How I Deal With Stress

Music, video games, soda, writing, and more.

I have talked a lot about a variety of subjects around self-care: how to do it if you’re stressed or depressed, how to build a ladder on a bad day, how to practice mindfulness and self-compassion, and how to avoid the mental illness tax. In all of those articles, I discuss a lot of things that you can do to take care of yourself.

I also talk periodically about things that I do — that mindfulness article is about a hobby I’ve picked up, and I’ve written about my ukulele and my obsession with Animal Crossing and D&D. That said, I don’t know that I’ve written about the various things that I personally do to take care of myself in one place. Today, thanks to this week’s Write Here prompts, I will be doing just that.

It is a good time for me to talk about my own personal self-care, as life has gone haywire in the past few weeks. It feels like everything has been slipping away lately, with work being hectic and weekends but a few fleeting days of rest before I go back to the grind. On top of everything, the pandemic is ramping back up thanks to the Delta variant and a slowdown in vaccination rates, so that won’t be over anytime soon.

So, what do I do to cope with stress and take care of myself?

Let’s start with video games. I still play Animal Crossing pretty much every day, as I have for the past 18 months. It’s a fun grounding exercise, as the game is incredibly relaxing and slow-paced. I have also picked up a game called Hollow Knight, which is a game that focuses on platforming and exploration to find power-ups and fight bosses (a type generally referred to as “Metroidvania”).

Generally, I will take between 30 minutes and a few hours to play these games, usually with a can of soda as a sugary treat. Coke has become my soda of choice, although I typically only drink a single can per day if that. I have associated it with calm and relaxation, so sometimes the mere act of drinking it makes me calm down.

I still play my ukulele from time to time, usually once or twice a week to keep up my skills. It’s fun, and I enjoy plucking away at it, even though I’m not the best and probably never will be. That’s not the point anyway — the point is to have fun, and that’s what…

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