u/nihaomundo123

Hi all — student here trying to understand what motivates those of you working on areas that directly improve human lives (atmospheric water harvesting, neural prosthetics, etc.).

I’m currently considering entering one of these fields, but I’m struggling with motivation for the following reason:

- Most research areas already have lots of groups (10+) working on closely related problems. Because of that, it feels like most individual contributions are incremental at best. For example, even if a new researcher were to join and make a breakthrough, it feels like that breakthrough would probably have occurred anyways. Thus, all they did was shift the timeline a few months forward maybe.

Some answers I can think of as to why one would still do research, in spite of the above:

- deep-seated curiosity for the underlying science

- interest in the work itself (working with neural interfaces, gene editing tools, etc.)

For those doing research specifically aimed at helping others, what are your primary motivations? Is it something similar to the reasons listed (curiosity, passion for the work)? Or something else?

Would really appreciate honest perspectives.

Hi all! Undergrad here trying to understand what motivates those of you working in applied neuro / bioengineering fields (neural prosthetics, gene therapy, BCI, etc.).

I’m currently considering entering one of these fields, but I’m struggling with motivation for the following reason:

- Most research areas already have lots of groups (10+) working on closely related problems. Because of that, it feels like most individual contributions are incremental at best. For example, even if a new researcher were to join and make a breakthrough, it feels like that breakthrough would probably have occurred anyways, meaning that all they did was shift the timeline a few months forward maybe.

If that’s even roughly true, I’m struggling to understand what actually motivates people to work in these fields long-term.

Some answers I can think of are:

* deep-seated curiosity for the underlying science

* interest in the work itself (working with neural interfaces, gene editing tools, etc.)

For people doing very applied research, what are your primary motivations? Is it something similar to above (curiosity, passion for the work)? Or something else?

Would really appreciate honest perspectives.

Hi all,

Potential OCDer who has basically had constant music playing in my head all day for as long as I can remember. I’ve been trying to self-treat it — singing the songs out loud, listening to them fully, writing out lyrics, and generally trying to just accept the music instead of fighting it. It helps a bit, but I also feel like I might be doing some of this wrong or missing something.

Does anyone know of a therapist who has personally dealt with persistent earworms in the past (and was able to overcome them)?

I’ve already tried working with general OCD therapists, but we weren’t able to find approaches that really helped, even after a lot of effort and brainstorming. Thus, I am hoping that someone with firsthand experience might be able to make a key difference.

If anyone has recommendations, it would be deeply, deeply appreciated.

First-year applied math PhD student who tends to think mostly in full sentences (e.g., if I see a problem, my inner voice will go something like: “Hmm, how should I approach this? Should I try X? hmm… etc.”)

Lately I’ve noticed that when I get stuck and am out of ideas, my inner monologue tends to ramble uselessly — it starts throwing out random ideas like “maybe try X… or Y… or Z…” even when those directions clearly don’t make sense. It becomes a “sticky” loop of verbal rambling that’s hard to break out of, making it difficult to think clearly and actually move forward.

In short, my mind feels like it’s constantly talking; it’s never quiet.

For those of you who also think primarily in sentences: when you get stuck, are you able to control and quiet your inner monologue fairly easily? Or does it also tend to ramble and get stuck in loops like this?