How do you take mental breaks, when you really need them?
At the moment I need one, but have no idea how to go about it.
So far:
- I ate a piece of chocolate (too sweet) and drank some coffee (too strong)
- Tried to make something with perler beads
- Found the image I wanted to recreate, started adding beads to pegboard
- “Eh, this is not the proper color, and I either started wrongly, or my pegboard is different” – Scrap that and put beads away
- Start looking for items I want to buy, end up on Amazon
- “Ooh, new cool stuff!”, I end up on the “Interesting Finds” section of Amazon
- More crap, more clutter, more stuff. Nope nope nope.
- Frustrated, turn to WordPress to ask for advice.
- Here I am.
So during this whole time, I’ve not only NOT rested mentally, but I’ve also gotten perhaps a bit more frustrated by not finding rest. It’s like you want to find water to drink, but there are either no water fountains around, or nobody is selling water (or it’s dirty even).
*sigh*
So, I ask you.
What do YOU do?
Drusillah's Musings 
I’d second Estelle on a good book, music (if not already used massively everyday like I do :p) and most definitely a nice walk … forests are indeed better, but whatever rocks one’s boat. I’ve found that the beach or just plain walking regardless of the surroundings is quite nice.
apart from that .?.
– take a means of transport and do the aforementioned walking to a totally different place in town, or a different town altogether.
– A nice mental break are always totally non-mental hobbies or activities (e.g. soccer, basketball, punching bags, stuff like that)
– A hobby involving people and not much stress. E.g. a choir, a dancing club, tabletop gaming club, etc
– A hobby involving yourself, but without the need of making decisions since a bad mental state does affect one’s patience and taste (as the beads exhibited). E.g. you could take up making music or fiddling with some instrument, some games, origami, tending some plants etc
– You could go the other way and fight fire with fire and just overload (I do that often, but I am weird like that) and just study something you like or go to a forum and start arguing/writting
– A bit extreme but, pets. I personally think that they are more trouble than they are worth, but many people finds cats and dogs quite soothing to be around. Of course there are other pets, but those are the most usual. Avoid goldfishes though and anything that needs to be confined … those tend to cause more anxiety imho.
Buying stuff is always a bad idea imho, and I am glad you avoided it, because what you end up buying in that mindset not only is usually something you do not really want to have, but it also serves as a constant reminded (and cause to revisit) that mental state
I hope those helped 🙂
In total agreement with you Blade 🙂
Do either something you like but haven’t done in a long time, or try to do something that you always hated. Horror movie anyone? 😉
I like the idea proposed by Estelle of walking in the forest. Even better – lay down in the forest and take a nap.
May I recommend listening to music, watching a movie, reading a book, running/cycling/walking in the forest? :p