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Honestly, how come life causes us so much stress at times.  When you just really want to get up, go and do your thing, maybe the gym, Uni, work, whatever, come home and chill out, BUT, your mind is going at a million miles an hour, full of stressful ‘stuff’, all the time.

Stuff you are processing, no matter if it’s good or bad ‘stuff’.  Sometimes your mind just will not keep still!   Do you ever get that?  I get it a lot.

Helpful Advice – Nope!

We hear a lot of helpful advice, such as practicing mindfulness, sadly, my mind is so full, I have no room to practice anything really!   I sometimes also get what they call an ‘ear worm’, that’s when you just hear a piece of music, or a song, whirl round in your head all day long, on repeat, as if the needle has got stuck on the long-playing record….or maybe that be when your online music starts buffering at the same point, over and over…..

I’ve tried a few things, in an attempt to focus on just one thing at a time. Like reading a proper book, not just flicking through a magazine, but I found I’d be reading the same page over and over and not actually taking any of it in.

I think it’s a lack of concentration that is the problem.  If you have to concentrate on something, then you become more focused and the other annoying stuff, such as stress, gets shut out for a while.

This did help!

One thing I’ve found that has helped, and not what I was expecting at all, is a spot of online gaming.  And I don’t mean using your assault rifle on Fortnite or building your ultimate team on Fifa!

I like to think I’m a bit of a word nerd, and I found this one ticked the boxes to stop my mind from going all over the place, AND, it presented me with a bit of a challenge as well. It’s like Scrabble, but with no waiting 10 minutes for your friend to make their next move!

You get 5 minutes to make as many words as you can from the letters that drop down across the screen There’s some plinkety plonk music, and the scores on the doors at the end of each 5 minutes. It becomes a cross between beating the clock and beating your own previous score.

I was really focused, and I found it strangely absorbing and engaging.  I find I have to limit myself, or I could probably lose an hour or two of my life, but trust me, it kind of stops all that other stressy business creeping into your head.

I totally get that online gaming means different things to different people. But if you’ve got head spin going on, and can’t find a way to just focus on one thing without other thoughts distracting you, then give this a go.

It might not turn you into Mastermind, but it definitely will ease your troubled mind.

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