What I've been ...

[wellinghall]

Watching:
- The Shooting Party on BBC2
- The General, with Buster Keaton

Reading:
- The Cruel Sea, by Nicholas Monsarrat
- bits and pieces of Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold, Thrones and Dominations by Dorothy L Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh, and several other books - I'm finding it difficult to settle to anything at the moment

Listening to:
- The Greatest Rock Album in the World Ever, Vol 2

Buying:
- sherry, port and madeira for the moot

Doing:
- getting stressed at work - there are (confidential) Developments, which will be making my job more, er, interesting
- fretting about things - does anyone have any good tips for calming oneself down?

Comments

[estiel.livejournal.com]

At the risk of sounding utterly mundane, do you meditate? It really can be effective.

There really is a tone of tension, the anxiety type, in your post. If this is something you can do something about, and you know it, release from anxiety will come only when you do it. If it's something you can do nothing about, *reason* will calm the intellect. It will not, however, calm the emotion (or the spirit). For that, you can try meditation.

Just fyi, here is a procedure:
You need a mantra. All forms of meditation require it. Transcendental Meditation traditionally assigns a "private" mantra, which turns out to be universal: ohm. A Christian might use Je-sus. The first syllable on inhalation and the second on exhalation.
Sit in a comfortable chair, erect but comfortable, with your feet on the floor and your arms relaxed on the chair arms. If necessary, relax your body by degrees, beginning with the ankles and working upward to the neck. Eyes closed, room dark, absolute silence. Breathe from the diaphragm (not the chest). Whenever a thought or image or sound or anything at all appears, remove it by replacing your focus on your mantra. Keep your breathing and your mantra together. Do this for twenty minutes. This will seem like forever the first time. It does take practice. The greater the difficulty, the more you know how badly you need the silence. Eventually, the mantra itself disappears and utter stillness reigns. It can be better than 8 hours of sleep. If practiced regularly, it can change things--not your life, but your living. It's better than drugs or alcohol.