this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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Asklemmy

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Sex. It can be really enjoyable, it's a good workout, and you get to meet new people.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Going on a walk regularly.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

... Where there is greenery. It's scientifically proven to improve mental wellbeing if you see greenery just 20 minutes a day.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

I was just coming in here to say walking in nature or hiking. πŸ™‚

Although I do also get some benefit in driving through nature too.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Reading. It doesn't have to be much, but occasionally filling idle moments with a few pages read instead of doom scrolling social media can do wonders. It did for me at least.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Doing this actually got me back into reading. Started with Manhwa (Solo Leveling) and that spiraled into reading books such as Midnight library, Before Coffee Gets Cold, The Words We keep and now β€œ1984”.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Installing an ereader app (ReadEra) helped me so much with this. I always have my phone with me anyways, and tapping the ereader app instead of Instagram takes away so many barriers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

I allways read a bit before going to sleep. It helps with shutting down. My sleep improved a lot

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Cooking, it is satisfying enjoying the fruits of your labor and with cooking you can get that satisfaction every day if you choose.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

This is not an everyone thing: I for one get no satisfaction from it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Hard disagree. The process is fun, and everyone loves to eat, but the cleanup is drudgery at its basest form.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Tidy as you go. Don't see it as a separate task. Tidying up is part of the cooking process.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I need to feel productive. Be it a programming project or woodworking. Just creating something new instead of maintenance like oil changes and mowing the lawn. Creating something new.

Also, take a walk in the forest. Get out on the water. Both are great therapy to disconnect from the mental todo-list of things going on around the house.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I'm a huge advocate of gardening. It gets you outdoors and active, gives a sense of achievement, you learn and improve over time, it's popular enough that you can get involved in a community, if you're growing veg it promotes healthy eating.

It should be mandatory.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yoga/mobility/flexibility of some sort. Counteract the repetitive, static positions many of us hold during work hours.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Weightlifting has done wonders for mine. I don't even go super hard with it, just an adjustable dumbell set and bench at home a few times a week.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago

talking to people. friends, strangers, idc. people seem too stiff these days and i think it keeps people lonely.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Daily walks are so simple but getting out does wonders

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

It depends a lot on the person, but it always does me good to do something tactile after working all day on a computer. Cooking, baking, sketching, woodworking, Legos, hiking, that kind of thing. I've noticed it really helps me ground and be mindful.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

Cooking and working out. Proper nutrition and taking care of your body make a huge difference, along with reading.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I'd say anything creative, something which pushes the mind to focus on generating new ideas instead of just running through the same old ones - this worked for me, at least, as rumination and catastrophising have been stapled to my noggin my entire life.

To be more specific, painting, building stuff with Legos, drawing, writing poetry, composing songs, whittling, woodworking, stuff like that.

Another important aspect (at least from personal experience, ymmv) is keeping the hobby a hobby - what I mean by this is not falling into the trap of perfectionism or productivity with it, keeping it light and fun. I now strongly believe that the brain needs something "inconsequential" on which to chew if only to remind it that not every stimulus it receives is do-or-die.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Whatever hobby you enjoy, avoid its online community as much as possible. It's a great way to see negativity and arguing, which we all know constant negativity and discourse is fantastic for our collective mental health.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

It's also a good way to never actually getting the ball rolling on a new hobby, and instead obsessively research what the "correct" way of doing xyz is and then be too overwhelmed by all the opinions to actually get started yourself.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Lets all try beekeeping, it will teach you to:

  • look
  • observe
  • think
  • take your time
  • gets you out doors
  • and gets food for the table
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Disc golf is the sport for nerdy kids who never liked sports. And even if you're absolutely terrible, you get to take a nice walk in the park or the woods. Most courses are free to play, and you really only need one disc to have a good time. Strongly recommend for those who know they aren't active enough but have no interest in going to the gym.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Making the absolute best possible pizza you can, it's an obsession and sometimes it's actively stressful which you'd think would be bad for mental health but it's just the right level of stress and frustration and reward and relaxation and well, pizza, that it's something that the more I get in to it the more even the most unnecessary extra effort to get only the slightest improvement of the texture or the taste will seem worth it. I also really love trying to emulate ones that I've had and loved so there's kind of an end goal in so far as I can test if I think I've replicated or exceeded a standard I've set from my favourite pizza place. Doing it this way also opens you up to all the different existing styles you can try and then try to recreate. You could also invent your own if you're creative enough. You can spend big on fun equipment but you don't even have to because part of the fun is figuring out the smartest ways to achieve similarity of results with the resources at your disposal. I like making lots of notes to try something subtly different next time.

