How we unwind and de-stress.....

federica

This discussion was created from comments split from: how do nb members relieve stress in their every day lives ?, because the thread was an old one, and the OP no longer present.... Add to, and enjoy....

FoibleFull

I use the practice of Buddhism to handle the stress. I relax into it ... it is our resistance that causes the majority of our stress and pain. We are rocking our own canoe and complaining that we are afraid we will tip over into the lake.

DairyLama

A large portion of ice cream usually works for me....

fivebells

Aren't we supposed to just abide in the Jhanas?

Tosh

I started running to decrease stress, it worked, and then I got competitive and running now creates stress. I'm suffering with 'niggles' and can't run train hard at the moment - more stress. I also feel like I'm letting my marathon training partner down because I can't do the stuff we would like to do; yet another layer of stress.

Of course, I know running isn't inherently stressful and it's my mind that creates the stress. Just knowing information doesn't solve the problem though.

I ought to meditate more.

amandathetexan

After a stressful or eventful day, I usually find the company of my pets to be very relaxing. Doing something 'nice' for them, like going for a walk or visiting the park, giving them an extra treat, etc usually makes my day better and makes any problems I'm having seem less urgent.

At work, when things are really crazy and I'm getting stressed or find myself in a bad mood from it, I try to do the same thing with customers. Be extra nice to people, and eventually someone comes along and appreciates it, and it makes my day better/less stressful.

poptart

Dog walking.
Yoga.
Getting the dog to do yoga - that one's a hoot.

Beej

Bike riding, for sure. Works every time.

And to a lesser degree, video games. Below is a link I have posted that will take you to the PlayStationStores website. On this page are sample levels for a game called Sound Shapes. This is a game where you roll arouund as this little blob thingy and you collect coins, which funtion as music notes. All the while there are rythmic obstacles trying to kill you. Your blob can stick to some things , but not everything. (All red things can kill you) As you collect the notes, a song begins to play. But what makes this game interesting is that YOU create the game. You create the song, you create the obstacles, you choose the colors, you choose the evreything from a diverse template. Everything is where it is because I placed it there. I created the whole darn level! And when you are all done creating, you upload it to the server and other people can play your levles. My levels are becoming a bit of a hit, so much so that PlayStation has decided to use one of them to sell the game. Every week, they choose three levels and highlight them on the website... yesterday they chose mine! It's called Clusterfunk Spelunking and it took me many many hours to create. Yeah, I'm a nerd. But maybe you are too! If you are, or are just curious, click the link and scroll down a little and watch the video of some guy trying to play my level. It's a small moment of glory for me and you will also notice that I use the same username for my PlayStation account that I do here. It seems that's an identity I have not yet relinquished. Oh well. Buddhism later.... for now, its on to gaming!

http://www.psnstores.com/2012/10/sound-shapes-sample-tracks-october-1st-2012/

karasti

I play games too, usually old school games or I play WoW with my hubby and a friend. I'm quite enjoying the multitude of pet battles right now, lol. I'm looking forward to Ultima Forever coming out, I played the old Ultimas a long time ago. it's nice to have different games not based on blasting each other apart. I'll check our your link!

Other stress relievers:
Just sitting outside enjoying nature
Hiking/walking
Running (can't run right now )
Exercise (I'm currently doing P90X2 because I can't run or do other foot-heavy activity right now)
Reading
Enjoying a cup of tea
Meditating (though depending on what is causing the stress, sometimes I have to unwind before I can meditate)
Cuddling with my youngest child
Watching the ferrets play
Loving on the dog
Holding hands with my husband and just sitting quiet
And as unbuddhist as this might be, sometimes watching a gory, violent movie clears my bad energy. 300 is a frequent choice, as is any movie by Rob Zombie. I don't watch them regularly though.

MaryAnne

Music, music, music.

Ranging from: Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, John Lennon, BB King, Eric Clapton, etc. also including Ravi Shankar, meditation ragas, Gregorian chants, Kay Gardner, Singing Bowl sounds, Nature sounds (ocean, thunderstorms, forest sounds, etc) and many others.

I can use music to pull me out of a funk, or enhance a great mood to start with. I can use it to bring me to a place where I can purge my emotions or anxieties as well.
Music works for me 99.9% of the time, anywhere- outside on the patio, under a tree in a park, sitting poolside, in a candle lit room, at the computer, anywhere.

Jeffrey

I like an action rpg (unless I have played to boredom saturation). ARPG you get in a rhythm of slaying the monsters. It's not really about aggression. Perhaps a little aggression but it is more like hitting tennis or golfballs. It's like being in the zone.

