We all have those days where we're on the verge of exploding from either school or work stress. The concept of "me time" is slowly fading with busy schedules and lifestyles that pride constant work over relaxation. But, it's important to relieve stress from time to time before it becomes destructive. My favorite ways to relax are to read a book and go running. What are yours?
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vigorous sex followed by a vigorous swim. never fails.
Personally I love to go the gym around 8pm, then smoke and make food then go to sleep. It gives you some time to not really think about anything else.
.
Good news, if you continue to admit to illegal drug use on the internet, you won't have any pesky job to keep you from your hobby once you graduate.
Fvck you narc
I fly every week.
I've really started to enjoy the flight back on Thursday night. Being able to board the plane first through Sky Priority is really a great perk.
I just put my headphones in and try and listen to a new album or two every flight from beginning to end and use the time to collect my thoughts and reflect. People see business travel as a pain but I try and use the flight home as a few moments of peace where I can just be with my own thoughts. I also enjoy people watching all of the idiots that aren't very good flyers.
I have a slight superiority complex when it comes to flying, it's amazing how many ppl struggle/get incredibly stressed with it.
Don't have the pleasure of business perks normally though!
Totally agree, traveling noobs really crack me up.
On Sunday people will ask me if I've packed and it will be like 1 in the afternoon, complaining that it takes them all day.
It's not difficult, all I need is underwear, socks, 1 extra pair of dress pants, 3 dress shirts, tennis shoes, 1 t-shirt, and jeans or shorts, and then my toiletries. 15 minutes top.
And then there's the people who get to the airport 2 hours early. Nope, never, I get there 45 minutes to 1 hour before my flight leaves. Never once had a close call, even on holidays/major travel days.
Traveling is very simple. Pack, show up on time, fly.
breakfast at bed listening to sippy and garfuckel
Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last
After studying or finishing an exam, I usually read or play video games to burn off any stress. After I come home on the weekends from work, I usually go to the gym to clear my mind. For me personally, having multiple activities to relax has worked out more than having only one outlet.
Get drunk and do pullups on Chaturbate in the nude
During business school interviews:
Interviewer at HBS: Tell me the coolest thing you've done not on this paper (points at resume)
GC: Paid off undergrad tuition by streaming workout sessions and giving bros advice on my extremely popular online channel
Interviewer: Hmm....(thinks to himself) social media background.......this guy could be the next Felix Kjellberg (PewDiePie).....imagine that endowment! (raises head) Sounds good (trying to act unimpressed)
2 months later, letter arrives:
Dear Golden Cinderblock
Congratulations! You have been selected for the MBA Class of 2020 at Harvurd Business School......
Lots of good suggestions in this thread that I would recommend.
However, when I'm truly up with my back against a wall and I need to stop dwelling on stress fast so I can perform, I do meditation.
A great read is "The Inner Game of Tennis" by W. Timothy Gallwey. Deals a lot with how the brain functions mechanically and how the byproduct of unregulated functioning can be useless stress. It also addresses this topic through the lens of a sports trainer, so it's a very anecdotal, short and accessible read, not too heavy on science.
Really, anything that gets your mind off the subject of chewing itself up and self-criticizing is good stress relief, which is why running/vice/reading all work well. But I think meditation, once you're practiced, is a much more direct route that can get you focused fast in a pinch. It also addresses the problem much more directly than running etc. because it teaches you to recognize how you're thinking (as a mechanical process) and how you can intervene in that process to channel it more effectively. In that way, meditation becomes a prophylactic measure against stress whereas running etc. only treat the symptoms of stress.
Massage, even if it's at one of those $1 a minute Chinese places.
Love to go on runs listening to some great music like Eddie Vedder or Explosions in the Sky.
Just got into fly fishing this past year and that's a great way of clearing your head for a few hours. A lot of patience and practice as it is just the river and you.
The gym is my usual go to. Afterwards I always feel much less stressed about pretty much everything going on, and while I'm in the gym I completely forget about things that are causing me stress.
Normally I'll go to workout then watch some sort of documentary or thriller. I usually just try to clear my mind of anything else and at least get some sort of exercise even if it is just fifteen-thirty minutes.
Edging.
Five bong rips and then hitting the hot tub.
Try the sauna too
Don't, if you want kids. If you think of them as little critters though, go ahead, life's too short.
Exercise, meditation and reading.
After a break up years back, I started training for a triathlon. The hours I spent running, swimming and biking allowed me to self reflect on the situation. I had some great epiphanies while training: I stopped self loathing, and found a good direction for my life.
The training now has turned into a pseudo therapy session for me. If I ever feel anxious or "out of balance," I'll do a 5 mile beach run or a long swim. Lots of people think exercise is a chore, I find it a good way to rebalance the scale and find some alone time.
I spend a lot of my time composing music. If you learned an instrument as a kid but quit, it's great to try picking it up again. Not to play in any organized group necessarily but just as a creative outlet by yourself. While there's some amount of creativity involved in the fields people on this forum work in, it's very different from true artistic creativity. Definitely utilizes a part of your brain that goes unused for most people.
What do you play? Keen to pick up piano, it runs in the family but I've never tried it myself.
I play piano and trumpet. Mostly play piano though since I can't play my trumpet in my apartment in nyc haha. I definitely suggest picking it up.
I have not been getting enough playing in. That was one nice thing about being in a band basically had to play. Writing is awesome when you have good energy with someone and comparable skill levels. Nothing beats when you pick a key and start improvising. It is a great way to generate a large amount music that can be used in different songs. However, when drama shows up it can be worse than a bad girlfriend.
Long runs and workouts with some ACDC/Megadeth/Metallica playing
Toss some Maiden, Slayer and In Flames into that mix.
sorry I forgot to post this: Ask your mom
Tanning hides of dead animals. Long meticulous and meditative process. Clears the head.
