This time of year is hard for a large majority of people in a normal year. The season is mostly dark and gray with only bits of sunshine here and there. The times revolve around family and friends and if you have lost your most beloved it can be a heart wrenching time and very hard to stay above the breaking point. Add in this unprecedented year of seclusion and it’s a devastating time for many.
While I can’t give you any help in most of those cases, I can share a few things to fill your days that may help, without you even being aware of it. The hardest part is to start. I’m not talking about exercise or some life change, just things that allow your mind to get a little distracted.
When your hands are busy, your brain shares it’s focus. There are many activities that allow you to ‘space out’ while you are doing them, such as washing and drying dishes or folding clothes. That’s all well and good. You are doing something, right? Yes. You are up and about and not sitting, staring out a window. But you are giving your mind too much time to drift.
The mind needs to solve problems, as it’s a muscle that is continuously working. Like the body it needs to be fed in order to keep the rest of you healthy. Stimulating different parts of the brain through puzzles, knitting, word puzzles, or models gives your mind a small distraction. The hardest part is opening the puzzle box. After that you can let your mind take over in separating the pieces and eventually putting them together.
While part of your brain is able to work on searching for the next piece, the other part of your brain can still wander in space. The more time you give your brain muscle to be stimulated, the better you will feel and you will begin spending more time with the problem solving and less time floating. This will happen without you even knowing it.
Crosswords are difficult because there is much more focus required to solve the word problem, but the ‘find a word’ puzzles are a good distraction. Your mind is working, behind your thoughts, to search out and combine the letters to find the words, all while you are thinking of times past. Eventually the puzzle is done, you feel a bit more accomplished and can start another one or go about something else.
Idle hands leave too much of the brain to it’s own devices. Its a wondrous tool. It can take you places even the best movie makers can’t make up. It can be like a very hyper kid that, without a distraction, can get in to trouble if left unattended.
Starting something when you can’t even decide whether to sit or to stand is the most difficult part. Simply tipping over a jar of coin to separate the nickels from the dimes from the pennies will be a start in pulling your thoughts to something else. Separating large paperclips from small or blue marbles from green. Stimulating areas of your mind in the simplest way can begin to help sweep out the gray.
Take one step, one action and it could lead to two. Perhaps then to three and then four, and before you know it the dark may not be so dreary.
Archery and Camo 