and stick to it. It'll be fucking horrible but the next night you'll probably sleep like a baby and here's the kicker get up early the next day. Don't see it as catching up with the sleep you lost and have a lie in. This way you get back to a routine and sleep is all about routine.

5. Your home is not an office.

If possible move your activities to designated places. So for example when i was doing the aforementioned tasks. I had my guitars in a rehersal space, I wrote my dissertation in the college library (wherever possible) and I used the college computer lab to do my final year project. That sounds like luxury, and it is. But what I'm saying is that if your home becomes your office then unfortunately your office becomes your home. Even if you're in a bed sit move your work out of your sight. Record in your bathroom if you have to. Or write your novel in the local public library, or rent a desk or whatever. Or even hang a sheet between you and your working area. Or just cover it when your finished at night. Anything to put it psychically and psychologically away. Otherwise you haven't left work.

 

[GO]

Up since 5am.Didnt turn on the computer til 9..just used a pen and paper.

Tired now.

Less technology....theres something to it

 

[dudley]

yeah, gotta prune. please hold

 

[therealjohnny]

a vigorous and satisfying wank should send you off to the land of nod in to time

 

[Space]

a vigorous and satisfying wank should send you off to the land of nod in to time

I've been waiting for someone to suggest masturbation. Good man.

 

[GO]

Exercise helps me. Going for a run, cycle, swim, etc...

I've recently got a new gaf and doing diy shit in it has affected my writing/guitar playing. Basically I dont have the time for it and my mind is also off it funnily enough. When i do play its way more constructive then it was before. I'm not sure it that will help you with your issue though i tend to have the opposite problem over the last while.

Doing DIY shit kills my buzz 100%

When I'm working the house falls to bits..so I have to make a special effort..usually Monday morning to sort out all my laundry and what have you

 

[GO]

I've been waiting for someone to suggest masturbation. Good man.

A good pedal only lasts me 20 mins..then I'm back thinking

 

[GO]

Back on topic


Here's some advice for how to shut down. I put this to the test while writing an album and a dissertation ad putting together my final years work in college all at the same time. Greatest year of my life actually.


1. Use you bedroom for riding and sleeping only.

Your brain has to make a connection between your bed and sleep, it's like Pavlov's dog. If you see your bed in any other context then you don't make the same connection between bed and sleep so that's a problem. Don't read in bed, don't watch moves in bed, don't use your bedroom as a recording studio.

2. White Noise.

I love white noise. It's part of my sleeping routine. I go to bed, I turn on the white noise maker and the ritual makes my brain know that it is time to stop and so it does so. White noise is great because it covers other noise, like tinnitus or police sirens. But also it's hypnotic to listen to.

3. Ritual.

The other two are part of my ritual but it could be anything. You should start winding down slowly, so for example I'll have a smoke, brush my teeth, read for a while turn on my white noise maker and lie down, mostly all my thought processes have ceased by then and so it's easy.

4. Be regimented in your waking hours.

If you can't sleep at all, stay awake. Don't just lie there. Get up and stay awake. No napping. Assign yourself a bed time for the next day and stick to it. It'll be fucking horrible but the next night you'll probably sleep like a baby and here's the kicker get up early the next day. Don't see it as catching up with the sleep you lost and have a lie in. This way you get back to a routine and sleep is all about routine.

5. Your home is not an office.

If possible move your activities to designated places. So for example when i was doing the aforementioned tasks. I had my guitars in a rehersal space, I wrote my dissertation in the college library (wherever possible) and I used the college computer lab to do my final year project. That sounds like luxury, and it is. But what I'm saying is that if your home becomes your office then unfortunately your office becomes your home. Even if you're in a bed sit move your work out of your sight. Record in your bathroom if you have to. Or write your novel in the local public library, or rent a desk or whatever. Or even hang a sheet between you and your working area. Or just cover it when your finished at night. Anything to put it psychically and psychologically away. Otherwise you haven't left work.

This is great shit.

I'm always sleeping on the couch so I can listen to whatever I just wrote on a loop.
I wake up about 2 hours later invariably to fix what wasnt right that I noticed as I fell asleep..
Gonna knock that shit on the head

 

[GO]

Gaz yer suffering from the unbearable lightness of being. Become a house painter and ride loads of women wearing bowler hats.

I'd nearly ride dudes with bowler hats some nights if I thought it'd stop the sound

 

[GO]

anxiety

This is the feeling I get.In a nutshell

Only way to stop it is to get up and start fucking singing..it mental

 

[GO]

meditation is pretty much the discipline of stopping the inner voice at will ... get serious about switching off ... as silence is to music, so mental quietness is to mental activity: without it there's only a crazy clattering.

This makes a lot of sense to me.

Doing it is another thing..but I'm gonna try again.

I refuse to resort to gargle and drugs just to shut myself up.
Theres no future in that.

They're just for having the craic.

 

[jonah]

This is the feeling I get.In a nutshell

Only way to stop it is to get up and start fucking singing..it mental

Anxiety is such a horrible, horrible thing to go through, I feel for you. I have Generalised Anxiety Disorder and before I got diagnosed and on medication, there literally wasn't an area of my life affected by it. I struggled to turn up for work because I'd be up all night obsessively worrying about everything I was going to do and say the next day, even if there was nothing to worry about, and then I'd be so exhausted I'd sleep in and be AWOL. It just affects everything, even how you feel physically. I was so run down, so exhausted, my tummy was in constant agony and the panic attacks etc.

Anyway the whole point of that diatribe is that a lot of how I talk about it now only becomes clear in retrospect. At the time I thought it was completely normal and couldn't figure out why I couldn't get my shit together, but like, seriously, anxiety is disabling. Maybe you don't feel like its fucking you as much as all that, but if any of that sounds familiar, bro, you owe it to yourself to see a doctor about it. I didn't even realise what feeling OK and normal was for such a long time and now I'm doing SO MUCH BETTER and its helped my concentration and my sleeping and stuff to deal with it ('m on zoloft and sometimes sleeping pills, intermittently). CBT also helped with figuring out how to turn this shit in your head off. Which doesn't always work, but mostly its about routine and discipline, and they'll help more than anything.

Anyway maybe none of that was actually relevant to you, but there you go.

 

[sleepy]

Gaz yer suffering from the unbearable lightness of being. Become a house painter and ride loads of women wearing bowler hats.

Just to clarify, is it the women that'll be wearing the bowler hats or Gaz?

 

[Lili Marlene]

Just to clarify, is it the women that'll be wearing the bowler hats or Gaz?

Women* look much better in bowler hats than men.



*Lena Olin

 

[Diumraid]

This makes a lot of sense to me.

Doing it is another thing..but I'm gonna try again.

I refuse to resort to gargle and drugs just to shut myself up.
Theres no future in that.

They're just for having the craic.

For what it's worth -
(can I get some calming New Age background sounds here .?.?)

the first step is observing your inner voice as if you were a third party who thinks kindly about you ... start by trying to be aware of everything you sense in you and around you without commenting on it ... observe the chatter when it inevitably starts, let it go and start again; when it comes back observe it and let it go again and start again. The process shouldn't be stressful. It takes practice but it's really not difficult in itself - the more you do, the more you can do.

 

[therealjohnny]

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

I've been waiting for someone to suggest masturbation. Good man.

He usually calls it 'washing the dog'.