I also like pipe smoking. I am on a LOT of drugs that inhibit the dopamine reward in the brain and nicotine (not inhale!) gives me some acetylcholine which is the relax and digest neurotransmitter. There is norepinephrine (coffee), dopamine (ritalin, I no longer take), serotonin (anti-depressant, I don't take), and acetylcholine. There is also GABA (benzos, I don't take) and they dock in a receptor of GABA that make the receptor more sensitive; GABA is a inhibitory stress relief neurotransmitter. These are all IIRC I was in pharmacy school 7 years ago!!

zombiegirl

Last night I played a few rounds of the Mercenaries from Resident Evil 4...but that actually stressed me out more, so I had to play some Zelda afterwards... hah. Katamari is usually my go-to stress relieving game though. Something so relaxing about destroying the world...

But other than video games, playing my ukulele... listening to music... yoga... drinking some calming tea... reading is a huge one for me.

karasti

oh I forgot taking a bath. I create my own little world with bath fizzes and candles and I read in the bath. I fall asleep alot though so I'm not brave enough to take my kindle with me in the bath. Now that I'm more aware of my stress reactions, it's easier to find a proper outlet. Prior I'd find myself grabbing a beer and a whole bag of cheetos, and then of course I wouldn't feel any better, but worse, lol.

I just finished my workout for today, and it's always so uplifting, I don't know why I struggle to get myself downstairs to do it every day when I know I'll feel so much better after. It helps control my stress even when I'm not having any.

seeker242

Breathing in and out?

federica

I come on here.
Kicking ass is particularly soothing.

ownerof1000oddsocks

Kissing ass can also be soothing- Got to keep on.. plodding onwards... with your precious load! tra-la-lala!

"The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Precious things lead one astray.
Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees.
He lets go of that and chooses this."

Tao Te Ching

Sabre

meditation

karasti

What about when you are in a situation where you cannot immediately de-stress? Do you have smaller ways to do it in a pinch or do you just let it build until such a time you can participate in your favorite destressing activity? I used to do tech support, and sometimes work was really, really stressful. I used to do various little exercises and stretches that I could do with my headset still on, or shoot nerf darts at coworkers, lol. I did take the time when there were breaks in the call to collect myself and take a few concentrated breaths, but sometimes it was really hard to destress when in the situation. I get that way once in a while when driving, but at least in that situation I can talk myself down from high stress by reminding myself that everything is ok, I can't control the traffic/weather, and that I don't know why someone is drivin the way they do and maybe there is a justified reason in their day for their behavior. My road rage is much better than it used to be. Work is one place that was hard to work on stress, and as I'll be returning to work next year I'm curious how others deal with work stress especially.

federica

A friend of mine, who is a police officer, actually tells herself "I'm going to get mad about this later - right now, I'm going to keep my cool".
And she promises herself just 5 minutes of anger 'later on'.
It works for her. And she often forgets to get mad later, too.

RebeccaS

What @Federica mentioned is actually pretty popular. I tried it myself with fear and it's a pretty cool technique, especially when the emotion that comes up can't be appropriately expressed in the situation.

I learned it from Cesar Milan's dog training technique

federica

RebeccaS said:

I learned it from Cesar Milan's dog training technique

(Whatever you do, don't pick up his dog techniques.... dreadful.)

RebeccaS

I think he's the best! I got an 8 month old boxer from a family that had no idea how to take care of her. She was really badly behaved, but after a few months of training (Cesar style) she was good as gold and happy as anything. It helped that she had an excellent temperament even though she was naughty, but I found all of his advice and techniques really useful. If I ever got another dog I'd definitely use the Cesar method again.

federica

I wouldn't touch his method with a bargepole.
If you'd like to know why - PM me.

karasti

I don't know much about him, but I've seen some questionable methods of his that I'd never ever do to our dog (who is a 3 year old female boxer). We trained/disciplined our dog the same way we do our children, for the most part (aside from being able to have logical discussions about behavior and consequences, lol) and she responded quite well and is a very good dog. She responded far better to positive reward and love and patience than she did to punishment, just like my kids. That doesn't mean there aren't consequences for bad behavior, but if I wouldn't do it to my child, then I wouldn't do it to the dog, either. Dogs and children both so aim to please that well placed "nos" stern voices and body/facial language is really all it takes...as long as you use them wisely.

Songhill

Lots of things can relieve stress. Sitting on a pillow for while can relieve stress, so can a good walk or painting. The teaching of the Buddha was never intended as a means of relieving day to day stress (not to be confused with duhkha). Buddhism is all about escaping samsara (the cycle of rebirth and redeath). When Siddhartha became the Buddha, he didn't say, "Wow, sitting under a fig tree really took my stress away."

