Stress Relief

[the tree]

What stress relief techniques work for you? I'm currently too depressed to risk going for drugs or alchohol (the latter is an especially bad idea, when accompanied by standing up on a train, belive it or not). I don't have many things to hit (my school gym doesn't have a punch bag ) and supposedly calming activities such as cleaning, are just making me more stressed.

Argh!

[aj47]

Excercise, comedy and stroking cats. IMO it's the perfect combination.

[the tree]

Combination? Like, all at once? That sounds complicated.

[insane_alien]

i've always found shooting the crap out of zombie in half life 2 to be quite stress releiving.

[aj47]

Combination? Like, all at once? That sounds complicated.

 

It's painful to start with but you soon get the hang of it.

[BobbyJoeCool]

i've always found shooting the crap out of zombie in half life 2 to be quite stress releiving.

 

Or for me, Resident Evil 4! I also like shooting Ashley in that game. (she angers me sometimes.)

[penagate]

What stress relief techniques work for you? I'm currently too depressed to risk going for drugs or alchohol (the latter is an especially bad idea, when accompanied by standing up on a train, belive it or not). I don't have many things to hit (my school gym doesn't have a punch bag ) and supposedly calming activities such as cleaning, are just making me more stressed.

Argh!

Sleep it off.

 

It won't relieve the stress, but you'll have a whole new day to look for things to hit!

[YT2095]

other than avoid getting excessively stressed in the 1`st place.

 

1) I like to spend time in my garden watching the things I planted grow, sometimes even just read a book in my greenhouse.

 

2) Play some games with my daughter.

 

3) get in my Kitchen and tryout some new recipe.

 

4) Sleep is always good if you`re TOO stressed and have the headache.

 

5) Call up or go visit a friend.

 

and Most of those listed above can be done with a Beer too

 

the REAL trick is recognising stress before it gets anywhere, when you can ID that, you`re laughing!

[AzurePhoenix]

Either read a good, fast-pace book, listen to music and nap, binge in the kitchen, go to the wildlife center and just keep myself busy butchering rabbits and pigeons, hiking or swimming or maybe a short fishing trip, go out with friends and be deliquenty, or...ahem... other things.

[bascule]

A loud percussive instrument is a great tool to channel aggression through. Wonder if that's why you see hippies playing drums all the time.

[ecoli]

Excercise, comedy and stroking cats. IMO it's the perfect combination.

I agree with the comedy idea. I like either stand-up, like Dane Cook, or something like the Colbert Report. (both available at youtube)

[herme3]

Food is great. Whenever I'm stressed out, going out to a restaurant always makes me feel better.

 

Also, it helps to play video games. When I'm stressed out, the best games are ones that are easy but fun. My favorite games that help reduce stress are the old Super Mario games from the original NES.

[Pleiades]

Whenever I’m mad or frustrated or just stressed, I pick up a novel; a little (or a lot) of escapism works for me. It engages a good part of the brain, so my mind can’t wander back to whatever it is that’s got me stressed.

[In My Memory]

What stress relief techniques work for you? I'm currently too depressed to risk going for drugs or alchohol (the latter is an especially bad idea, when accompanied by standing up on a train, belive it or not). I don't have many things to hit (my school gym doesn't have a punch bag ) and supposedly calming activities such as cleaning, are just making me more stressed.

Argh!

I'm tempted to say "sex", but I want to keep things G-rated and say "shopping" instead

 

Also, I like to practice yoga, its relaxing, and its also a good way of keeping a feminine figure when I cant go to the gym

 

And if I have nothing better to do, I have one of those shower heads that can adjust to shoot a wide angle or narrow stream of water. So I set my shower on "pulverize" mode and turn the water a little hotter and just let it massage the tenseness out of my back and body.

[MulderMan]

Green Tea :]

[the tree]

I kind of like green tea, but I only manage to make it properly one out of twenty tries.

 

Sex is currently unavaliable, and shopping is well, evil. Kung Fu seems to work, I guess on the same basis as Yoga.

 

I don't have enough patience to read and I sleep when I can.

 

I don't own any video games, maybe this is a problem.

 

Thanks for all the other ideas... if I knew anything about how to garden, I'd tottally be doing that.

[calbiterol]

I paintball. As much as I joke about shooting little kids, it's a GREAT stress relief. Nobody dies but you still get to shoot the crap outta them.

 

Great fun.

 

Other than that, music is a huge stress reliever for me, as are my friends. And when I really need to pull my mind off of things, I will just go and run until I either can't keep running or I feel better. Oh, and driving at night is very stress-relieving, as well.

[silverslith]

I recommend talking about sane rational stuff on discussion pages like this.

In a very stressfull patch right now with lots of monkey politics and domination games the like of which I have no respect for. The leftbrains tendancy to superimpose and prioritise cultural and personal belief over the rightbrains perfect observer appears to me an easy route to cognitive dissonance and madness.

places like this are a refuge of rationality and to me the brains aha response in learning new things is the most effective remedy for stress and depression. Sometimes I have to treat human behaviour as a long term research project to deal with it at all.

[Glider]

Bonsai.

 

Crouching in a corner rocking gently with your thumb in your mouth and whimpering into your blanky can also help in extreme cases, but I prefer taking down one of my trees and grooming it for an hour or so. The concentration makes everything go away until I'm calm enough to deal with it.

[GutZ]

At work I can get alot of stress out. Lifting lots of metal when people aren't looking (can only lift like 50kg or 50 ibs legally ). Then there is the sledge hammer hehe. Safety glass that I can break with my insane karate punch... wootah! Come to think about it I've been relatively relaxed lately, it's quite nice.

 

At home shadow punching and kicking, and push ups and sit ups and not using the elevator. I'd go back to weightlifting but I'll wait and use my schools gym when I am finish my internship. That's the ULTIMATE stress relief. Work-out for like 30 - 60 mins a day mininium, make sure your good and sore, then take a warm bath...so good.

 

p.s.

 

Taking baths are manly! >

[CPL.Luke]

echoing the "ahem" comments above, also when thats not available something else comes to mind...

[iglak]

i find meditation, especially in an attempt to control your mental focus, to work quite well. and martial arts helps with that immensely.

 

also, browsing youtube; especially the anime music videos (AMVs), or anything that's funny.

also, watching anime or a good TV show, because i tend to get sucked into those.

also, video games.

 

basically, anything that you can put 100% of your focus into. overload your senses somehow.

[calbiterol]

Also, something a psychologist told me once: when you're feeling really down or really stressed, make faces at yourself in the mirror. Weird, wacky, and bizzare - make yourself smile.

 

It's worked for me before.

[PhDP]

Meditation. Chess. Walking. Books (Nonlinear Dynamics & Chaos from Strogatz and Evolution of the Genome by Ryan Gregory are good choices...). Music, like the Canon in D minor of Pachelbel, Morning Mood of Grieg... Rêverie (Debussy).