Alternatively, running would probably work.
I prefer harvesting the animals. However, tanning is something I would not mind learning.
I pick up heavy things and then put them down.
The greater the stress, the heavier the things.
While listening to man in the box I assume?
Obviously
rub n tizzug
A quick nut (keeps the voices at bay) followed by a power nap
I would go for a walk alone and have a cup of tea to relax myself.
well now that i'm in mexico... can't wait for my first visit to the coast: beach, umbrella, warm water, couple cold beers,
when in the city: massage, gym / pool, long walk in the park w/ a jre podcast
Relax?! You're obviously not alpha enough for WSO.
Shooting Pheasants
To chill:
Something active:
walk outside and listen to podcasts heavy lifting + sauna massage
After the gym, go home, make dinner. Pour a nice glass of champagne or wine and read math books. No joke. Wow, compared to others, I sound so lame. I'm 25 yrs old with an infant son. This... changed me, quick. When I go a night without learning something new, I go nuts. So I spend my time learning on my free time.
That actually sounds fun to me. What books do you read? I'm working through Stanley's Algebraic Combo at the moment.
How do you de-stress after 80+ hour work weeks (Originally Posted: 02/12/2018)
How do many of you stay physically healthy after having worked 70+ hours / week for 4-5 years consecutively. Aesthetically, I look fine, but my lifts have all gone to complete shit. I find my body getting destroyed, I think it might be my living conditions + work environment, which I am changing both shortly, but how do you guys manage to stay like your 21 when your obviously not.
This topic is mostly applicable for those in their mid 20s and older.
Also please don't say meditation - when your on a live deal for months on end, your month goes to complete sh1t, unless this is just me. Maybe it's just been me, having staffed on multiple and multiples of deals for a couple of years.
I've come to realize that I love short, fast-paced weekend vacations. Road tripping, switching hotels, scanning for restaurants on tripadvisor. Allows you to maintain a high tempo when you get back to work but with the benefit of lungs full of fresh air, stomach full of nutritious foods and an inspired mind.
No Fap.
At the junior level at least, I find most of the stress is not physical (hours) but mental (dealing with shitty senior bankers and dumb clients). I lifted regularly for about 10 years but since I've been in banking, I prefer to run. Running is better for me because it lets me keep my weight in a manageable range, and lifting is not really ideal for weight management.
After you put on the 1st year 10 lbs, if you just continue your lifting routine, you will just look fat. Also the intensity of running and being able to crank it up in short bursts is better for my stress release imo. If you're like me and tend to bottle your stress, my suggestion would be any high intensity physical activity.
After a bad week, besides exercising, I also like to get really shit faced. Not quite black-out drunk, but I feel like that helps with stress levels too.
wikileaks,
As long as you are doing your best you can do nothing more. I am happy that you are attending the gym even though you have long work hours. In regards to not hitting your lifts, have you thought about changing your gym routine from strength to hypertrophy?
Continue eating clean, working hard at both the office and the gym -- but also find one hobby be it surfing, or an mmorpg computer game and don't penny pinch this hobby. This will take your mind off work.
my .02
Gym in the morning. After a certain point you do have to choose what you want most.
if you work 80hrs a week, sleep 6hrs a day, and it takes an avg 2hrs for shit like teeth brushing/shit/(cold)shower/shave/eating/laundry, that gives you and average of 4.5hrs a day for gym, sex, and studying/side gig. Or getting shitfaced and kicked out of bars while drunk dialing that one hot teacher from high school. If you sit down to establish a good schedule and stick to it, you'll probably see you still waste a ton of time on stupid shit. I wouldn't try to actually cut all the fat, it drove me insane personally, but being mindful of where you actually spend your time vs where you actually spend it can help a lot.
There's a cool chart about this- just make a pie chart of how you want to spend your time, then track and compare to what you really do after a week or two. Revise (there's usually things you forget to plan for the first go-around) and try to stick to it. I had reminders set to remind me when to switch things up because I tend to lose track of time at work.
What relaxes you? (Originally Posted: 02/18/2012)
The slopes
http://www.youtube.com/embed/aIX3ntiTV-g
That's sick
Awesome video, but I don't see how the slopes truly "relax" people. I would think most people go for the rush.
I think it's about getting in the moment. Everything else ceases to exist except for carving lines down the slope. All the bullsh*t evaporates and you're left with the ecstasy of the moment.
For me, it's surfing. It's being out in the water, waiting for the swell, then just dropping in and bombing down your line. Greatest feeling ever
The rush is great, but it's the calm after the rush that you can't beat
getting massaged by your girlfriend
So true. Your girlfriend gives the best massages.
This is the Emo category of WSO
Good topic. For me, it's the little things that count:
That lighting has to give him range blindness. "Oh shit a cliff"
lol, I think that'd be an interesting method of finding your way down a mountain
alcohol
im on the weird part of WSO again.
Liquid.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/shUYURwKFo0
^ how can you relax with all that drums shit going on?
this always helps me mellow out
an endless beach with endless drinks and endless women. relaxed.
Playing bass with good musicians.
Driving with the windows down, music going, not knowing where I'm headed.
From a man, a woman, or a transgender?
chilled music and a cool beer are pretty relaxing..
sth. like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrykKBXVtx8
with sth. like this http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_103/1034155/file/heine…
= perfect to chill out..
Packin a lip and using the spit as lube
How do you Unwind? (Originally Posted: 06/29/2017)
What do you guys like to do after work or on your days off to unwind from grinding so hard at work? I workout and watch Netflix after a long day at work, but maybe there is something much better I can do to relax. Tell me about whether you read Cosmopolitan or Women's Health, what you watch on Netflix, or anything in general that makes you at peace with going to work the next day.
Brazzers
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