[tomashertus]

The thread is full of great answers and advices, but I haven't came across this one:

I was dealing with similar situation like you. I had a hard time to find peace after work at home. I was looking for advices around and once came across an article(I can't find the article) which recommended that you should not stop doing activities which you liked as a child when you are an adult.

When I was thinking about it, that was exactly what I did. I stopped doing things which I enjoyed when I was a kid. I used to play a lot of Age of Empires and loved that and did competitive swimming. So I started with the swimming and it helped me both mentally and physically. After a year or so, I started slipping back to the same routine as before and not even the swimming was helping. I tried to do some research on the Age of Empires thing and installed it to my laptop after 10 years or so. Since then the strategy for me in critical situations is:

1st - Go swimming/biking/running, try to sweat it out. 2nd - If 1. does not work(happens like once in couple of months). Play some freaking Age of Empires for 6+ hours straight 3rd - If 1. and 2. fail, talk with people

Firstly, this sounded really silly to me and I think once I have kinds this won't even be an option, but in my current situation this small hack works pretty well for me.

[davemel37]

James Altucher talks about a similar strategy in numerous places... here is one http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2016/11/ultimate-cheat-sheet-lo...

[tomashertus]

It's very likely that it was one of his posts on Quoara where I found this advice. Thanks for the reference!

[jypepin]

this resonates a lot. I recently moved and now I have the space for a desk at home which allows me to play video games again, which I loved doing at a kid (starcraft, etc) and had to stop doing due to space for 4-5 years.

Now that I picked up video games again, I feel better and it's the best way for me to get my mind off work!

[xerophyte12932]

I feel the same way.

Recently I was facing a lot of escalating work-related stress that was spilling over to my home life. So I invested in a xbox 360 gamepad and started playing a lot of indie games on my laptop.

Best part of my day! Completely takes the stress away and I feel "recovered" when I go back to work the next day.

Random Game Suggestion: Mages of Mysteralia. I love how it lets you craft your own spells like drag-and-drop programming. So it touches TWO of my childhood loves

[tomekowal]

I feel like StarCraft and RTSes in general work really well in this scenario, because they occupy every brain cell available. Concentrating really hard on something non work related totally resets the brain.

[distances]

And as a downside, I need to stop playing well before going to sleep. Trying to sleep right after a multi-hour game session is a surefire way for me to lie awake in bed for a couple of hours.

[abe_duarte]

I do the same, video game sessions are great for refocusing, specially for weekends. Friday night gaming will take my mind off work. Early Saturday exercise allows me to start the weekend well. Given that I can leave your laptop at work, I try to have another computer at home so there is no way for me to access work email. I also snooze all work notifications in my phone. That gives me space to work on my own projects during the weekend and reclaim my mind's focus.

Gaming is just one of the things but an important activity.

[thinkMOAR]

hear hear to all of the above.

However, i suggest to swap talking with people and then go swimming, biking and running. Else the during the first 'part' you will only have your thoughts and opinion resonate in your own head, i think its better to have some more points of views floating around there first.