this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2025
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Mental Health

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Looking for hobby ideas that you can immediately do for intense frustration/duress/anger that DON'T involve exercise? Looking for something like physical movement combined with mental engagement. (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by dingus@lemmy.world to c/mentalhealth@lemmy.world
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Hi all. One of my biggest issues is emotional dysregulation.

I have noticed that a big thing is that I don't have any activities that I can do for a prolonged period of time when frustrated. These "calming techniques" like breathing and the 5-4-3-2-1 thing only work for for a minute or so and then I'm back to flipping out. I need it to be both physical AND mental though. Only tackling physical leaves too much time for rumination...and only tackling mental doesn't get out the high energy.

So I think I need something to bridge the gap here between the techniques to immediately and temporarily calm you and when I eventually feel better again.

Here are ideas I DON'T want:

  • Exercise - I find that exercise has never been mentally engaging enough to make me feel better. It actually will often do the opposite of what people say it does. It gives me more time to think and ruminate. Exercise for me will magnify my current emotions, which is beneficial if I am already happy, but absolutely terrible for me if I am already frustrated. Plus if I'm frustrated at like 3am, going outside to exercise is dangerous for me lol.

  • Writing down your feelings - Again, I feel like I'm missing something here. Doing that doesn't make me feel better...it makes me ruminate and focus on the problem more, making me even more upset. And then I'm more inclined to send the thing I wrote to others which can damage relationships or be self destructive.

Positive ideas

  • Canvas painting - I absolutely have NO idea how to do anything artistic...but my thought is that you can angrily let your feelings out and splatter things onto a canvas...and then as you get more calm to morph it into something productive??? Dunno. But I have a screened in patio so I feel like I have the space to both be messy back there and to be able to do it in the middle of the night. I'm wondering if it would be too complicated with all the supplies needed or something though.

  • Video games - Actually seem to work to take my mind off of things, BUT there is no physical aspect to them. When I am physically calmer, they help me to not ruminate...but again I feel like I have a gap period between where I need more physical activity.

Thanks all I know it's long lol.

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[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I throw my headphones on and listen to music while mending my clothing when I get like that. Keeps my hands/mind occupied and is a low stress activity, and my clothes last longer. I wouldn't call it a high energy activity so it may not be what you are looking for. I lift weights when I need to burn off energy and getting a pump going feels good (at least upper body, legs sucks) but you already said exercising doesn't do it for you.

Sometimes I also just root through my materials from old stalled projects and look at things from a different angle occasionally I'll make a breakthrough on something that will get me out of that bad mood.