Sile

I have found, over and over, that sitting with a musical instrument of any kind, just playing anything for 15 minutes or more, relieves even the most dire and depressed of my moods. Even when I'm so out of sorts that I don't think anything could possibly help, it always does.

music

Songhill said:

Lots of things can relieve stress. Sitting on a pillow for while can relieve stress, so can a good walk or painting. The teaching of the Buddha was never intended as a means of relieving day to day stress (not to be confused with duhkha). Buddhism is all about escaping samsara (the cycle of rebirth and redeath). When Siddhartha became the Buddha, he didn't say, "Wow, sitting under a fig tree really took my stress away."

Spot on. Buddhism today has been reduced to some sort of stress reduction program.

Jeffrey

music said:

Songhill said:

Lots of things can relieve stress. Sitting on a pillow for while can relieve stress, so can a good walk or painting. The teaching of the Buddha was never intended as a means of relieving day to day stress (not to be confused with duhkha). Buddhism is all about escaping samsara (the cycle of rebirth and redeath). When Siddhartha became the Buddha, he didn't say, "Wow, sitting under a fig tree really took my stress away."

Spot on. Buddhism today has been reduced to some sort of stress reduction program.

At the same time part of Buddhism is to build enough concentration to be able to examine our experience. If we do not have concentration then anxiety and dullness can distress us from seeing.

federica

Songhill said:

Lots of things can relieve stress. Sitting on a pillow for while can relieve stress, so can a good walk or painting. The teaching of the Buddha was never intended as a means of relieving day to day stress (not to be confused with duhkha). Buddhism is all about escaping samsara (the cycle of rebirth and redeath). When Siddhartha became the Buddha, he didn't say, "Wow, sitting under a fig tree really took my stress away."

Who ever said it was? There was never any suggestion that Buddhism was a way of relieving stress. The question is in Diet and habits, and merely asks "How we unwind and de-stress"....
So while your observation is valid, it's also obvious and to be honest, not specifically relevant.

RebeccaS

I de-stress with wine, my favourite cheese and good company

Sile

Mmmm. Cheeeeeeeeese.

I do think stress is an incredibly important topic today; we just don't realize, I think, how incredibly, crazily different our lives have gotten in the past 40 years or so, as modern humans. I think by biological standards, our modern lifestyle is actually similar to a disease, in the stresses it places on our physiology. Our adrenalin is kept very high, for example, throughout the day (or is for many people). We have the rapid development of technology minus the equivalent development of a good companion philosophy to help us use the technology healthily.

RebeccaS

I watched a documentary about stress the other day, it was massively interesting.

You can watch it here

It's called Stress: Profile of a Killer but don't let the title put you off. It's really informative.

karasti

stress has immense effects on our health, and the way we suffer stress today is nothing like what it was intended biologically. We've changed SO fast in the past 100 years that our bodies haven't had time to adjust and we just get sick because of it. How stress impacts the body and the hormones and everything we do is really fascinating.

@music I'm confused about the "Buddhism is not a stress reliever" comment. Who said it was? Buddhists are people living in today's world that have stress and other things to deal with. In some cases practices found within Buddhism can help, but they are not exclusive to Buddhism and no one ever said "Being a Buddhist is a way to combat stress." However, I do think that people who practice Buddhism can indeed find good ways to manage stress as part of their practice, but I've never known anyone to say they are Buddhist because it helps them deal with stress.

how

Stress is neither good nor bad. It has it's rightful purpose in our survival.
Being awake mean noticing the full ebb and flow of stress, what instigates it and what dissipates it.

Meditation to me means allowing stress it's own arising birth, life and finish withoutmy fiddling with it.

We may feel more comfortable by learning how to dissipate it but learning how to just be fully present with it offers equanimity over avoidance. The simple observation of our relationship with stress is a great illuminater of what meditation is..


