ITT we discuss various stress resistance techniques and methods.
My favorite:
Imagination: Especially for babies crying and shit like that, it helps to imagine someone you hate making those noises. It makes you laugh, and once you've laughed at screaming babies, you'll never go back to gritting your teeth again.
Quote from: Sigmatic on March 15, 2010, 02:01:50 AMImagination: Especially for babies crying and shit like that, it helps to imagine someone you hate making those noises. It makes you laugh, and once you've laughed at screaming babies, you'll never go back to gritting your teeth again.
Similar to my technique, which consists of imagining creative reasons as to
why they are crying :)
What works really well for general stress relief is to take a nap on the couch while the first couple of tracks of
Carbon Based Lifeforms - Hydroponic Garden are playing. Which is one of my favourite ambient music albums. Could also be conditioning, since I use the same tracks to meditate. Only I haven't meditated in ages, and it still works.
just breathe and relax
this sounds like a no-brainer, but when you're stressed out, you breathe differently. Get into a good posture and then pump some oxygen moving through your body - works wonders!
take a big deep breath right now, doesn't that feel better?
Laughing Yoga
This simple technique cracks me up every time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXgdSOxaCGI
(or maybe it's just that adorable laughing yogi)
I imagine how I'd deal with it as my temper wants to, and weight that against the prison term / conflaguration which would result.
If this doesn't amuse me out of being pissed, then it gives me a solid reason to calm down anyways. I've yet to meet an ape worth being incarcerated over.
Quote from: Cramulus on March 15, 2010, 01:45:31 PM
Laughing Yoga
This simple technique cracks me up every time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXgdSOxaCGI
(or maybe it's just that adorable laughing yogi)
There is something strange and brittle about that yogi...
He creeps me out. His fingers are too long.
If i have lots of time on my hands, i meditate, and if i dont i do the breathing thing that Cram mentioned, feels good man. 8)
Also: laughing yoga looks fun :lulz:
I build things involving stupidly large amounts of electricity or very high voltage. When the stress is caused by budget I just make plans to build such things.
Current plans:
500kV Cockroft-Walton voltage multiplier.
4.5MHz audio-modulated phase-locked-loop solid-state class-e Tesla coil. (need oscilloscope)
Probably do the CW first, as it is significantly cheaper.
But yeah, plasma is fun.
I just ignore stress/bottle it/explain it away. Probably not the best strategy. Although apart from clean forgetting about important stuff (bills, tasks I don't like, etc) from time to time, I don't actually experience that much stress.
Quote from: Cramulus on March 15, 2010, 01:45:31 PM
This simple technique cracks me up every time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXgdSOxaCGI
(or maybe it's just that adorable laughing yogi)
This, however, is absolutely awesome!
I destroy paperclips. I don't even do it consciously. I just sit there and bend them around and make bizarre little sculptures. If I don't have paperclips handy, I usually unscrew my pen, or completely take it apart if I'm really stressed out.
As far as HEALTHY ways of dealing with stress, deep breathing and meditation are the best, really.
I also really like going to the spa close by to spend some time in the isolation tank when I can afford it. It's pretty awesome.
Shouting at children under your authority.
Kick the cat.
Yell at the kids.
Kick the kids? OK no....
Shoot someone? Ok maybe...
Swerve like I'm going to run over that stupid biker in his tight bike shorts... this actually cheers me up especially if they fall
OK so in reality, I'm a lot like Richter, after imaginaing what I want to do, I think about the jail sentence for that. As he said, never met a monkey worth going to jail for.
I Let it build up and build up and then take it out on the sea and use it to rage back at mother nature while she's trying to kill me.
Coming back home afterwards feels like someone turned the volume down.
Stress gone for a while.
Wash, rinse, repeat...
I eat my stress. I'm Not sure where it goes.
I wait until I can get a quiet moment to go over the cause of my stress, why did this thing stress me out? Some noises and people repeating the same thing over and over are probably the hardest things for me to cope with... I especially hate people who drive around with enormous subwoofers in their cars exposing everyone to their music and ensuring their own hearing damage, I mean, why the hell does it need to be that LOUD? Especially when I'm trying to sleep.
But, I just tell myself it's a momentary inconvenience. These people are wracking up bad karma by inconsiderately running around like they're not sharing the world with everyone else, and one day, they're going to get hit with that, with interest. can't help but feel sorry for them, really... They have no IDEA what kind of horrible music the next generation of kids will listen to to shock their parents. I have it easy.
