Under the snow

[mrissa]

What do you do to regenerate when you're feeling low on mental and/or emotional energy? Please be as specific as you can -- if what you mean is just "read," okay, but if what you mean is, "reread A Civil Campaign," I'd rather hear that.

Comments

[gaaneden.livejournal.com]

I rewatch "The Stand" mini-series and "The Night of the Comet".

I reread "The Dark Tower" series, the "Matadora" series or "The Dark is Rising" series.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

If it's really bad, I have been known to take an avoiding-getting-sick day off from work. Stay in bed late, lounge around, comfort food (apt to be tea and popcorn for breakfast), comfort reading (likely Sayers or L.M. Montgomery or E.Nesbit or even Ransome), probably some knitting.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Long shower with soothing music on (usually classical for me), then lying down all fresh and clean reading a good, new book, then put on my most favourite clothes and find something good to eat, after which, clean fed and relaxed I usually play an instrument or read some more or maybe watch one of my favourite tv programmes I've got waiting. Doing chi kung before the shower often helps me find balance too, except on days when I'm likely to fall over :7

[intrepida.livejournal.com]

I make myself chicken and dumpling soup if I feel up to it. If not, I do some light reading (Good Omens) and/or watch silly movies (Super Troopers, Don Juan de Marco). If there's snow and I've got a little energy, I'll go sledding.

I've probably over done it by now, but...

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

...Istart with Memory, and read forward. Something about redemption over the arc - Starting there you get Miles at the lowest, and then move up. I stop with Civil Campaign as DI dosn't really seem to advance Miles any further. (Too, it had't been written when I was going through the divorce, so it didn't become part of the ritual...)

Paladin of Souls works, too - it's still the redemption part, I think. Zelazny's first Amber set used to work, but it's not as clearly uplifting - Sure, Corwin's improved, but...he's still dark. Miles and Ista both get sunnier, somehow.

If I'm pressed for time, there's watching either Notting Hill or Love, Actually.


Sometimes taking time to force myself to be social helps shift gears. I forget I like people & vice versa sometimes when I'm moody.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Naps seem to help.
Meditation is good sometimes
Chi kung.
Exercise
Cuddles.

Funny movies are great when they work, but can sometimes make it worse. I rarely use that one on purpose.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Did you just get the Miles in Love omnibus? (I did. Yes, I already own the books separately. And I need no excuse to read Miles...again...and again...and again...)

Low on mental energy: I do something else. I change whatever it was I was just doing, and I do something else, like take a walk around the office building, or take a bath, or put on my yoga DVD.

Low on physical energy: food or exercise. Baby carrots seem to be good. Oh, and I get a glass of water if I haven't had any recently.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I didn't get the omnibus, no. When I already have good copies of something, I actually prefer not to have omnibuses; the larger volumes tend to be harder on my hands.

And yes, getting a glass of water is rarely a bad idea.

Re: I've probably over done it by now, but...

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

Memory and A Civil Campaign were my two Don't Go Crazy books when my last boyfriend broke up with me. My mantras focused on the bit Aral Vorkosigan tells Miles about being okay with yourself when the rest of the world thinks you're a f---up. (Only Aral puts it more poetically.) And the bit at the end of Memory where Miles says the only thing you can't give up for your heart's desire is your heart. (I didn't read Komarr too much because I didn't want to pitch myself in front of the Muni. Mind you, I love Komarr, but it's more the sort of book you read AFTER you survived.)

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

I often play videogames - something absorbing and not too taxing, like Final Fantasy X or Katamari Damacy.

Weather and physical energy permitting, I often enjoy a walk, with something playing on the iPod. I particularly like it if I have time to just wander around and explore. (Yesterday, I discovered a route that allows me to travel on foot from my house to the stretch of Capitol avenue that has the interesting Vietnamese restaurants and the big shopping mall, without crossing a busy freeway on-ramp. I was terribly excited - I don't really like crossing the freeway onramp on foot, so this has really expanded my pedestrian possibilities.)

