Handling Anxiety in Stressful Times
Getting your mind off of it helps…
A while ago I wrote about how I use podcasts to help reduce and eliminate my anxiety.
With the current conditions going on globally, I am trying to stay busy or keep my mind occupied. My current podcast player has over 375 episodes in a backlog to listen to, and with the collection of shows I subscribe to, my daily listening is not dropping that noticeably each day.
I know this will be a short read, but here are a list of things I have been doing to help keep my anxiety down.
- Listen to podcasts to keep my mind occupied
- Play mobile video games on my smartphone or tablet to keep my eyes occupied
- The weather has been nice outside, so I have gone on longer walks than usual
- I have also started working on my garden in the back yard, as well as other yard work
- I also have a day job like many, and luckily I can work from home if needed
Here are a few other items I have been thinking of, and a few of these may actually help you earn some some income overtime if you stick with them.
- If you have some books at your house you have never read, maybe now is. a good time to start it. If you need a book, there are several resources that may help. Many cities, counties and states have public libraries. Some of them may offer members to checkout digital books or audiobooks. Plus the Books app on iOS and Kindle on iOS and Android have a selection of classics you can get for free.
- If you have kids and they are home with you, maybe take breaks throughout the day and play outside or a board game that may be collecting dust.
- If you like taking things apart or in general curious how things work, look into software Bug Bounty programs. You can find more about these checking out the sites HackerOne and BugCrowd. With these there are companies that signup for the programs on the various sites and provide details of what they want tested. These sites also have articles, reports, webinars and other training materials to help you get started. I also wrote a short post on Bug Bounty programs.
- Along the topic of learning and maybe making money, take a look at Apple or Android application development. Coding applications for Apple’s devices usually requires having an Apple laptop or desktop, but coding Android applications does not. The AndroidStudio application runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. The developer sites for Apple and Google both have a large abundance of free online training material, and there is also free stuff on YouTube.
Not sure yet, but I am thinking of writing a follow-up article to expand on the topics above.
