Distraction Techniques

[AngelFace]

Knitting and reading I find are wonderful time-wasters

[Janelle]

I have found that FB and chatting at times helps to distract me. Mostly though as of lately, I have been using my beading to help. Its calming and fun. It also makes me feel like I have accomplished something.

[Rosebud]

Coloring. It's a soothing and repetitive activity for me.

[Alan]

One for helping you calm down, that will give you a few moments of solid concentration on something else, is to learn to juggle. The Japanese believe that only the Samurai have the skill it takes to juggle. It takes 100% concentration, so if you feel yourself "loosing it" it can be a great way to distract yourself for five minutes. Several years ago I worked with homeless people. I taught many of them to juggle so that I could use it when they got frustrated and angry.

If you want to learn start with one ball. Throw it from one hand to the other and back, in an ark that peaks in front of your eyes. Watch the top of the arc and learn to catch the ball without watching it into your hand. Then go to two balls. Throw the first from one hand, when it is just past the apex of its arc throw the second in a mirror arc of the first. Practice this until you can throw and catch repeatedly. Then introduce the third ball, As ball 1 starts to fall, just past its apex throw ball two from the other hand. As ball two starts to fall throw ball three from the first hand. It will take you a while but it isn't hugely difficult. Once you get this going there will be no stopping you. Heavier balls can be thrown higher which slows the process down. That technique is called a "3 Ball Cascade". Odd numbers are all juggled on this principal. Even numbers are a different technique (two per hand). If you practice the goal is more than 12. No one has ever been able to juggle more than 12 items.

Cheers,
A.

[Wendy]

I watch foreign TV shows with English titles that force me to pay attention to what I am looking at. Keeps my mind from wandering into dangerous places. Binge foods help a little, but the end result makes me feel worse so I try not to go that way. Arts and crafts really help show me what I am feeling, and I have all kinds of mediums that I mix and match at whim

[Fay]

I enjoy cooking and running the dogs.
Recently, I have become obsessed with minesweep and spider solitair!! I can concentrate on that and stop worrying about other things.

[Netsuke]

It really depends on how down I'm feeling sometimes the things I think will be hard to face and make me feel worse actually do the opposite. For example I was sitting watching tv with my flat mate feeling secretly terrible.. Then he said everyone's coming round to watch the football soon.. I was dreading it thinking I'm going to be an anxious mess but actuality the opposite happened.. We had a gd laugh and my mood completly lifted.

[Dave Baird]

Some very interesting suggestions here, although I was a bit taken aback by the judgemental replies regarding porn as a distraction. It doesn't work for me, but the last thing I would do is impose my opinion on someone else who does find it useful as a tool. I left Facebook because there were too many negative downsides (for me). I own over twenty guitars and have hardly been able to pick one up in the last five years. I have a dog who is lucky if he gets out for a walk more than once or twice a week. I can't concentrate long enough to read a menu in McDonalds, let alone a book or magazine. Being around people works for a very short period - it doesn't take much to send me into either stress or anxiety around people, and even in the midst of a huge crowd, I am still alone and lonely, as well as stressed and anxious. The very thought of turning every activity as therapy, and evaluating it as such is incredibly depressing. Maybe I am really just a lost cause, after all.

[ollie1]

Sydney,
lmfao, thought i hit booze to drown sorrows and the bad music i was playing, am male and single so porn goes with out saying lol, keep on rockin in the free world : )

[ollie1]

I was in work and thought of sydney's earlier post made me laugh again, Distraction techniques for males beer, porn and music lol