Don Salmon
2 min readFeb 3, 2023

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Some more:

(1) Drawing. You don't have to be advanced. I started teaching myself to draw last spring using stick figures! AND - I started doing this WHILE watching netflix (so if you can't go cold turkey, you can keep your mind occupied and be less passive at least while watching - surprise, you don't really miss anything by mixing listening to the show and watching it!

(2) stretching - Jan and I do this to music, but also while watching shows, so it's another in between activity you can do. And again, if you're doing floor stretching and can't see the show, surprise - you're not missing much, if anything

(3) "Journaling" - Jan and I do this together some times; we'll go over the day, maybe find some moment when we had a small conflict and have a chance to talk it through, or some special moment for which we're grateful and thank each other

(4) Learning to use my keyboard or music software. Now, this I suppose is not generalizable, but maybe you can adapt it. As opposed to having to learn something for work, it can be extraordinarily rewarding. Just last night I learned there were totally amazing things I could do with some vocal software I have that I never realized.

(5) If you live in a small or large city (or lucky enough to live in a small town with at least one good cafe) get out and strike up a conversation! It's amazing how, if you're open to it, there's always at least one person who doesn't want to bury themselves in their phone or laptop. It may help to be a kindly old bearded guy (70), but I think anybody can do it if they want to. And if it's midweek and you have a zillion things to do, and driving through town is not a problem, you can just get out for a 30 minute break.

Finally, walking! If you are concerned about safety, just walking around your own street (or driving somewhere well lit) can be enough. Again just 20-30 minutes is a wonderful break from sitting slack jawed in front of your computer or TV!

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Don Salmon
Don Salmon

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