A cup of tea and a good book is hard to beat. For many years, I used to reread The Little Prince whenever I was feeling low, but I seem to have mislaid my copy during our last move.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I tend to huddle up by myself and do chores. If I'm lazing around in my pjs, as I tend to in that state, I get up and take a shower and get dressed. I wash dishes or sweep the floor. I take the dog out for a walk. I cook. Feeling tapped out correlates strongly to feeling useless and lumpy, to me, so putting things a bit more in order and accomplishing bite-sized tasks gets me back on my feet.

I watch tv. What, exactly, depends on the schedule. Right now it's House and Survivor. Sometimes it's Big Love, The Amazing Race, Top Chef. I won't go out of my way, if there's not something on that night anyway, but if I feel myself getting low, I'll make a point of giving myself the night off when I know that something I like is on, instead of going out to the stable or whatever and downloading or taping the episode to watch later.

I read. I'm not sure exactly what. I'm not a big rereader and I haven't watched it closely enough to see if I gravitate towards particular types of books. (Sometimes I read slush, but that falls more into the do-chores category.) Maybe more important than the book itself is that I have this bad habit of falling asleep while reading, even if I didn't feel tired to start. Annoying at other times, but useful when what I really need is rest, to let my brain be quiet for a while.

I take the horse out back and walk the trails.

And if I'm really low and if season permits, I put the dog in the car and we go to the beach. The space and the rhythm of the waves is soothing, not precisely energizing, but makes space in my head for energy, when it's ready to come back. I throw stuff for the dog to chase and I watch the gulls and weather permitting I dig my toes into the sand, and I wait.

[pixelfish.livejournal.com]

I just like the convenience of being able to move straight to the next story. Also, did not have a copy of Winterfair Gifts.

But yeah, I can see that about the omnibuses. They're harder to keep out of the water in the tub. :)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

(Oh. I hope for weather, too. Preferably a long, hard rain, but snow or wind will also do.)

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

i used to read Little House - the whole series or wherever i was, or whatever i felt like picking up. Now it's got weird associations though so i have been avoiding it.

[voidmonster.livejournal.com]

When I'm really, really blasted my preferred recovery mode is to shut out the whole world and spend a day or two playing with 3d software.

Not trying to do anything specific, or even using a specific program (though 3d landscape software figures heavily, http://www.world-machine.com being my latest fun toy, especially combined with industrial-strength vegetation rendering like Vue d'Esprit (http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_6_infinite/)). But I go through phases. Sometimes I make landscape renderings, sometimes I do stuff with people, sometimes I take pictures of kitchenware and then add terrible things with paint software. Pretty invariably though, I recharge my brains by doing artstuff. It occasionally even generates something I'd want to show to other people. Often it doesn't, though.

[guppiecat]

1)
I turn off all lights in the house with the single exception of my reading lamp (directed halogen). I sit in my recliner and put on music (in the mode that uses the 5.1 to surround me, so it's non-directional). I sit under a blanket with my two cats on top.

Then, I read a book. The book has to be engaging and intellectually *and* emotionally stimulating. Shear intellectualism doesn't cut it, so the science books stay on the shelf.

Good authors range from the Children's classics (easier to lose yourself in): E Nesbitt, Catherine Coblentz, L Frank Baum, Edward Eager, etc to the more recent authors such as Nina Kirki Hoffman, Charles de Lint, and Ellen Klages.

2)
I go for a hike. The temperature has to be reasonable, and there has to be absolutely nobody around. It's best done in a desert, but since I don't live near one, I will also do prairie walks in the summer. Night-time walks along country roads are also good, but it has to have been a very hot day for the night temperature to be right.

