Everything that takes the mind off of all the stress of contemporary life.
Photo walks. Your whole point just becomes to go out and take in the scenery. Makes you slow down and appreciate your surroundings in a way that a walk doesn’t. If you’re after wildlife you have to move with intention, lest you scare the subject. If it’s a more static subject you’ve more time to take in the light and shadows, frame your background.
Also a very good practice in Mindfulness! Lovely Idea.
Running. Just one foot in front of the other. Bonus points for running in a new place and taking in the sights.
What does your mind do when you’re running? Can you just clear all thoughts and focus on breathing and one foot after the other.
Or does the repetition make you spiral on every bad decision from the last 20 years like me 😅
My mind is writing books or short stories that will never be set on a paper, inventing new things that I have no idea how they’d work, but most importantly, my mind is busy arguing with others, and winning every argument :)
I am like you, running is good exercise but too boring and I can’t stop thinking. Aerobic dance like Jazzercise is perfectly calibrated so that I can just follow/do and not think but the class near me ended, they are only out in the suburbs now. Yoga is good if it’s the challenging vinyasa flow with music, I can sometimes get into that perfect mindset. But fucking Jazzercise was oddly perfect and is gone.
Start a group!
Cheap drum machine (korg volca drum), cheap synthesizer, plugged into mixer + no talent + no formal music theory knowledge == unlimited hours of enjoyment. Someday, I might even make something I like.
I build things, electronics mostly. Then the next day I get to admire what yesterday-me built.
Off-what? You mean in meatspace?
Jokes aside: Reading. Designing and playing Pen&Paper RPGs. Cooking.
Would you mind talking a bit more about your approach to cooking? I take some satisfaction from being able to cook and sometimes from the feeling of improving my skill as a cook, but mostly it feels like a necessary chore.
Sure! But it’s not particularly sophisticated. Other than staple recipes (like e.g. vegetables stews) I learned while growing up, when there’s a product I was previously dependent on buying ready-made that gets enshittified by the food industry so much I’m unwilling to pay the full asking price, I start looking into the recipe for it and experiment to calibrate quality, time efficiency, and material cost to the exact tradeoff I consider best for me. Frozen pizza vs self made pizza being one example.
My joy in cooking, aside from the above optimization process I find fun, comes from knowning I pay less money to eat a better quality (and almost always less unhealthy) meal than I’d otherwise be able to. Once I have a recipe dialed in, it also requires virtually no thinking to get done, which is the opposite of my daily work; that’s the “unwinding” for me. I can then also combine it with listening to some audiobook or TTRPG actual play / podcast.
Due to this depth-first approach my actual list of recipes isn’t incredibly large, but it’s enough to never get boring by now, at least.
Not much. It feels like everything has to involve the internet. Reading i guess?
I haven’t dreamed when sleeping for a few years really now
Been reading dungeon crawler Carl and it’s the first time I’m dreaming mostly every night now. Just more relaxed
Taking some magnesium supplement will fix not dreaming right up!
I already take supplements. My issue is that my mind tends to constantly think. I used to read a lot (and dreampt constantly then)… So, I think this is the main factor
Smoking weed, hooking into my mp3 player, then going to the park to vibe on the swing
Writing is an underrated activity. Just taking a piece of paper or some note taking programme on your lapotop (offline) and jot away about whatever there is in your head. No rules, no daily routines, just thoughts and reflections taking some kind of material form whenever there is time and need for it.
Same for walks around the neighbourhood you live in. Taking a longer way to go to the bakery, seeing the trees and thinking about stuff.
I think there is no better way to face stress than truly being in the present.
I’m currently stood in a forest many km from the nearest inhabited place hunting for moose.
A few birds chirping in the distance. The leaves falling off the trees one by one. The sun slowly rising.
That sounds fascinating! Still online tho? ;)
Mobile reception is fairly good and the hours are long.
Hope you have a successful hunt!
Birdsong lowers cortisol levels.
Ah, the beautiful moose. Majestic, stately and proud. Such a pleasure to see them in the wild.
I’m sure killing one would be very soothing.The time waiting around when nothing happens is soothing. Then excitement when it gets close. Then I’m not sure how to describe the emotion, the glee a predator feels catching it’s prey? Then a bit of sadness because you ended a life.
Sex
This guy fucks
Good one, fellow adult. I too have had the sex. Many. 150%
Spending time with my horse is my favorite activity. It’s so relaxing and I forget all of my troubles when I’m at the barn
I recently started teaching myself piano. There are great adult method books that make the process pretty straightforward. Modern digital pianos are fantastic and be can used with headphones too, which lets me practice without annoying the rest of the house.
Gardening, dancing, sex, reading, exercise, cooking, riding the electric bike, going to see live music (people are always filming on their phones but I don’t, prefer to just experience it).
I volunteer at a wildlife rescue and study music. Both are challenging physically and mentally, and it takes my mind off of other things when I’m doing them.
They give me pride and a sense of satisfaction when I have success, and my coworkers or teacher give me support when I’m having trouble.
Having a strong support structure while doing something that requires my full attention just does something good for me mentally.
Volunteer work I strongly recommend to anyone. I avoided it for years even though I thought it might be fun because even so, why would I want more work?
What I do at the clinic is more challenging and demanding than my real job, but unlike my real job, this is actually something I’m passionate about, everyone I’m there with also wants to be there 100%, and all our effort goes into saving the lives of animals and making our local environment a better place. Every time I go, I can actually see the world becoming a better place then it would otherwise be if all of us weren’t there.
I imagine this would be applicable to most any type of volunteering like helping kids or the elderly, cleaning up neighborhoods, or feeding people, etc. A lot of activities can just serve as distractions, but the intense work makes me physically and mentally feel I actually did something, and every animal that recovers and goes free is a result that is inarguable.