I understand wishing to dissipate it when feeling overwhelmed but would recommend approaching it meditatively with acceptance like any other phenomena when ever one is able.

karasti

I think that that probably works well for stress say, when you had a horrible day at work and are feeling stressed. Or your kid is in the hospital and you feel stressed, or you got a bill in the mail saying "we're going to shut off your water" etc. The main problem and threat of stress for a lot of people is that it's so constant that it's a normal body state to them and not even identifiable as stress. The tension is so constant that they don't know anything else. That's when stress becomes harmful. Stress even today can still help us, by pushing us to deal with issues we don't want to, etc. But the 24/7/365 stress that some people live under is truly harmful to health, and most people who live that way can't even identify that it's happening. Perhaps if they start meditation they will learn to recognize it, I'm not sure, I don't think I've ever had a life where I was stressed all the time. I've had long periods of stress, but I always knew it was happening because of a particular situation. Living under constant stress is no less harmful to your health than living with constant high blood sugar. But for some people, it's just so prevalent, that they can't even sit down and say "I'm stressed, there it is."

music

Curiously, even the word dukha has been translated as stress instead of sorrow. Buddha says, I will teach the ending of stress, lol. He sounds like a new age guy, thanks to lousy translation.

federica

The word previously used, extremely commonly was "suffering" which had even worse connotations, and many outside Buddhism labelled it as 'depressing' and 'negative' which of course, couldn't be further from the truth....
But you're absolutely right - 'Lost in Translation' doesn't cover it.
Interestingly, the word Dukkha is also used to describe a wonky wheel, that gives a bumpy, uneven and uncomfortable ride. I think this also helps in understanding what the Buddha meant. Good point, @music.

DairyLama

music said:

Curiously, even the word dukha has been translated as stress instead of sorrow. Buddha says, I will teach the ending of stress, lol. He sounds like a new age guy, thanks to lousy translation.

Stress is a form of dukhha though.

federica

Admittedly; but in this specific, we're talking about the difficulty of communicating exactly what Dukkha is, in English. Many have presented the word as 'suffering'... AccestoInsight uses the term 'stress' as a direct translation of the word Dukkha...so while 'stress' IS a form of Dukkha, in this context, the word is used AS Dukkha...

DairyLama

federica said:

Admittedly; but in this specific, we're talking about the difficulty of communicating exactly what Dukkha is, in English. Many have presented the word as 'suffering'... AccestoInsight uses the term 'stress' as a direct translation of the word Dukkha...so while 'stress' IS a form of Dukkha, in this context, the word is used AS Dukkha...

Yes, I've seen "stress" used for dukkha in some translations. Personally I think it's best not to settle on a single-word translation for dukkha because it has different layers of meaning.

lobster

I go to the hell realms, find a demon, chew at his leg until the screaming eases my stress. Then I snap out of it. I practice martial art shadow boxing with a similar visualisation . . . :rarr:

DairyLama

lobster said:

I go to the hell realms, find a demon, chew at his leg...

So what do demons taste like? Chicken?

federica

I was thinking more deboned salmon....

lobster

They do taste of barbecue chicken. Angels have a blander chicken flavour.
Ambient music is also a distress release, natural sounds played on my computer . . . eg. forest. Or just going for a walk. It is safe here apart from the hell realm demons, following me asking for the return of their legs . . . :thumbsup:

federica

You've also chewed the legs off angels? That must have pissed them off!
I take it Angel wings taste like chicken wings then? Supermarkets could have a field day marketing those!

"Try our wings - they taste like heaven!"

Kangaroo

I recently began making magic wands from pieces of driftwood and twigs I find on the beach. It's very soothing whittling away at a bit of wood. I'm also thinking of buying a metal detector, hopefully I find some pirate gold.

karasti

I like to carve things, too! It is very relaxing. I have a walking stick I've been working on a while that I should finally finish one of these days. My dad has been a "treasure hunter" for many years, it's a terrific hobby. But make sure you read up on laws if you opt to take it up, as there are areas it is not allowed, or if it is allowed you are not able to dig (which makes it pointless, lol) or remove things that you might find. This includes a lot of state and national land, and often cities require you get permission. There are tons of places to go, just make sure you look it up so you don't get in trouble!

JohnG

I recite the mantra to Green Tara; I also write screenplays. The mantra and the writing helps me decompress from a night of pressing issues like who's more dangerous the gang member, or my partner.

I also watch episode's of Benny hill, red green, and forever knight before I finally settle for a long day's sleep.

lobster

Kangaroo said:

I recently began making magic wands from pieces of driftwood and twigs I find on the beach. It's very soothing whittling away at a bit of wood. I'm also thinking of buying a metal detector, hopefully I find some pirate gold.

EH MA HO
(not a mantra but it should be)

My sibling makes wands. Maybe you should search for termas? I will be making termas as soon as I become a Buddha. Need to get that time machine on line too . . .

HAVE A NICE DAY
(not a mantra but it should be)

lobster

Guys about the angel wings . . .
Angels don't mind as they have no need of legs . . . :wave:

No heavenly beings were crippled during my chewing escapades . . .

DairyLama

JohnG said:

I also write screenplays.

I dabbled with that. Could you say more, like what kind of screenplays?