How do you cope with stress?

[birdgirl73]

My favorite stress-relievers are
1. Exercise, particularly cardiovascular/aerobic workouts
2. Eating right and eating regularly. I often will forget to eat or let it slide, and I do better when I force myself to eat even before I let myself get hungry. Have a pencil sharpener metabolism, too.
3. Sex. It's another type of exercise, but there's nothing like cresting that peak to take care of your stress and that of your partner, too. Solo works fine, too, if you're single.
4. Drinking lots of water
5. Yoga. Try it. It's very relaxing.

I want to learn more about meditation to help me deal with school stress this year. The rest of those techniques above are tried-and-true favorites. The physical techniques like exercise, sex and yoga also help me alleviate depression, which I tend to get during the wintertime, without having to resort to prescribed medicines.

[cannabis campbell]

Thats a pretty hard one Lucky, I mean most people are just gonna go and say the obvious thing "smoke weed" but sometimes its just not as simple at that. Of course we're all going to go through those times in our life where we feel like absolutely nothing is going our way im sure 'everyone' has been there, so I can relate to it I know exactly how you feel mate, Do you have no ambition as of lately because you've just thought "fuck it" or because you just simply dont want to have any? What do you think that the main reason you've been getting stressed is?

The mind is a powerful thing and I dont think its and sort of drugs or vitamins that you need to help you deal with your stress, I think you just need to re-think how you feel about the situation you are in, obviously at the moment you cant get any weed at all so maybe try to keep yourself busy and active, work-out, keep yourself busy with work etc and just spend your time doing the stuff you enjoy, but what is the main reason that you are stressed out do you know? because I know that sometimes you can just get stressed out for no reason at all.

[Matt the Funk]

I gotta agree with CC here too. Lately i've been so stress free and happy its amazing. I've been nice,polite,patient,happy, and stress-free. I stopped giving a fuck about negativity. I'm just trying to be positive, and its working. I really cant explain how great my life is going(even though I could go on about bad shit if Iwanted to) Idon't, and I won't.

[huh]

sleep naked at night

[GraziLovesMary]

Its so effective Im going to say it once more..

Tai Chi and its meditative aspect, QiGong (or Chi Kung as it is alternatively spelled)

Tai Chi has all the same benefits that yoga practitioners get, only its thousands of years older, and will improve absolutely every aspect of your body, mind and spirit. Your life will be easier to manage and you will live longer.

All the times you see the kung fu masters slowly going through martial arts looking forms before a fight.. in highlander when hes on the cliff going through forms before battle.. its all Tai Chi.

Tai Chi, my son, Tai Chi.

[LuckyG]

Yikes, I didn't expect this thread to go on this long! Thanks a million! A lot of the stuff you've suggested I've actually tried in the past 24 hours, so that's great. Laundry list of stuff that helped since my last post:

- It turns out that I forgot/didn't need to masturbate for over a week. After a week orgasms are something else entirely.
- I did something nice for someone. Actually, I took one of the mentally challenged guys I work with for a bike ride. He talks nonstop so the girls who normally work with him needed a break. It was seriously way more fun than smoking a bowl - he just babbled on about the same things over and over, and as annoying as it can probably get I had a real blast. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.
- I did pushups and core strengthening. I've been taking it easy the past few weeks, and the endorphins were very welcome.
- I picked up a book on Tai Chi immediately after the last sentence, as my library was closing soon. :thumbsup:
- The smoker's benches were full for coffee break, so I got to sit close to one of the wonderful women I work with. We were just close, nothing erotic or anything, but that relaxed physical contact does wonders. Now that I think of it, nobody had touched me at all for the previous three months or so. That could be a problem. Oh, and I don't smoke cigs, I just prefer the company of the smokers to the non-smokers.
- Chilled with my dog. She's cool.

Cannabis Campbell: Where is the stress coming from? I don't know - I feel like I'm physically tired, but I have all this emotional energy pent up inside. I need a release point. My mum tends to be busy with her boyfriend and all my friends have moved away or are much too busy with work, so the only two, er, people I can talk to at the moment are myself and my dog.

