When Distraction is a Good Thing.

[2greys]

Is distraction a curse or a blessing? Not giving full attention to what we should be doing makes us miss deadlines, fail classes, and crash into other drivers. Distraction certainly has a price. Nonetheless, we love our distractions! Social media, spectator sports, movies, books, TV shows, the news, video games - what would we do without them?

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[RoadRunner44]

Very simply put 2greys. and very thought provoking. These so called distractions are part of our lives now and can make life worth living at times. If I have a particularly difficult time healthwise, I'm glad of the distraction of sporting events like tennis. Other times when I'm a bit down, reading or getting involved with art or craft making can help. I admit that one can get carried away and forget time. Fortunately I am usually very aware of time and my commitments and I keep a diary to ensure I remember dates and times of appointments.

So to the first part of your post, I would say our distractions, interests, hobbies, whatever you call them are mainly a blessing. Your post has really made me think and Im sure life would be very bland without these things.

[2greys in reply to RoadRunner44]

Yes, I use distraction therapy a lot, it is a real help when breathing gets difficult to the point of getting anxiety. Working helps no end to get through the day, being distracted, weekends are the worse times and I have to rely on my reliever inhaler a lot more, even though my physical activity is a lot less. Go figure.

[RoadRunner44 in reply to 2greys]

As you say, weekends can be difficult. Theres a comfort with having a routine in place, like your work. Once we are out of routine we have to find ways of dealing with time. Too much time can appear to be endless. Also when one is sitting and supposedly relaxing we are much more aware of our weaknesses, breathing, coughing, thinking. These are the times we can get anxious and need to find things to take our mind off things. If you don't mind me asking, what do you do to fill times like these?

[2greys in reply to RoadRunner44]

Basically surfing the Net for a few hours with washing my work clothes and then a few hours at my local. Then it is time to think about cooking and meals , which I do do a lot of. Sharon is invariably at work with 12 hour days, so meals tend to fall on my shoulders, the Monday before Xmas was the last time she cooked a meal of haggis, tatties and peas. But we also use a slow cooker a lot, throw it all in, in the morning and done by the evening, not exactly hard to do in the week as well.

Pheasant was my last cooking adventure, 3 birds for £10, not easy to cook to perfection as the breast tends to get dry before the legs are cooked through. A little slit in the skin on the top of the breastbone and insert an finger to seperate the skin from the flesh either side first and the insert some butter between the skin and the flesh before covering the breast with some streaky bacon, pot roast for 90 mins and that produces an enormously, different tasty dish. Left overs, with the legs, makes a tasty casserole in the slow cooker the next day.

I engineer food, as well as engineer parts from metal. All in a day's distraction

[RoadRunner44 in reply to 2greys]

Well, cooking can take a lot of skill and patience and together with your surfing certainly fills time. Actually your surfing of the net has has turned up such a lot of useful information for us all. I know it is much appreciated by everyone on the forum.

Your post has encouraged other members to contribute their ideas too. Lots of good suggestions to keep us all distracted.

[SORRELHIPPO]

I use games on my laptop, crosswords both normal and cryptic, Sudoku, reading, research online, (forget things about something I am talking about so look up and remind myself. Anything from the name of a singer to who was the Prime Minister at the time of the abdication. I need to check this, said to a friend I thought it was Baldwin, but think I might be wrong. It does help with pain levels, but total immersion for too long is just my avoiding my existence.

[jmsutt73]

My Titans made it past the Patriots (Brady) last night, and although my husband keeps reminding me that a Wild Card has never won the Super Bowl, I am totally distracted and loving it! Go, Titans!

[joyce74]

Each evening I spend some time playing games on my phone so I won’t nod off too early. It gives me a weekly report telling me how much time I spend on it and how I divide my time re social media, shopping, Health Unlocked etc. Like someone looking over my shoulder spying on me.

[Offcut]

I went on a course over a number of weeks with follow ups to get me off Opioids. My name was put up from my GP. I use mindfulness and distraction and take no Opioids at all now, I will say that the pain I was in on Opiods and now is not a lot different! But I do have a much clearer head ! So I am 100% for this as we do not want a USA opioid disaster that is happening at the moment