Whatever else is going on, I'm always in that zone when making pizza. The only problem with it is that it's a bit impractical. The best pizza tends to be at least a 24 hour long affair with dough made in the morning ready for that night so when you're super busy at work it's not easy to fit a good pizza day in there with all the effort and mess involved but when you can, all feels right with the world.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

There's not gonna be a proper answer that applies to everyone. For myself, riding BMX flatland, riding unicycles, carving wood, learning survival skills, keeping time..

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Check my username. I've been partly obsessed with keeping accurate track of time since I learned to read an analog clock at age 9.

By age 12, I started learning the exact times of the school bells. By age 15, I learned how to rebuild digital watches, and even replace the quartz crystal with a more accurate one.

By age 17 I was rebuilding mechanical self-winding wristwatches, and also learning to overclock computers.

Edit: For extra clarity, I also now know how to tune the firing order on an ICE engine, no matter how many cylinders. I also know how to time a VCR and tune a guitar.

I'm 42 years old now.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Sounds like you should pursue a career at NIST so your hobby can align with a profession. They're all about keeping track of time to extreme precision with atomic and optical clocks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

I saved your comment to respond later once I got my words together.

I really appreciate your comment, seriously. But I never thought of it as a hobby, I thought of it as an obligation, to understand time, as best as possible anyways.

At age 9, I had just recently gotten my first glasses. I was left home alone for like a half hour, and I just stared at their analog clock. After 5 minutes, counting the ticks and watching the dials, I just understood it. Never even had to ask an adult.

I always thought of it as an obligation of education that I somehow missed before I got glasses.

I never once thought of it as a hobby before you described it that way.

⌚

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Playing an instrument, like a guitar. It's great being able to play, but it takes time to learn it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Bird-watching is very relaxing and surprisingly engaging. You get to know your local birds as individuals with personalities. It's pretty neat.

Slightly more active, but not by much, raising native bees is low effort and it can be enjoyable to watch the bees go about their business in your garden or yard, assuming you have flowers. In fact, once you get the bees, you might become more interested in gardening because you need to get some nice flowers for the bees, naturally.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Strength training has such an incredible impact on your overall wellbeing everyone should incorporate it into their routine as much as possible

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Hobby? I dunno, but habit? Meditation.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

How do you know if you don't have good mental health? I feel fine almost all the time.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

In much the same way that almost no one has perfect physical health, almost no one has perfect mental health.

You don't need to be a complete wreck to be able to benefit from paying attention to your mental wellness.

Eating well, regular exercise, mindfulness, forgiveness, good sleep practices are all worth practicing whether you feel unwell or not.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Chess. I think it's saved my mental health over the last year.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Wax Sealing. You heat up colorful wax in a spoon over a tea light, pour it on a marble slab and then stamp cool designs into it. It is fun to experiment with different mixes, pouring techniques, etc and is very relaxing. Plus, when you are done, you have lots of cool seals. I have a bucket full of them and I like to just sit an go through them.

There is a youtube channel called 'melts' that makes really nice wax sealing videos with no talking.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

If anyone struggles with plenty of ego identification and unhelpful destructive thoughts I recommend meditating. 30-day guest pass https://dynamic.wakingup.com/guestpass/SC13AF7E5

You can also ask a support for a 1 year for free when you ccan't afford it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Cycling has been a massive boon to my health, both mental and otherwise. It's such a fun way to get around, and just so happens to be great exercise in the process.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Photography maybe, you go on walks and travel, forces you to observe the world around you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Jigsaw puzzles. Start with a couple of hundreds of pieces and then go with the ones of thousands. Also gardening, but you need to have a garden or enough space to have plants inside your home.

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