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Ways to relax?
mynameisguido
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, tonight, I had a wake up call. After my roommates started yelling at each other yet again, I attempted to distract myself, but found myself having to go outside to try and pull myself together. Not only was I not able to do so, but scary things started happening to me. I started making noises involuntarily (mostly whines) and when I tried to say anything I would stutter. To say nothing of the full body shaking I was experiencing or the very, very rapid heart beat.
This scared the shit out of me, honestly. I know what's causing it----my very unsettled living situation with a manic roommate and a complete lack of privacy, my 50+ hours of work every week, and because of both of the first two things a general lack of sleep and more general rest.
The living situation is getting solved in the beginning of next month when I move away, and I'm going to try and figure something out in terms of cutting back my hours a bit. The sleep I don't have much control over due to the more manic roommate's sleeping patterns.
So, until I get out of my situation and get my hours cut back a bit I'm going to need to find ways to decompress and lower my anxiety level a bit. I've never been very good at doing such things so I could use some advice in this area.
This scared the shit out of me, honestly. I know what's causing it----my very unsettled living situation with a manic roommate and a complete lack of privacy, my 50+ hours of work every week, and because of both of the first two things a general lack of sleep and more general rest.
The living situation is getting solved in the beginning of next month when I move away, and I'm going to try and figure something out in terms of cutting back my hours a bit. The sleep I don't have much control over due to the more manic roommate's sleeping patterns.
So, until I get out of my situation and get my hours cut back a bit I'm going to need to find ways to decompress and lower my anxiety level a bit. I've never been very good at doing such things so I could use some advice in this area.
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1) Work out. When I've got a barbell with enough weight to break every rib in my chest if I drop it held up above me, I tend to not worry about much other than not dropping it.
2) Video games. Obviously, this depends on the game and yourself quite a bit. Some games will just piss you off and make matters worse. I tend to go for something challenging, but where I can slow down and go at my pace - an RPG, something like Splinter Cell, etc. with some strategy involved and even if my concentration isn't spot on, I can just slow the hell down or grind out another level or whatever.
3) Music. I sit down and play my guitar and work on something that really pushes me - a new, hard song or trying to speed up the pace that I can run up and down scales cleanly, etc. Something that requires me to concentrate on what I'm doing.
-Climbing, find an indoor climbing gym
-Cook/bake
-Clean stuff (this doesn't work for everyone but for some people cleaning up their living space is relaxing)
-Find a swing set and swing for a while
-Go window shopping with a friend
I use headphones so no other ambient sounds leak in and just try to lose myself a bit in what I'm listening to, usually works pretty well.
Really helps to zone into a game or my guitar and really take everything in for the moment and slows time down.
Back when I smoked pot, I was in a similar situation (out of control roommate situation) and found it only enhanced the stress to the point where I was having anxiety attacks. I had never previously gotten "the fear" while smoking.
Alternatively, a nice long hot bath in the near dark. Like just totally shut off all the lights ... unless you're in a room with no windows, you'll be able to see. Maybe music on low volume or some white noise too.
3DS FC: 4699-5714-8940 Playing Pokemon, add me! Ho, SATAN!
After that, like people said; get some exercise. They say cardio is best for stress. The "rule of thumb" is 30 minutes 3 times a week. But most young healthy adults can probably do more then that.
That is the "foundation". Sleep, eating and exercise.
Also avoid alcohol, cigarettes, energy drinks, tons of sugar/carbs/fats and to much caffeine. The short term they can help; but you always pay the price afterwards. Obviously avoid coke/meth.
After that, for me I find it helpful to do a quick meditation at morning, one before work/school and one at night. It's not so much the time involved, but the effort and the routine of it. I probably take a minute or so and just do a breathing meditation. Prayer or other types of meditations works.
Other things that help:
music - relaxing music that you "really" listen to and zone out on. Something slow and relaxing and not just trash you have blaring in the background.
quite time - I find that most background music running while doing other things can be a mild source of stress. personally I like it quite when reading/writing, programming, etc.
TV/Radio - commercials and most tv shows are pretty retarded and annoying to me. I find removing them reduces a lot of stress. How much news is on these "news" channels anyways?
Reading
Hobbies
Working problems. Easy problems that require enough focus to figure out, but aren't stress full. Playing chess, doing very basic math problems, light programming, etc. Those "IQ" game/books/problems are fun too. Also crosswords and stuff like that.
Showers/Baths
naps
sex/masturbation - but be careful, sex is inversely correlated with stress.
backrubs/massages
shutting off the internet. There are a lot of jerks on some parts of the internet, sometimes best to just step away for a bit (specially if you work on computers during the day)
Writing.
todo list: I like making a "todo" list. I basically just dump everything on paper that I need to do so I can forget about it.
Journaling and talking to people about your stress - some people like this as a way to "dump out" their stress. Personally, it gets me more stressed out since I focus on what is causing the stress. But hey, it works for some people, so try it.
Day dreaming - day dreaming of something better
Visualizing: just visualize random stuff in your mind. clouds, beach balls, stars, etc
I can also recommend going out to dinner, either by yourself or with a friend or sexy girl for that matter lol.
you are, for some reason, surprised by this, and are looking for methods of calming yourself down while you engage in one of your delusional shut-down-the-world-around-me sessions
here's what you gotta do
get tough with your room mates and tell them to settle the fuck down. mediate. aggressively. interrupt and yell at them if you have to.
haha, yea; I agree. If there is a "sisuation" in your life that is causing stress, then deal with it best you can.
Either accept it or change it.
It's doesn't have to be aggressive or nothing. Just sit them down and say "listen guys, this isn't working for me. We need to figure out a way for us all to live in peace". Don't place blame or get aggressive/defense about it. Just talk to them and try to come up with some arrangement that you can all agree to.
well
I say get aggressive
but that's just my play style, it doesn't have to be yours
Well, I am leaving in a month, so it will be permanently dealt with pretty soon.
The problem is that this could just make the situation worse, because the roommate that is causing the problems seems to have enormous emotional issues that I don't think are easily resolvable (which is ultimately most of the problem). The other roommate (my best friend's mother---it's a bizarre situation) is pretty much set in her ways and I don't see any way her behavior is going to change due to her age. The manic roommate might leave (due to the fact that she's basically just been here on an extended visit and simply hasn't left) but she's dating my best friend (who I originally moved in with), which, um, complicates the situation somewhat.
If this was a situation where a couple of behaviors would change things it might be worth sitting down with them and talking it out, but it's mostly a case with a complete and utter personality mismatch between me and two of the people living here.
well
even if people won't change, shutting them out of your life ain't gonna fix things
you don't need to change them
you just need to shock them into keeping they traps shut over their bullshit while you're still there
if you can't push them into acceptance you can at least force them into tolerance
I've given up trying to change the other people, I'm trying to find ways of managing my response to what's going on in order to hang on for just a few more weeks.
Him shouting and yelling for three weeks isn't going to help, if anything it will make the remaining weeks much worse. I don't think someone old enough to to be his mom and a manic will respond well to being the OP being aggressive, most people don't, that kind of behavior usually causes more drama. You also can't really reason with someone who's manic. The OP seems to know at this point that he just wants to make it through September and zoning these nuts out of his life the best he can seems to be a good idea.
Beer and Videogames.
or
Naps.
If going out for a bit, say a an hour or so, is an option, head out to a coffee shop. I've run out to Starbucks a few times and gotten expensive hot chocolate just to sit down away from dumb shit and work on whatever I've brought with me (art, book, free-time writing; whatever).