Relaxation?

One thing I am not very good at is relaxing. I was brought up with the words of If by Rudyard Kipling, my Dad’s favourite poem. The final verse mentions filling the ‘unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run’ and any time I was guilty of not doing that it was considered an indication of a lack of moral fibre, as the forces might say!

This week I have been forced to relax having gone down with a nasty flu type offshoot and I have hated it. Relaxing takes so much effort that I find it exhausting! 😂😂 For the last couple of days, being unable to do much more than get between rooms slowly(!) I have written two blog posts and am now writing a third. Old habits die hard obviously! So how does someone like me try to change tack after a lifetime of seeing relaxation as a great evil?

Albus

Albus is our cat, and his presence is perhaps the most relaxing constant in my home. When he is on my lap or sitting next to me purring, or demanding food, it puts a lot of other worries out of my head or at least in perspective. Having any type of pet can be incredibly good for your mental health, but a totally chilled out cat like Albus takes relaxation to the next level! 😻😻

My Go to app

The last couple of years have seen me use one app more than any other when I am on the phone and trying to relax. Happy Colour is a simple colour by numbers app that I am pretty obsessed with. Colour by numbers wasn’t something I really enjoyed as a child, because my dyspraxia meant that my fine motor skills – in fact all motor skills – were a weakness of mine. Accordingly, I was guilty of literally going outside the lines. For the Happy Colour app, this is not an issue and I have found it the most useful way to destress. As you may have noticed, a number of the pictures are seen at the top of my blog posts, especially at Christmas. This year, to reflect the app’s effectiveness at relaxing me, I have set myself the target of colouring all 366 daily pictures in 2024.

The magic of the printed word

Reading is a constant in my life, and with really good books I can completely lose myself and all track of time. I wonder if I take it for granted sometimes, because it is part of the tapestry of my life and has been since childhood. On the way to and from work I invariably take my book out and don’t really consider the other option. However, last week I forgot to take a reading book with me, and a one hour journey stretched out in front of me interminably. I hate being on my phone on the train so all I had was The Metro and my own thoughts – the latter always a dangerous road to go down! Suffice to say I was really pleased to find that I had a novel at work for the way home, and I now have a fresh appreciation of the importance of reading for my mental health. I am a fast reader so my TBR pile below is about 3 weeks worth of commuting at most!

Cooking

Sadly, I don’t have anything like enough energy to cook at the moment, but when I do, nothing takes me away from my stresses like preparing a meal from scratch in the kitchen. Now, I know it’s a little bit of the 70s style upbringing coming to the fore again because it’s relaxation with a very clear end product and one that often takes a lot of effort, but it’s the best feeling to cook, or very occasionally bake, from scratch. Below is a rare attempt at baking, since Janet is so much better. It’s a twelfth night cake from Spain called Roscon de Reyes. Though I say it myself, it was pretty good!

Jigsaw Puzzles

Anyone who follows me on Instagram will know that puzzles were something I picked up during Lockdown and never got bored with. Most weekends Janet and I tackle a puzzle of some kind and once it is finished, I post a picture of it on Instagram! It’s something I never enjoyed as a kid, because I couldn’t really see the pictures. Now, however I am a dab hand at people, writing and animals! Sky, sea and buildings are Janet’s forte so we have very well matched skill sets. This year we got no fewer than 7 new puzzles to go with the 5 we still haven’t started, so weekends look quite well catered for, for the foreseeable future!

Final Thoughts

So, there you have it. My five main ways to relax and all but Albus involve an end product of some sort, so you could argue that I am cheating a little, but without them I would have far more trouble with calming my racing brain than I do. Do any of these make their way onto your own list? If not, what do you like to do to relax? Let me know in the comments and I hope you enjoyed this article. Maybe you even found it a relaxing read!