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How do you deal with overclocking?

Mostly anxiety or sometimes, yes, a sudden idea pops into my head or have finally solved a puzzle ( not to do with games) and eager to get going, but a major part of me says that it is night time and I should be a sleep and so, I pray to my Creator and He always helps calm me down.

Of late, sadly, I have been overclocking with regrets and hate that. I make a decision and then think: oh wow, I shouldn't have done that etc etc but when I am functioning, I see that I was getting myself in a panic.

I also get a word etc just churning around and around in my head and it actually hurts.
 
Suzanne said:
Mostly anxiety or sometimes, yes, a sudden idea pops into my head or have finally solved a puzzle ( not to do with games) and eager to get going, but a major part of me says that it is night time and I should be a sleep and so, I pray to my Creator and He always helps calm me down.

Of late, sadly, I have been overclocking with regrets and hate that. I make a decision and then think: oh wow, I shouldn't have done that etc etc but when I am functioning, I see that I was getting myself in a panic.

I also get a word etc just churning around and around in my head and it actually hurts.
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I get words stuck in my head as well. What is it like to have a sensation of pain from a word stuck in your head?
 
cory said:
I get words stuck in my head as well. What is it like to have a sensation of pain from a word stuck in your head?
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I guess the only way to describe it, is if one constantly touches one area of a person and it gets sore; well, that is how it feels ie sore type of sensation. I also end up tossing and turning, to try and stop the words going over and over in my head.
 
I've noticed that while it can be difficult to remove/replace thoughts from my mind, it's relative easy for me to do it when I wake up and an experiencing music instead of thoughts. It's a funny process for me in that it can involve something seemingly random, or one of those songs I simply can't "get out of my head".

Either way, I do seem to have the ability to refocus, not by attempting to change my thoughts per se, but to refocus whatever sounds I hear at the moment.

Just this morning I was able to simply turn off hearing "Jessie's Girl" (for no particular reason) by concentrating solely on the ambient sound of my furnace coming on. :D

It never fails to amaze me how the human brain processes speech and music so differently. And how verbal communication can be arduous under various circumstances for those of us on the spectrum.
 
Judge said:
I've noticed that while it can be difficult to remove/replace thoughts from my mind, it's relative easy for me to do it when I wake up and an experiencing music instead of thoughts. It's a funny process for me in that it can involve something seemingly random, or one of those songs I simply can't "get out of my head".

Either way, I do seem to have the ability to refocus, not by attempting to change my thoughts per se, but to refocus whatever sounds I hear at the moment.

Just this morning I was able to simply turn off hearing "Jessie's Girl" (for no particular reason) by concentrating solely on the ambient sound of my furnace coming on. :D

It never fails to amaze me how the human brain processes speech and music so differently. And how verbal communication can be arduous under various circumstances for those of us on the spectrum.
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When you say you "refocus whatever sounds I hear at the moment" isn't that a conscious way that you have learned to be able to shift your mental energy onto something else?
 
cory said:
When you say you "refocus whatever sounds I hear at the moment" isn't that a conscious way that you have learned to be able to shift your mental energy onto something else?
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Maybe. Though I mean it exclusively in terms of music in my head. Not thoughts.

I'd much rather be able to control my thoughts in all honesty.
 
Interesting to see this thread come up on one of the few times I've checked this site recently. The past week or two I've been seeing this mental pattern ramp up fiercely in my life. If anyone has more tips on actually coping, controlling, counteracting or dealing with this "overclocking" I'd like to hear it.

I thought this was part of mania. I like how the OP said "They almost always assume that these thoughts are caused by worries and anxieties" because NTs, even therapists don't understand that I'm neither scared nor upset and I'm not about to go skydiving or play chicken with a train from the 'state of mania' that they are so concerned with. It seemed like mania has gotten a bad slang definition these days but it's pretty much just the fast, overworking brain activity described in the OP. I was pretty sure this was part of the textbook idea of mania.

Haven't had any worries or anxieties. I do a lot of physical labor throughout the days working on my own projects and am tired at night but find myself.... inventing all night. I don't have the physical energy to get up and write/sketch/blueprint ideas but I lay there and research physics and mechanics on my phone. Currently working on one of my vehicle overhauls, I've found myself just planning out the build and imagining the process and result. Not like a worry but more of an excitement, I guess. I've tried sleeping meds, pre-bed workouts, various eating habits and even getting up to watch movies at night to make myself tired. Nothing is working. Any ideas would be nice to hear. Not that I mind my mental productivity (having invented a few nice items) but I've slept only every other day until recently where I've skipped two nights of sleep.
 
tree said:
Apparently, I don't experience this
state of mind. How dull and unfocused
this makes me seem, in comparison
to those who do.

I think, but I don't obsess.
I assign myself topics to think about
at certain times when it will be
convenient to think about them.

This is the way I manage to be as
marginally productive as I am, by
taking time to think, on purpose.

I don't know what it would be like to
be thinking....all 'zoomy' and wearing
myself out that way.
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"Dull and unfocused"? I do not think so. A better name would be "good thought management". Can you teach me to do that? When I do not sleep, it is because of "zoomy" thinking that I can not stop.
 
I usually go for a run that normally helps clear my mind when that happens.

It also helps me sleep better as it tires me out.
 
ChurchTheArtist said:
Interesting to see this thread come up on one of the few times I've checked this site recently. The past week or two I've been seeing this mental pattern ramp up fiercely in my life. If anyone has more tips on actually coping, controlling, counteracting or dealing with this "overclocking" I'd like to hear it.

I thought this was part of mania. I like how the OP said "They almost always assume that these thoughts are caused by worries and anxieties" because NTs, even therapists don't understand that I'm neither scared nor upset and I'm not about to go skydiving or play chicken with a train from the 'state of mania' that they are so concerned with. It seemed like mania has gotten a bad slang definition these days but it's pretty much just the fast, overworking brain activity described in the OP. I was pretty sure this was part of the textbook idea of mania.

Haven't had any worries or anxieties. I do a lot of physical labor throughout the days working on my own projects and am tired at night but find myself.... inventing all night. I don't have the physical energy to get up and write/sketch/blueprint ideas but I lay there and research physics and mechanics on my phone. Currently working on one of my vehicle overhauls, I've found myself just planning out the build and imagining the process and result. Not like a worry but more of an excitement, I guess. I've tried sleeping meds, pre-bed workouts, various eating habits and even getting up to watch movies at night to make myself tired. Nothing is working. Any ideas would be nice to hear. Not that I mind my mental productivity (having invented a few nice items) but I've slept only every other day until recently where I've skipped two nights of sleep.
Click to expand...
I know that I have been in what would be described as a manic state at one point in my life. The mental energy, physical energy, and difficulty with sleep are similar to overclocking. One major difference is that with mania my thoughts become disjointed and less rational, with overclocking my thoughts appear clearly and are extremely rational. I also don't have the feeling of well being I would have with mania. If I was in a manic state anything I have been writing would be almost impossible for anyone but me to make sense of. Finding this forum has been a nice way to shift my focus and get some help and suggestions. For me, the most important thing is to get back to my normal sleep cycle. I need deep sleep where I enter REM and have vivid dreams. It's my way of cooling down my overworked processor. I use sleeping meds, try to find music, TV, movies that I can shift my focus onto in the evening, and increase my amount of physical exercise. It never works 100% but it's a lot better than if I do nothing at all.
 
I've recently been suffering with a strong bout of overclocking. So far, I've found nothing short of binging to get it out of your system to help. My eyes hurt from constant reading, and I'm trying to figure out how to keep myself from doing this. I've been trying to keep myself busy with a variety of things, but we all know how that goes.
 
The only thing that has ever, EVER worked for me is to play an immersive game. ( It's like it "disrupts" the obsessive mentality, or something? ) Dunno... But it works!
 
On the Inside said:
This was once something I experienced. Mostly creative and research activities, but also long runs or bike rides late in the night.

Middle age has dulled this for me a bit, and I have long been fascinated by dreams, and I have extremely vivid and entertaining dreams, so I very much enjoy sleeping.
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I used to experience this a lot. I always thought about it like an analysis filter and data dump of all the extraneous stuff I had picked up/experienced/worked on during the day... would keep me awake for half the night... Definitely died down after having kids... as did all the more interesting data gathering opportunities! When it happens now, I trawl amateur fiction sites and correct grammar until I fall asleep. (I don't just read non-fiction books and articles, because those are actually interesting and might keep me awake!)
 
I go to the gym and do not leave for about 4 hours. I notice a change of mood even if I am in a good mood. After hour three I get into a trance of sorts. If I can say HI at the beginning, I can't at the end. Locked in and thoughts gone.
 
For as long as I can recall, I normally eat dinner right before going to sleep and 99.999% of that time it is eaten in bed... So, I tend to associate the two.

Unless I'm already working on my current project at that time (which often leads to either no sleep, or, shifts my day/night hours around), I tend to go to bed when I'm hungry (not including lunch or eating out).

Once I'm in bed, I turn on tv and put on something, most of the time it's an episode of any of the Star Trek series. Although I've seen all of them, they still entertain me enough to want to watch more, but I am able to recall enough where I don't have to focus as much attention as I would if they were new.

For me, this draws my attention to slower and predictable words I can follow along with. Most of the time this helps, I've had a few times were I got too focused onto it and having the opposite result of making me stay awake even longer which I overcame by lowering the volume to where it's almost background noise but still interpretable.

I also use the "power saver" feature on my tv which lets me turn the display part off... No distracting light and a little more difficult to really get into it without turning the display back on. Before that option, I'd turn the brightness level as far down as I could.

All of the TV episodes I put on are either from my iTunes library or from Netflix so no advertisements to distract me.
 
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