We talked stuff that works you up, how about things that you do to calm down? What techniques, activities, mantras, stims, etc. do you do to keep yourself comfortable and safe? Feel free to share what you’d like - and something kinda cool is that you might end up helping someone else down the line.
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Listen to music when shopping or at work (especially if I am surrounded by noisy coworkers), speak out loud to myself when I am alone (I also do it to just think about anything, it’s much easier for me to sort my ideas and take decisions). Another thing I do when I feel sad is playing rhythm games, because it forces me to focus about what I am doing while listening to musics I enjoy (but I do not do it a lot now that I have a dog, I feel much better thanks to her <3).
People who love animals get the healing power of them. They just lift you up with their sweetness. I used to listen to music, but I stopped at some point. I’d get an earworm and keep that sucker playing on repeat and zen out and BLAM! Chill. (Blam maybe wasn’t the right word but I mean all of a sudden I’d realized how chilled out I was)
What ryhthm games? I can’t play them, but my sibby plays Konami stuff. My fav is pop’n music.
I mainly played Project Diva for 10+ years, but now I also play Theatrythm FF. I think I would love Pop n music but never have it a try (the special controller looks so good :) )
Ooooo, those are the guitaroo man kinda ones with like - lines and timing right? How any of you play these is outta my head. I can sing, and I understand rhythm but translating that to this kinda stuff is just *wuh!?*
It’s got a crazy variety of songs if you ever want to check it out here’s a playlist of all of them apparently. I hope you get to try it someday =)!
Yes, it takes time to get used to it, but it’s almost automatic at some point :).Thanks for the playlist, I will have a look at it ;).
No worries, if you wanna send a cool jam (or jams) from either game feel free to toss it here. I love fun music =)
Crypt of the Necrodancer on steam is a fantastic rhythm game, and you can use your own music on it. The switch version is portable, which is a plus, but there’s no ability to swap your music in.
I also second Theatrhythm! Final Fantasy music is almost universally gorgeous.
Oooo yeah, people love this game. I yet again can sing my buns off and do have rhythm but bringing it to a game is something else. But there are actually a handful of music games on the pc but I don’t know too much about them as a whole.
When I need to calm down super fast I literally pretend I am an old school zen-buddhist monk and pull my arms up to my side bent (breathing in) and then push them down saying “zen body, zen mind” all while doing a big long breath out. Plus side is when I do this around people it seems to always illicit laughs, and not in the bad way. So that also helps cool me down. Sometimes being a muppet can be a blessing =P!
I can fidget with my septum piercing all day and make faces like I’m taking a nasty poop or having a really weird think and just be with it because you know - my body so =P!
I take my thumb and rub my finger like I’ve got one of those worry stones, only it’s my index finger instead of a stone. It’s a low-low one and Idk if anyone even knows I do this. I also do “wave-toes” which are like flowering my toes back and forth and man it’s calming.
Humming is basically like medicine to me. I heard it stimulates your vagus nerve, and I think it’s true. I also sing, and think I might be a bit louder overall because of it. I say this because when I cough when I’m sick it’s really loud and deep. And I think practicing something that utilizes your diaphragm probably strengthens it. So humming might not work for everyone? But it sure works for me.
Lastly I destroy my cheeky-cheeks. Sorry cheeks. But you’re my chew toy.
Actually there’s something expressly not mentioned in that if something is distressing me like a five-star alarm I will remove myself from said thing and typically it seems to cause no real trouble. And to keep myself less-stressed over high stress situations I just give things an (insane) amount of practice until things flow so I am less freaked da-fugg out.
As for chill stuff I’m pretty standard in that I love watching things that feel humanistic in some way to me (although I tend to watch animated things more, and will say growing up I dug anime but am not really about it anymore although I can watch some of my older stuff), love hanging with my missus and our pets and doing whatever is “on the agenda,” love when the creativity bug bites in any manner (writing, drawing, singing, dancing, sewing, painting, etc.), will always think of books as my best-friends (because I love them dearly), like to cook some good food and chill.
I like nature, and have always appreciated it in whatever form I’ve been around. But I am having trouble that it seems like anywhere and everywhere I go now it’s almost too cluttered, crowded, and everything feels like it’s “on-rails.” I will say that I think as the population has expanded it has gotten harder for me to live as a whole. But I am doing okay right now. It’s weird to love people, but also get incredibly overstimulated by them.
An app called Finch, and directed breathing exercises.
Also calling a friend to loudly vent at who has a very unique ability to calm me down again. Usually its enough to have someone listen to me and acknowledge my frustration
That’s a good one. You’re right there. And why I applaud people who can be even-keel in a world like this. It’s just something else.
I used breathing zone for so long I can hear the sounds in my head now and don’t have the app anymore. Thanks for the response =)!
I do breathing exercises as well. I think concentrating on the counting keeps my brain busy enough to ignore external stimuli.
Depends, but if it’s a panic spiral I’ll try to make myself as big as possible for a moment. It’s a nice stretch but also helps reign in my brain.
I freakin’ hate panic spiraling because it seems like by that point nothing I do will actually calm me down and it takes me like a looonnnggggg time to decompress from it. And by that I mean I can get my booty-bin outta the space of pain, I can do all the stuff I love on the face of this Earth and it’ll still be riding me until like…5-10 hours after the fact. Idk if this is normal, but for sure it’s a thing for me.
I smoke trees.
Which trees? Oak? Elm? Pine? 🤔
for me its breathing and stretching and sorta meditation since im never really sure if I achieve meditation.
I once knew a monk who basically broke it down like this (and I’m talking monk since he was a little one) as long as you focus on one solid thing you’re meditating. So he said you can be sweeping and meditating, doing the dishes and meditating, sitting and thinking about driving a sports car you like and meditating. As long as you just focus on that one thing. And I’ve always taken it as thems the rules since =P!
yeah I think I sorta achieve a state sometimes but its generally momentary (or in the best cases seems momentary) but I find it hard to stop the encroaching thoughts.
I think we only get little dribbles of it. I read a book on Focus a hundred years ago and it basically stated the second that you realize you’re in that space - is the second you lose it. Encroaching thoughts are a difficult one, but it’s suggested more practice makes it easier. Also just figuring out what is and isn’t worth it in life. And I guessssss letting things go. But eh. I’m not the greatest with that one. So stuff I can’t let go, I try to sink instead. Because I might just not be ready to drop whatever “it” is.
