About Thursdays – Stress Relief

So I started searching for some book memes/tags to work on in between my other content and came across this gem. It’s a chance for me as the blogger to get to know you guys better through comments, and for you to get to know me! Unfortunately, it appears that the creator of this meme has stopped posting new topics. But there’s still two year’s worth of topics to write about, so I decided to just start at the top!

 

Stress relief is something that is very important to me, as a sufferer of bipolar disorder and anxiety. Spending time doing the things I enjoy can often be the difference between a good day and a very bad day. Stress relief, for me, also falls under the category of keeping busy. I have much more energy now that I’m on proper medication and I often get very anxious or antsy if I don’t have an outlet for that energy.

As you can probably see, a lot of my stress relief comes from being around the things I love. I do have my own library/office in mine and Josh’s apartment. It’s a magical place for me. Someday I hope to have walls covered in shelves, but that’s a few more books (and probably a real house) away. Reading is a big stress reliever for me – as it is for many of you, I’m sure. But I’m also an aspiring author. I try to work on my novels every day, and it’s the alone time I spend in my library with my laptop and google docs that I enjoy the most. Someday, I hope to read reviews and raves about my own novels.

Blogging has very recently become something I adore. Keeping myself busy here with all of you guys has proved to be really beneficial to my stress levels. I never really had the desire or dedication to keep up with something like this before. Just last night, I nearly doubled my follower count (and friend count) by chatting with other bloggers on one of my favorite facebook groups! It’s so exciting and fun to be able to relate to so many people and have your content read by like-minded friends from all over the world.

As is to be expected, I spend a lot of time with my boyfriend, Josh. When we first started going out two years ago, I wasn’t in the same place mentally as I have been lately. In other words, I hadn’t spiraled out of control yet. Josh was there to watch this all happen over the last two years, and while we’ve had some rough patches (I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, lol) he’s continued to be the kindest, most gentle and understanding person in my life. He’s gotten very good at distracting me from my swings and helping me keep my mood as neutral as possible. When we started dating, I wasn’t a fan of sports in any sense. Over the last two years, he’s gotten me low-key obsessed with basketball and the Sacramento Kings (which are our hometown team – we live about 45 minutes north of Sac). There’s a photo of the two of us above, taken at the home game on Monday.

Something I’m desperately trying to be excited about is going to the gym. It’s proving to be more difficult than I want it to be, but it’s also proven to help me out when I find myself leaning towards an angry swing. Something about pushing myself to exhaustion helps get rid of the anger that I experience from my disorder.

(enjoy the selfie I took solely for the purpose of this post)

Well, that’s it for my first #aboutthursdays! What about you guys? What do you do to relieve stress?

 

PS- here’s the original creator of the original book meme! I changed it up a bit to make it my own. But her blog has a lot of cool stuff on it! Check it out.