Modern life has so many stresses, that it drives us crazy sometimes. So what is your favorite form of therapy? For me, gardening is a great outlet. Being out in the sunshine, seeing the beautiful colors, textures and shapes. Seeing wildlife and nature. Just getting my hands dirty. It can be hard work, but it is so rewarding. To grow something, to create "life". It does my soul good. For the same reasons, I love hiking. Tennessee has this fantastic state park system, with such varied geology and botany. We have rivers, lakes, waterfalls, cascades, rock caves, rock bridges and other unique rock formations. Meadows, canyons, forests. The scenery is breath-taking and stunning, and the physical nature of hiking is life affirming. I also enjoy creative hobbies, right now, I'm into quilting and drawing. I love beauty - and the idea that I can create something pretty and useful is so positive. Lastly, exercise. While I may not always enjoy it and get the same peaceful, beauty aspect from it - it does make me feel physically better and helps with the depression.
I would go crazy if I did not have some daily therapy to reduce stress and keep me healthy. My way of letting go of stress and refreshing my mind, exercising my body at the same time, is to have a daily walk. For me, the best therapy is simply to go outdoors and walk. I am lucky to live in an island city surrounded by coastline, harbors and creeks. I also have city parks, woodland, common land and quiet streets nearby, where I take regular exercise. There is also a national park within easy reach for longer rambles. Walking briskly, like any other exercise, releases natural chemicals in the brain that make us feel good, so it is natures anti-depressant.
My favorite therapy is taking a break from whatever I'm doing and go outside to walk doing nowhere but letting my steps guide me. I may spend long, long hours walking outside and, by doing this, my mind clears up making me feel more relaxed and with renewed strength or ideas to keep doing it what I left pending before leaving home, even I got back feeling physically tired, what may happen when I go on non-stop walk for 6 to 8 hours.
This is a secret but I will reveal it here for the sake of my integrity. We have 2 housemaids and after dinner when there's nothing more to do, I ask them to massage my feet. It is my nightly ritual. And that's not all. While being massaged, I have my phone and I'm playing with candy crush. It's not a joke, that's true. It relaxes me so the next morning I would wake up refreshed. That's the reason why we have 2 housemaids, aside from doing the house chores, they also pamper me with my needs. In return, they receive a lot of perks that I need not mention here. So, you get a foot spa and you will feel what I feel.
Walking relieves anxiety but for twenty years I have practised Transcendental Meditation. There is no religious commitment, no magic wand, but after giving it a chance the results are great.
Our "releases" are..…….boating/fishing and target shooting. Another "release" can be playing our Wii Game while drinking a Bud Light.
I love to walk as well, but I always take my camera with me because my real therapy is taking landscape photos. I'm no expert but I enjoy it just about more than anything. I'm lucky to live in a pretty rural country area of the south of England, surrounded by traditional cottagey villages , but I'll happily drive miles to different towns and counties to get photos too ,I also travel abroad and take so many of the oceans , mountains and beaches ... My daughter lives in a mountain home on the continent, she has no near neighbours. I visit her as often as I can , which is not as often as I'd like sadly, but perhaps twice a year , her home is just a little piece of heaven, full of peace and tranquillity, and at night no light pollution at all, so the sky is a wonder of a million stars . Further to that she has doggie boarding kennels, and dogs of her own too ( my adored grandfurkids)... and my joy is to spend as much time with her and the animals as I can...
awwwwwww.... how cute is he?... ...and wearing a Beatles Abbey road T-shirt too... it's funny to see that, given that abbey road is just a few miles from here... I'll think of that little cutie now when I drive up that road...
Can't see the image, Lulu. If I copy the address it starts with hotmail. If I link, it starts with outlook and says timeout. I guess it's just me.
A good workout at the gym and then a few minutes in the steam room followed by lunch (if I haven't worked the abs too hard) and a short snooze.
In keeping with Bobby’s post, my physical exercise that I enjoy most is swimming, which I do for an hour when we go to the fitness center each day (or almost every day). I have always loved swimming, but for most of my life, I swam in a lake or river, and not indoors in a pool. However, the pool swimming is good, too, and probably a lot warmer than many of the places that I used to swim. Depending on how long I sit in the hot tub, I swim somewhere between 40-60 laps, which puts me between 1/2-3/4 of a mile, and my average would be 50 laps, which my Apple Watch counts for me. In years past, my favorite form of therapy was either walking (almost always with my dog) or riding on one of my horses. Truly, there is nothing that I miss as much as being able to go on trail rides up into the mountains, but having a horse is out of the realm of possibilities nowadays, so short walks and swimming are what I enjoy best.