Comment by LeifCarrotson 4 days ago
I like to go for a run or a bike ride.
On a walk, you can still carry and even use a phone, listen to a podcast or music, or have a conversation. When you're doing a workout, you might wear a watch, but otherwise it's a time when you can't really get distracted or interrupted by anything, you just move, observe, and think.
I really identify with the phases and experience you describe above. The act of being engaged as your body moves through them is powerful.
Writer Haruki Murakami, a distance runner, was asked by an interviewer what we thinks about when he runs. Murakami responded that he basically doesn't think of anything. He runs not to think, but to _not_ think. That He runs specifically to create a void. (from his book "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running")
I would also encourage anyone who hasn't experienced this before: find an activity that demands this from you. You will learn a lot about yourself.
On a walk, you can truly take in the details of your surroundings—the kind of details that you would otherwise whizz past on a bike. Two different kinds of paces.
I love both cycling and walking. But cycling is what gave me the best of all.
Riding for 7-8 hours even once a week just gave me a boost that would let me cope with everything that I had to face in daily life, and now after I've diagnosed with ADHD, I realize it was also helped me a lot to keep myself somewhat sorted. It's kinda therapy for me.
It's relaxing, and clams the racing mind so much.
Now I don't get a chance to ride anymore, but I miss it so much. And I feel ADHD affects me more now
I can't really use a phone outside on a sunny day. Even at max brightness the screen is unreadable.
This is excellent advice. Spending 5 hours on a weekend cycling is extremely relaxing, not only because you are intensely using your body, but because you are completely and utterly distracted.
When I cycle, the first twenty kilometers are usually fairly painful: I am tired, I feel my knees, back, and muscles hurt, and am generally uncomfortable. After those twenty kilometers I enter a meditative, gelatinous phase, were I no longer really feel my body. I just ride. This is when I _think_; the same style of thinking I experience when lying, comfortably, in bed.
After maybe 60–90 kilometers (depending on my current fitness level), I enter the pain stage. This is when I start feeling my body again. Believe it or not, this is definitely the most therapeutic stage. This is when I cannot think. My mind stays blank, and I do — in a manner of speaking — nothing.
This lack of thought, meaning lack of stress, of worry, of hectic, etc., is what motivates me to go on 150 or 200 kilometer bike rides. You feel physically refreshed and exhausted. You feel that you were able to think in peace and purely, as well as having been void of all negative, stressful thoughts.
To anyone who has never tried an endurance sport like cycling: I highly recommend it. I started when I was 14, and it was one of the greatest decisions I ever made. It spared me hours of depression, fear, and stress. It also encouraged me to think and meditate in peace. I would not be the person I am today, if it were not for my dear high-school friend who showed me the world of cycling (as well as the world of communism; I owe much to this friend). Thank you.