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Not having the greatest of days; this made worse by the fact that it isn't anything in my own life, but rather bad luck and a bad year (or set of years) of someone else in my life. Can't really talk to IRL folk about it so. Hi flist. What are your bad day coping mechanisms?
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- Exercise to the point where my sole focus is on how awful the exercise is, rather than on whatever's eating up my brain from within. By the time I'm halfway into a half-hour run, for instance, I'm so intent on getting the run over with that I can't think about much else. Sometimes that works like a brain reset, and the exhaustion makes it easier to sleep later on.
- A long warm-to-hot shower, followed by listening to some kind of quiet, mostly instrumental music in a darkened room.
- Reading something that I know will make me cry, as an emotional vent. For example, the chapters of Little Women that focus on Beth's decline and death and Jo's grieving have helped me get the tears out on more than one occasion, but other works have done the trick as well.
I don't know if any of these will work for you, but they've all helped me a few times.
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Ice cream, rewatching favorite episodes of favorite shows, and running around in a Musou/Dynasty Warriors game slaughtering thousand of dudes with abandon. ^^;;
I hope things get better for you and yours.
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To be honest, what I find most helpful is spending money on "luxuries" (things not necessarily expensive, not planned/necessary to live), like dining outside, buying myself a book, buying a cosmetic&doing some relaxing cosmetic ritual, buying something connected to my hobbies, buying some sort of the food&beverage I love (crème brûlée! or a fancy tea, or white Michaszki :D) buying a service which is based on someone else taking care of you - a visit in the SPA or in the beauty or the hair saloon, dining outside is a type of this, too. Not necessarily anything big, like a new cut or a dye, the smallest, most basic services work for me just as well.
Giving some amounts to the charity - or helping someone in rl, phoning a lonely relative, helping an older neighbour etc. - helps me, too.
I also like going to the market right next to my flat, because it's exactly this level of the relationship I crave in such moments - shop owners and cashiers don't know my intimate life or even my surname, but they know me as their customer, they all know and love my dog, they know what I like, and we can talk about little or big things without the feeling that we're really exposing ourselves, because we don't really know-know each other. It always gives me warm and fuzzy feeling of being a part of a community and being cared about.
Oh, and I can always bury myself in fandom things, this is the cheapest option. ;) If I focus on "I have to do X and Y fandom thing", I can push the real life problems out of my mind, for some time.
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Similar to some that have been mentioned:
- Watching TV or reading books that are either super sweet and comforting OR super harrowing and grimdark. The first is, well, comforting; the second gives me an intense emotional experience that is completely fictional to distract me from Real Life.
- Retail therapy, especially if I can find something really cheap ($10 range) but happy-making. For me that might mean a book, or stickers, or a bookmark, or a pin, or a perfume sample. For you that might look like something else.
- Going for a walk, especially at night when it's cooler (I realize I don't know anything about your climate/neighborhood). There's something about the darkness and quiet and coolness that help relax me.
- Taking a bath, especially with Luxury Bath Products. I don't do this often but it's very nice when I do. (We actually have a hot tub with jets, which is not why we bought this house but hey, might as well enjoy it since we have it.)
- Aromatherapy or perfumes. I am really sensitive to smells, and that includes great smells; I am a BPAL addict for a reason.
- I, um. Keep a yaoi doujinshi collection for when I have privacy and really just need to escape. (Yes, my husband knows about it. He finds the collection very amusing.) Insert smut/fic of choice here.
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My friends-and-family Slack has an #iso_sympathy channel and a #rants channel and I use them as needed. The first is a strictly advice-free space and the second is an ask-before-offering-advice space, which is lovely to have established up front so I don't have to worry about someone butting in with suggestions before I'm ready.
Beyond that:
- Hit the SOS button on the Headspace app and do a three-minute chill-out session.
- Comfort food.
- Comfort rereading.
- Take a walk, ideally in a park or near a body of water.
- Help someone else with their problems; it helps me feel less helpless, and puts my own woes in perspective.
- Order-from-chaos things: do dishes, fold laundry, tidy the dining table. This is especially good for times when I need to feel like I'm in control of something. (And is less self-destructive than my habit of staying up for 20+ hours to demonstrate that I at least have control over my body and schedule.)
- Play a mind-numbing phone game.
- Sleep.
I hope you can find something that helps you feel a little better, and I also hope things improve soon for your person.
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for me it's mostly walking, if the weather is nice. just picking a random destination and walking until i walk the tension out, and then stopping somewhere pretty to eat. meditating. re-reading old comfortable fics. petting cats.
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Good food, including something sweet, ideally something baked. If I have the time to cook/bake myself, even better.
When available: sitting outside and soaking in sunshine for a while.