3)
I take the camera and head to the zoo. Simply observing a particular animal for hours a time is amazingly recharging. The big cats are best, but anything sufficiently fuzzy and active works too: lemurs, prairie dogs, wolverines, coyotes, etc.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Showers are definitely good. Showers and comfort food. Music or reading often comes next (nearly always re-reading, and can be Doc Smith or Heinlein or Bujold or Niven/Pournelle or Sayers, mostly). If the weather is exactly right a walk can be good.

Avoiding people tends to be key to this for me, too.

Definitively *not* working on whatever is bothering me is also important.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Reread Jane Austen

Watch the Anne of Green Gables mini series.

Listen to Ralph Vaughn Williams "The Lark Ascending."

Reread Bertie & Jeeves and Psmith.

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

I remind myself that Good Lord! It's the year 2008! It's eight years after the year 2000! And I'm alive! How amazing is that?!

And then I feel better, because I get so caught up in being amazed that it's the 21st Century. And then I remember that we don't have flying cars...

That, and dancing like a loon to horribly catchy 80s tunes helps. It gives me physical energy, which gives me mental energy. :)

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Read whichever of Bujold's Miles books it's been the longest since I've reread, or sometimes just Memory and Civil Campaign, for much the same reasons as Pixelfish above.

Listen to my "Good Stuff" MP3 mix, which consists of pieces that consistently make me smile when they come up on the full song list.

Either cocoon away from all human company, or cuddle with my wife, depending on which I seem to need more. Generally in combination with one of the above, although the cuddling sometimes goes with watching whatever TV series we're currently in the middle of (Buffy, right now).

[shana.livejournal.com]

I reread. Right now I am working my way through Kerry Greenwood's series of mysteries featuring Phryne Fisher. [Set in Australia in 1928.]

Other favorites are Charlotte MacLeod, Roberta Gellis, Nora Roberts (the romances, not the romantic suspense), Mercedes Lackey, and a number of others that I can't think of at the moment.

[pameladean]

It depends on whether I want to get out of that state or to wallow in it.

For the former: drink orange juice, eat chocolate (not with the orange juice), take vitamins, get some kind of exercise, read garden books with lots of pictures in them.

For the latter: reread Sayers, Heyer, or Montgomery's The Blue Castle; read garden books without pictures; complain to sweeties.

P.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

I have a playlist on my iPod that I use when my mood gets low. It's *quite* idosyncratic, and has evolved over the years. Started as a stack of records, remember records? Then a tape, now an MP3 playlist. Probably wouldn't work for anyone else: it starts with "Heroin" by the Velvet Underground. Reminds me of a bad choice NOT made. Includes The Doors "Crystal Ship", same reason, some Moody Blues, Judy Collins, Beatles. Each reminds me of a bad time in my life I managed to get through, one way or another.

Re-reading Sayers or Heyer used to help as well, but I have found I know them too well. I keep old books of anecdotes, compilations by Bennett Cerf and the like. A few pages of those help, but I can only read so much before it becomes tedious.

[oddmonster.livejournal.com]

Wrap up in a sleeping bag with the snorty bulldig and watch a long chain of horror movies until we're both asleep. Fave right now would be "Hatchet", "Urban Legend", "House on Haunted Hill" and "Ghost Ship".

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

If I am not aware of it, I spend hours clicking through the internet wishing for interesting people to write interesting things. If I know what's going on, I head for a book, or at least a big lump-o-words. Cannot be a good book-- no Bujold for me-- because I want sheer escapism. Usually, this means a fantasy romance. They tend not to be great, but that's good. I seem to do best with something engaging, fairly simple, yet not so mindblowing that it will shock me to new heights of low.
I think I need to experiment with this coping strategy, actually. I know that books are necessary; I have felt myself grow steadier within ten pages. But this idea of escapism and not-good-books sort of happened in response to Lymond 4: I finished it, spent a day and a half in whatever state I could be said to be in, and thought, "I want Magic Study. There's an Anne Bishop collection. That'll do." And one of the stories was a nice, simple romance with blood in, and that was what I wanted.
I tend to go for a rest rather than a run, if that makes sense. An engaging rest, but still.