But there is a lot happening. I'm moving to a townhouse with some friends soon, it's my birthday today and I hate birthdays, I have to get ready for university, I have to get used to city living having been a small-town boy all my life, my mum's boyfriend is moving into this house around the same time that I'm moving out... a whole bunch of big stuff, and a lot of small stuff that doesn't bear mentioning. Having laid that all out, I'm not surprised I'm wound up like a spring.

As far as ambition goes, I've never really had any. I don't like to point fingers at other people for my faults, but my dad was a pretty machine-like uncaring father figure. After my parents separated I had to spend six years deprogramming myself from his way of thinking - in fact, sometimes I'm still finding problems and having to crop them out. One of these problems is that I usually can't take pride in anything I do. If I do a great job, I just brush it off as being "satisfactory" and move on to the next thing, but if I screw up I damn myself for it way too much. And I guess because of this I can't really apply myself to anything I do - it's just not worth the effort anymore. I'm working on fixing this, and I have had a lot of help from some really wonderful people.

I've never really known what I want to do for the future - I don't have any goals, I just would like to be happy. Setting up a medical grow op really appeals to me, but unfortunately the law is against me for now (unless Manitoba changed its views drastically in the last little while without my knowing), so that will have to wait until the risks are lower.

GraziLovesMary: Lots of good advice, thank you - I will be looking into Tai Chi as much as possible in the next little while. It looks rather complex to me at first glance, but hopefully the more I study the better I'll understand and remember.

huh: I do. I also rock it commando-style all day, it's much more comfortable to me, especially in the summer heat.

birdgirl and Matt The Funk: Good advice backing up good advice.

HighTillIDie: I know what you mean about doing things that make you feel sexy. I find that taking a shower, shaving, giving myself a buzz cut, etc. always makes me feel better, even if it's just for the distraction. I've noticed a wierd anti-Samson complex - the longer my hair, the shorter my fuse is. Keeping it short keeps me cool and feeling good.

KingsBlend420: I only drink at weddings and Christmas, since I don't usually like the taste or feel of it, and I know it's bad for me. Video games do make for a great distraction, I've been busting out my old Game Boy and N64 games and going through them again.

Grade A: I ran out of multivitamins last week, but I didn't take them regularly. The only regular vitamin I take is half a tab of B-75, so I guess that makes it B-37.5. And yes, a full breakfast makes for a good day I've found - I just need to wake up earlier so that I'm hungry enough to eat it!


Anyhow, this post was something like three hours, off and on, in the making. I had a great educational discussion about my marijuana use with my mum and her boyfriend partway through, and now I need to go pack. Peace, friends, and thanks for all your suggestions once again.

[mfqr]

I just smoke a bowl!

[MadSativa]

i've been the same way for about a year....i notice when i work out on the regular that i feel a little better.....and even though i LOVE junk food, creams and cheeses, and all that yummy stuff......it really puts me in a shit mood. When i 'clean' foods it helps TREMEDOUSLY. How do you sleep?

deffinitly she hit it on the button, work out and eat right and sleep regularly (what ever that means) I find after hitting the bag and push ups I clear my head a bit however I need to start running or swiming again cause somtimes I need even a harder drain of a workout. Also sleep at least 4 hours a day every day. I have even looked into buying a isolation chamber to speed sleep (their to dam expensive and Im not rich so a bed is all I need for now).

[mfqr]

You know what really takes my stress away? A few nice bong hits!

[LuckyG]

Everyone was gone for the weekend, so I had the house to myself and my dog. I was so busy boxing my stuff, taking care of the dog, working out, visiting my cousin and her boyfriend, cleaning up and double-checking that I had everything packed that I didn't notice that I had totally destressed!

Then my family came home, and within thirty seconds of my mum walking in the door I had to take an Ibuprofen to deal with the shooting pain in my neck and head. She was interrogating and criticizing about every little detail of the weekend, and it drives me nuts when she does that. So I went down to my room, happy to know that independence, an eighth, and relaxation are only a few days away. :thumbsup: