No, I don’t work. Good question…
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How are your positive symptoms?
My positive symptoms are about an 8 on a 1 to 10 scale.
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You can beat negative symptoms if you follow these.
Have daily schedules like sleeping at fixed times, having food at proper times, no nap during day, have regular exercise at least twice a week, bath regularly etc.
The reason is negative symptoms cause individual to not do these so you beat them by forcefully following it.
Negative symptoms creates cognitive issues like working memory problems. You defeat this by training working memory by doing brain training apps based on working memory like dual n back app.
This way always fight against negative symptoms. If you no do anything negative symptoms can make your life miserable.
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Thank you for your detailed explanation my friend I will follow this.
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This n back app is best and very useful, its easy too. its based on maths rather than usual objects based dual n back game which is very tough and boring.
app is free too.
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For me negative symptoms are caused by both the disease and the meds. I still had negative symptoms when I stopped my meds for 1-2 years.
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I think medicines don’t cause negative symptoms. I think it just sedates you.
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They do cause and or worsen negative symptoms. Dopamine is central to the reward system and motivation, block 90% of receptors and the outcome is obvious. I thought I sometimes lacked motivation, I didn’t know the true meaning of lacking motivation until antipsychotics, nor the complete apathy that ensued.
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Negative symptoms are caused by the meds, by schizophrenia and by depression.
@zeno is absolutely correct.
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For a long time I thought I was just depressed but now I can see really clearly when I am having apathy. I feel strongly that it is a fact of schizophrenia (whatever the cause).
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Sometimes a doctor would slowly reduce dosage until the lowest possible to decrease an antipschotic’s side effect of secondary negative symtpoms, or augment it with antidepressants or stimulants cautiously. Doctors have different methodologies though, so that’s not necessarily something your doctor might be willing to try.
That’s what happened with my treatment. It just became obvious that my negative symptoms are primary only (schizophrenia only, not the antipsychotic) after trying the above options.
It really sucks when they get worse than the baseline, and I have to do the ridiculous ‘just do it’ stuff with zero satisfaction and feeling like a zombie while trying to overcome them or just wait them out. Sometimes can be quite a long wait.
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They do, but not necessarily, and the options are reducing dosages or augmenting with antidepressants and/or stimulants. That’s up to your doctor who may or may not have this methodology for dealing with them.
Exercise always helps the brain. The problem is having to force yourself to exercise when you have avolition and anhedonia. Sucks, but worth it.
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Here’s a book about apathy that I found at Google.com . You may be interested in reading the preview. Activating Happiness: A Jump-Start Guide to Overcoming Low Motivation, Depression, or Just Feeling Stuck by Rachel Hershenberg (2017).
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I don’t believe they are primarily caused by the meds at all.
I say this because I’m still exhausted despite hardly ever taking my medication regularly.
It’s definitely not the medication that gives me negative symptoms - and negative symptoms is the bulk of my problem ever since diagnosis.
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I believe the same
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I was fighting lack of motivation by drinking some coffee; but, I think I became convinced today to try again at becoming a Qi Gong instructor.
Caffeine could interfere with the relaxation needed for that.
So, I decided to motivate myself by risking money on stickk.com
I don’t feel motivated a lot of the time. I get stuff done anyhow because who else is going to do it?
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If you cant beat em, you just gotta do it despite the way you feel.
I think by focusing on the ‘feeling of no motivation’ makes it worse. So you just have to do things even if you don’t feel like it.
I’ll do stuff thats productive and not be satisfied after I’m finished. Like I didn’t feel happy about it I was just blah.
But other times I do end up feeling better.
Theres an article out there about how people with sz can fail to anticipate the reward of doing a productive activity.
If you also have anhedonia then it can be harder as you may not feel good even after doing the activity.
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