Idle hands are the devils playpen, or so the saying goes. In this post I would like to talk about keeping your hands busy; this post is kind of an extension of other posts which talk about fiddling with objects to relieve stress. One talks about stress balls (put link here) and the other talks about Baoding balls.
It’s more of a tip of something you can do when you are stressed more than anything else. I got this idea after I finished my stress ball post. First I tried finding my own stress ball but no luck so far; I think I need to widen my search area. I suppose I could order online but I do not want to do that just yet. Anyway, seeing as I didn’t have a stress ball or a pair of Baoding balls that I could use, I decided to see if there was anything else I could use as a substitute. First I started using an ordinary ball point pen in the office and clicked it over and over; it was oddly satisfying to me being able to click that pen, but I realised that the noise would disturb people so I stopped. Then I tried twirling the pen which worked rather well too, the only problem I faced was that I would drop the pen when I tried a complicated twirl so I stick to simple stuff.
Other things I mess about with are – well anything around me; pens, paper, smartphones, thumb drives, books, note pads, erasers, even screws (it was just lying around so I thought why not?), basically anything that could fit in the palm of my hand. I do avoid dangerous things like pins and knives and things like that though, I want to get less stressed not hurt.
So does keeping your hands busy actually work stress wise? Well it does for me.
How does it work? Well, I think the logic is the same as that for the stress ball and the Baoding balls, basically by fiddling around with things with your hands you are releasing some of the pent up stress energy inside you, and also by keeping your hands busy you are distracting yourself from other thoughts that might stress you out.
A little tip if you are thinking of trying this out for yourself, every person has one object that they fiddle with that will work best for them, for me it was the screw; don’t ask me why, for some reason it works best for me. Try to find that one thing that works best for you, and keep it easily accessible so that you can use it whenever you want, just try to find something that doesn’t make a lot of noise or is bright like a small torch or which can easily catch someone else’s attention; you don’t want to be a nuisance to others. Also try to find something you can use over and over again, not much point if the stress buster is a one-use-and-then-throw type of thing like say bubble wrap; bubble wrap is awesome but once you have popped those bubbles that’s it, you can’t use it again.
Of course the best thing for keeping your hands busy might just be the fidget cube.
The video says that fidgeting might be helpful in more ways than one so why can’t it be good for stress too?
Well that’s it for this post, I hope you liked it and I hope I have given you something new that you can use to cope with stress
Alternative Yoga 