My Go-To Stress-Busters

And yes, they are all portable

I just read Nancy Blackman’s post, Quick! Name Three of Your Favorite Things, where she asks three reflection questions.

In fact, she asks them almost in all her posts, nudging you to think — so if you are ever stuck for something to write about, I urge you to visit her publication Refresh Your Soul and enjoy! You’re welcome.

So, back to the post I am referring to, even as I read it and smiled and nodded in agreement, I arrived at the customary reflection questions and began answering them when a sneaky thought popped into my head. Why not write a post about it, it said. I succumbed.

Here are said questions and my somewhat rambly answers:

When you are stressed, what do you normally do to de-stress in a healthy way? Is it working?

Housework is my go-to stress reliever. There’s always enough and more to do and I used to freak out about it, until one day, I made lists of my to-dos, categorizing them by time. So I have tasks that take 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes — and so on. You get the idea.

I know I say I play with my dust bunnies, but even I like to dust every once in a while. Kidding, you know!

When I need to feel grounded, my first stop is my kitchen sink. Doing the dishes feels soothing. I enjoy the feel of the soap bubbles. I may or may not blow some soap bubbles and admire the rainbow reflection on them. I feel happy when I see the sink emptying and soon, clean with all the dishes stacked away.

Sometimes I decide to clean a shelf.

There are days when I just sit with a cup of coffee and enjoy it, sip by sip, and call it coffee meditation.

But yes, housework is my favorite healthy de-stressor and it absolutely works. For me, at least!

Make a list of ten of your favorite things. Don’t think too much, just write the list out. Then go back through the list and rate them from 1 to 10, 1 being the highest.

Here we go!

1. Coffee 2. Music 3. Writing 4. Phone a friend for a marathon chat 5. Sketching (I am not half-bad!) 6. Going through my photo albums 7. Chopping veggies (I am devoted to meal prep) 8. Going for a walk with my camera 9. Hanging out with a kid 10. Singing 11. Reading a book 12. Make lists (I know, right?) 13. Binge-watching crime shows. 14. Cook

Of the top three items, are any or all of them potentially portable? In other words, is one of them small and tangible like my favorite rock? We aren’t always in places where we can stop and do yoga or meditate or pull out a book and read, so reaching for something that is soothing can be a wonderful alternative.

Oh yes, Almost all of them are portable except maybe #7 — chop veggies and #14 — cook.

But I always carry a bigass tote bag with a notebook, a Wodehouse novel, and my phone. Thanks to our phones, so many things are possible. For example:

• Google Keep lets me write and make lists and create reminders
• The phone camera lets me take great photos
• Google Books lets me carry my books everywhere I go
• Call friends
• Google Photos has all my photos — at least enough to browse through.

I must mention here that I don’t have social media apps on my phone — I do enjoy social media but use the web version and don’t believe in hanging around doomscrolling and doom surfing. So no annoying notifications 🙂

I enjoy singing to myself — in fact, I play antakshari or song tag with Bollywood songs where the last letter of a song becomes the first letter of the next song. Anth is end and akshari is letter. Let me give you a simple example.

If you were to sing a song whose last word ended with the letter r, the next song would begin with the letter r.

Another thing I really enjoy is listening to All India Radio, especially Vividh Bharati station, and listening to old songs as I work. Then I switch to my 80s rock playlists. There used to be a time when I actually timed my tasks to the duration of the songs. So much fun. As a result, I developed an encyclopedic knowledge of music which is kind of useless — but still!

I know Nancy said we can’t stop and do Yoga or Meditate or pull out a book and read — I can do all of these on the move. Yep. I am cool like that.

And now, please may I request you to read Nancy’s post? She has some excellent tips to help you get back to the present moment — and they are all super-easy.

Here is the link, again: Quick, Name Three Of Your Favorite Things

Now I want to know what three things you can come up to Nancy’s question. Do share with me in the comments!

Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles ❤ Did you smile today?

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