I stress about the fact that I'm stressing and then I pass out and wake up with chronic muscle spasms. Which I then stress about dealing with.
Halp.
I have a wide array of techniques I use and I rarely need to use more than a handful:
• locate physical tension in my muscles and make them loosen up by tensing and then relaxing them
• adopting the posture of a relaxed person as though I was an actor trying to convince an audience (whether or not people are around)
• breathing from the belly deeply (like Cram suggested)
• searching my brain for times that I had uncontrollable fits of laughter and reliving the experiences
• doing a few different varieties of push-ups and a few different varieties of sit-ups (a martial arts teacher claimed this was all the workout you needed)
• brainstorming a way to make the people around me laugh
• a strong drink
• pretending I had several strong drinks
• acknowledging the fact that stress in certain quantities is quite beneficial, and then trying to identify how I would know I'm experiencing this sweet spot
• find someone or a group of people that appear to be quite genuinely relaxed and mimicing their behaviors as accurately as possible (thank you mirror neurons)
• trying to relax my upper eyelids so I appear stoned/gangsta/cool as hell and trying to maintain it with a straight face as long as possible
• converting my internal voice very gradually into a voice that is smooth and relaxing, not so different from cheesy "smooth jazz" DJs
• cycling through my sensory channels and paying careful attention to what they are picking up, I don't know why, but this is one of the most effective techniques for me - it goes something like this: my feet pressing against the ground, my ass pressing against the couch, my clothes loosely pressing against my body, the sound of the computer keys clicking as I type, the sound of my daughter fussing in the other room, the sound of my partner soothing her, the sight of the rug in my peripheral vision, the sight of my hands moving as I type, the cursor slowly flitting across the screen with each keystroke, the smell of the mountain lingering in my clothes, the smell of my home that is almost unnoticable but comforting, the smell of wet wool from the rain, the feeling of my leg's position in space, the angle of my spine relative to the ground, the angle of my skull in relation to my spine and the ground, and so on...
That's what I have just off the top of my head.
I just drink 'till the pain goes away, most of the time, though.
I sing. Usually it's all improvisation. Works for me and my daughter likes to hear it. (Wife does not, but that's because our musical tastes are different, really)
Quote from: Fujikoma on July 02, 2010, 08:03:48 AM
I just drink 'till the pain goes away, most of the time, though.
That's not good.
:(
Yeah, I get that a lot, Nast. But that's how it is sometimes, or, rather, everyday.
No, it's not good. Did you read my previous post for dealing with stress? Keeps me from drinking so much.
EDIT: Though the lovecraftian squid proposes some good advise which, while tailored to his individual situation, could be helpful.
Quote from: Cainad on July 02, 2010, 03:51:04 AM
I stress about the fact that I'm stressing and then I pass out and wake up with chronic muscle spasms. Which I then stress about dealing with.
Halp.
Awesome, I gotta try this some times. I already can do a few of those steps, but I think I need to practice on the passing out bit.
And then you keep repeating the cycle until the stress is gone, yeah?
I try to find a productive, neutral activity. Like cleaning, running at the gym, or simple hand sewing. It gives me something to focus on enough to take my brian out of "Stew and stress" mode. It also minimizes the amount of things I can fuck up and continue to get frustrated at. If I tried to peen rivets, my brain would escalate more if I messed up, for example. I also avoid taking any of the stress to martial arts practice. In that mindset, I may agro on a sparring partner (No external signs, from dead halt to "KILL THE FUCKER." ), or get pissed at my own performance too easily.
An activity with less change of critical failure and visible result lets me work off the bad headspace while putting out something that makes me feel better about things.
Quote from: Triple Zero on July 02, 2010, 09:22:28 AM
Quote from: Cainad on July 02, 2010, 03:51:04 AM
I stress about the fact that I'm stressing and then I pass out and wake up with chronic muscle spasms. Which I then stress about dealing with.
Halp.
Awesome, I gotta try this some times. I already can do a few of those steps, but I think I need to practice on the passing out bit.
And then you keep repeating the cycle until the stress is gone, yeah?
Basically yeah; you wear yourself out so badly that you don't have the energy to be stressed anymore and your body and brain let go out of exhaustion.
Although one thing that I do which I find relaxing is
shuckling, or swaying back and forth while in a prayerful state of mind. Since I'm not actually Jewish/religious at all, I'm just meditating when I do it, but it's effective.
NEW METHOD
Reminding myself that a thing need not be fun to be fun. So far, high success rate.