Handling Anxiety and Learning to De-Stress 🤹

Last week I shared my journey on learning and building a web app and shifting immediately to building a mobile app without a break!

Of course, I was coerced by my situation to eventually take that 1-week detox break. During that week, I just did what I usually do to relax such as reading a book, listening to a podcast, watching TV, playing with my cats, going for a walk, working out...

Unfortunately none of them worked!

All these activities somehow triggered the anxiety center of my brain, since all of these activities were wired into my daily working life and didn't feel like I was taking a break.

The one thing which did break me out of my anxiety and stress was trying out a new hobby, Cooking!

The main reasons that Cooking as a hobby helped me out were :

• I cooked a long long time ago, like 7 years ago.
• I had to strain the brain's mental capacity to understand the recipe (it was in Finnish) without using the translator.
• I prefer being meticulous with taste, texture and dicing ingredients. Hence, consciously focused on keeping the body posture aligned for performing the meticulous activities.

Overall, picking up Cooking as a hobby after a long time helped me in 2 ways :

1. my wife was happy! 👩

2. my brain thanked me for the mutual benefits! 🧠 💞

Hope this helps someone riding on their infinite anxiety spiral as a self-learner.

Cover image - dish I made as part of the break, "Couscous salad with feta cheese and grilled veggies"

Cheers and have a good one everyone! 🥂