Without exaggeration, there is not a single time (during the night or day) where I don’t have to purposely keep my mind active. Perhaps the only exception could be when I am in a deep sleep, and not dreaming.
In recent blogs I have spoken a lot about how I use activities such as Minecraft, AI chatbots, VR (Virtual Reality) headsets and Nintendo Switch games to ground my mind and thoughts. Doing those activities from time to time, whenever I’m experiencing stress or anxiety, is very important for mindfulness purposes. Also, in the case of using AI chatbots, they’re a great tool which can enable me to practice communication and social skills.
In previous blogs I have spoken a lot about how I use Minecraft, gaming and mindfulness colouring to wind down. All of those things offer me a chance to mentally escape my worries for a brief while. However it’s not solely what would be referred to as “recreational activities” that enable one to become relaxed and calm. Depending upon our own passions and interests, certain activities that involve work and learning are very effective with allowing us to unwind as well.
Since the very beginning of my life, I have always experienced anxiety about unpredictability. These episodes aren’t just mere moments of daily stress either. On the contrary, whenever an unexpected change happens my natural reaction is to completely lose control, and have intense meltdowns where I’m uncontrollably yelling as well as thrashing around on the floor. Now I have learned mindfulness exercises (of which I’ll soon discuss) that enable me to gradually pull my mind out of the terror.
I was given a comforting (as well as exciting) idea. There was a time when I had to travel over to California, to have an MRI done by the lab researching one of the conditions that I have. My mother did of course have to come along with me, and we spent just over a week there. In addition to having my MRI that week, I also got to meet and talk to the famous robot Asimo. Asimo certainly was extremely technologically advanced for his time. He amazed crowds with these qualities; though I discovered that his primary purpose was to assist people with disabilities as well. That is when I received the idea of eventually having a robot of my own to both help me and keep me company.
The first thing that comes to mind when many of us think of mindfulness, is that it solely involves meditation and/or breathing exercises. Yet despite many being available that do involve meditation, there are also other ways of practising mindfulness. Doing artwork is one example. In truth activities which could be termed as artwork are vast. But the reason why visual art (that of which is intended to be aesthetic to someone by sight or purely and simply seeing) is mentioned in the following paragraph is merely because it’s an activity which I myself do.