This is a guest article and sponsored post by Sara Davis. Enjoy!

Look up ways to calm yourself or teach yourself meditation these days and I can almost guarantee you some of the first results that come up will be meditation apps.

Programs like “Calm” and “Headspace” have gotten wildly popular in recent years (Calm even won Apple’s app of the year in 2017), and they deserve it. They’re very peaceful programs that, in their own respective ways, remind us to press pause and catch our breath now and again.

But if you look deeper, these apps point out a basic, sad truth: people today are desperate for ways to calm down.

I can’t claim to be an expert in staying perfectly calm, or even in meditation. Like most of you, I’m going 100 miles per hour most of the time, keeping up with everyday life, multitasking when I should be relaxing, and turning to comfort food for stress relief more often than I ought to.

We’re all human. That said, I’ve also tried all sorts of tricks to calm down and, as they say, “center myself,” and while this is the furthest thing from a scientifically gathered set of results, I have some ideas to pass along.

1) Stretch For An Entire Movie

Physical activity is known to reduce stress (as we all know), and stretching should is essential. Simply put, when you are under stress, your muscles grow tense, and it’s literally a matter of stretching them out to feel, physically, more relaxed. Meanwhile, a favorite movie playing at the same time will enhance the entire experience.

I decided to tap into the depths of my genius and do a little one-plus-one work, combining the two activities, and now it’s something I’ll do on occasion.

Yes, I guess it’s still multitasking, dividing focus, etc., and I suspect a professional might say those are bad things. But as far as I’m concerned there’s a benefit in 100-plus minutes of stretching with an awesome movie on.

Besides, it's not like both tasks are difficult!

2) Go For A Cocktail Walk

Let me give the obvious disclaimer right off the bat: open container laws vary from one place to another, and public intoxication is a problem.

I am not proposing you haul a mini-keg into a public square and go to town. Instead, I’m suggesting ambling around your neighborhood with a glass of wine or a pint of beer. If open container laws are lenient, you may even extend the walk to the park. Whatever the specific scenario, it’s just a relaxing thing to do.

I got the idea when I saw a woman walking a dog the size of a large goldfish and sipping a bottle of wine as she went. Now, my own hippo-sized shepherd mix would undoubtedly tug and cause me to drop a glass, but I’ve tried this without the dog in the equation and found it almost oddly calming.

3) Literally Just Scream

I don’t mean to sound unhinged with this one. But if you’re familiar with the film I Love You Man you might get the idea.

In case you’re not, much of the movie is about two friends named Sydney (Jason Segel) and Peter (Paul Rudd), and Sydney’s quest to get Peter to relax and be more comfortable with himself. In one scene, Sydney takes Paul beneath a pier on the beach and challenges him to scream at the top of his lungs, just to let it all out. Peter gets the hang of it after a minute, and claims to feel much better. My important tip here is not to do this in a public space. Beyond that though, it actually kind of works.

4) Play A Repetitive Game

Gaming in general can be a relaxing activity. I’ve found repetitive games particularly helpful for what I suspect is the simple psychological explanation that they lull you into a state of indifference. For me this mostly means Paper.io 2 or Temple Run (yeah I still play Temple Run, back off.)

That said there are lots of other options. Puzzle-like games tend to be very repetitive and are all over the place. Slot machines in arcade form are some of the most pleasantly monotonous games on the planet, and you can find them for free now such that you don’t have to play for real money if you’re just looking to relax. Really, it just comes down to what kind of game you like, so long as it has any sort of lulling effect. My professional opinion: it’s good to be lulled.

5) Get Super Dirty, And Then Shower Thoroughly

Sometimes the most relaxing thing you can do for yourself is to act like a kid.

By this I mean go get really dirty with absolutely no regard for cleanliness or presentation. Roll around in your back yard. Take a hike through the woods. If it’s raining, to take a slide in the mud. Just do something that forces you to stop caring about silly little concerns such as how you look, how you smell, or what someone else might think. It’s a thoroughly liberating and calming experience. Plus, when you’re done, you do get to shower, and nothing beats a long, hot, thorough shower when you’re really dirty. It’s kind of the best of both worlds, and you come out of it all just like you went into it, but relaxed.

My final, scientific argument: elephants do it, and they seem pretty chill.

Mud Bath Elephant Botswana Badespass

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