- cross-posted to:
- 2meirl4meirl@lemmy.world
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Relaxing doesn’t have to mean literal relaxation. I find it relaxing from everyday life to ride my bike to exhaustion, which is the complete opposite of “relaxation”
This might be a controversial opinion, but learning how to relax has been the best thing I have done for myself as an AuDHD person (other than getting diagnosed and medicated for ADHD).
Finding activities that work for me (breathwork and movement; edit: also music) for switching from busy to relaxed and back was super important.
And learning how to recognize when I’m about to crash earlier and earlier so I can do something about it.
I also really like the concept of the dopamine dial, where you turn the intensity of dopamine-producing activities up or down depending on what you need.
Careful though, because learning how to relax + executive dysfunction is a recipe for disaster.
Turn on the “relax” lever and then you can’t find the energy to turn it off again because you are in relax mode and that counts as work, like an elevator button to a Jew on Shabbat
If you manage to have executive dysfunction but not worry about it, I think it would be a massive win. You can work your way around it, instead of fighting it and feeling guilty
As long as you can afford to live comfortably
True dat - that’s where the dopamine dial comes in handy, same for those same tools like breathwork in between switching from relaxing to doing.
I’m not going to pretend it’s perfect by any means, but I am better at it now in my 40s than I was in my 30s (only comparing medicated to medicated), so practice helps somewhat.
Yeah if I relax too much, nothing matters and gets done, the alternative is artificial time limits for one thing that somehow helps me do a completely other thing since Im putting off the main thing.
I think the key misunderstanding is in the word “just”. It implies that being relaxed is a state that will happen on its own if you allow it. But in reality for us “to relax” is an action we need to do deliberately.
Yeah, that’s very accurate. We can’t “just” relax.
Learning and practicing cardiac coherence has helped me a ton too. I do 10/15 minutes a day, it’s really nice to reduce anxiety
I pretend/try to open my third eye, suprisingly effective, mostly just works as a distraction. Been obsessed with it since I learned theres a muscle in your brain in that general are some people can twitch. I swear I feel like a flooding in my brain sometimes, idk how else to describe it. Like a comeup.
Yep, I’ve noticed a very common idea around relaxation/meditation, physical exercise as well, is that “I’m just not good at that. I’ve tried ‘everything’ and it’s just not for me”. Well, I can tell you that they haven’t tried everything, not even close, but there is this idea out there that there is only one correct way to do everything. Or the opposite problem - we understand that there are infinite valid ways and suffer from decision fatigue.
Even with meditation in completely silent darkness, you are taught to feel your body, focus on the spot where you’re touching your chair, where your feet touch the ground, feel your breath rise and fall, etc. You’re literally just noticing things, and then letting them pass, that’s all it is. Physical sensations, thoughts, emotions, sensory input. A thought comes up, allow it to float away. Then do the same with the next one. Of course it’s hard at first. You will probably “fail” the first time, or the first hundred. Just like literally everything else, it becomes less hard. But every human brain is capable of this, if not primed for it.
Eventually there will be an empty space between each “thing”, and that space will get larger and larger. Then you realize the “space” itself also has some perceivable quality - it’s not just nothingness. And so on and so forth. That’s when it starts to get fun.
Despite what some self-described “gurus” might claim, you can do meditation anywhere, anytime. Some people find it helpful to be moving. I like to do it while walking.
Uhhh tip: learn to relax before your body decides to teach you. I didn’t and I’m almost a year into a burn-out. Not knowing how to relax is not funny or quirky, it’s a one-way road to severely fucking you brain up.
I was exaggerating for comedic effect.
While I often have difficulty relaxing with my combo of ADHD, anxiety, and (more or less stabilized) bipolar, I DO in fact have a bunch of ways to relax that often work, depending on the situation.
I didn’t need to read about myself like this in a meme-like format …
