by Sixstrings » Wed 03 Dec 2008, 01:57:30
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hat coping mechanisms do you use to deal with anxiety? I usually just tell myself that "in 50 years (I'll be dead by then), none of this crap will matter". Out of all the coping mechanisms I've tried, this one works the best. It makes 90% of my stress just vanish.
If you're having doomer-type anxiety, my best advice is to get your mind off of it for a while. Meet some new people, try some new hobby completely out of left field for your norm, do some volunteering involving work you've never done before, maybe get a part-time job if you have the time. Or take a vacation, play a new video game, lose yourself in some books or movies.
My latest stress reliever is making bread, and tentatively learning how to really cook in general. Bread-making from scratch is great for anxiety.. it gets you involved in a 4 hour process where for that amount of time your mind is on yeast and rising dough rather than peak oil and rising seas.
(making bread the old school way takes time but not a lot of work -- maybe 30 minutes activity spread over 4 hours. It's like wait an hour, then push your dough down, then wait another hour.)
So making bread is good. It gets your mind on something else, while not being as intensive work as full-on cooking. A good book I can recommend would be "the Tassjara Bread Book," which you can get from Amazon.
Any number of hobbies would do the trick I imagine. I haven't tried gardening as yet, but I can see how that would be good for the soul as well.