In honor of May being Mental Illness Awareness Month, I decided to post my list of coping techniques:
1. Meditation – yoga, the make repetitive noise type of meditation, mindfulness.
2. Exercise –running, walking, jogging, weight lifting, swimming, etc, are great healthy way to release stress, anxiety, and anger.
3. Reading – is a great (safe and healthy) way to escape from reality or a good way to better cope with and understand reality.
4. Art - music, crafting, drawing, painting, looking at art, playing guitar, etc.
5. Challenging my intellect – reading, listening to podcasts, writing, watching Doctor Who, listening to books on tape, researching, etc.
6. Games – board games, sports, cards, etc.
7. Photography.
8. Going out – to the gym, the library, the movies, the park, a museum, etc, somewhere cheap or free is best.
9. Talk it out – talk to someone you trust.
10. Writing –be it a crazy weird fiction story about an odd object or a blog post,writing is always relaxing for me and is a positive way to release emotions.
11. Pamper yourself – for me this looks like doing my makeup, painting my nails, and such as that.
12. Focus – hyper focus on a random object. Write out a step by step guide to what you need to do. Focus on one thing at a time.
So that is the list of my top 12 favorite alternatives.