What are your favorite habits (things you can do regularly) to relax or enjoy in your free time that don’t involve a smartphone or computer?
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board games, sports, walks
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What board games can you recommend?
Also, what type of sport do you enjoy?
Reading, gym, card games. Those are from top of my head that I do often.
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What type of card games? With whom do you play them?
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Yu-gi-oh! mainly. and there’s a comic shop which hosts events etc.
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I have friends who are heavily into board games. But not simple ones but like star wars, lord of the rings, Warhammer 40.000, Terraforming Mars, Dune, etc.
for example
Working out, bike.
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Working out, martial arts, reading, walks, and just started incorporating swimming.
One of the most relaxing things I find myself having to force myself to do but has high ROI is taking quiet time. Sitting, or laying, and not doing a damn thing. Not even trying to meditate. Literally just being quiet… around 20 minutes or so is surprisingly refreshing. Protip: elevate your feet and lay on the floor if you want to experience some back relaxation magic.
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Habits… some of these extracted from the Andrew Huberman podcast for optimal health and functioning.
- Watch sunrise and sunset every night. This will help you sleep.
- Go for an extremely light exercise session before work… I do a walk with maybe some jogging mixed in, depending on how energized I feel. Hard exercise can decrease cognitive capacity, not best to do right before work.
- I like to go for cold water exposure. I cold shower sometimes, sometimes I go to a sauna house and jump in the cold water, and some times I meet my friends on saturday mornings and we all jump into an extremely cold lake.
- I go to the sauna maybe once a week, I love it. I know it’s healthy and good for me, it’s relaxing, and it’s an act of mental toughness. Plus, if I go to the gym sauna instead of the sauna house, I can do a workout, and sauna, and swim all in one day.
- Stretch each muscle group of my body for 2-4 sets of 30 seconds per muscle group, every day. I do this before bed. It ends up being 20-30 minutes of stretching.
- Study a language… I use Duolingo to study Arabic, which involves a screen, but after being introduced to each word by duolingo, I add it to a flash card, and study the deck of flash cards rather than use the screen. Studying a language improves mental capacity, flexibility, adaptability, and apparently even your ability to multi-task
- Long walks… these do EVERYTHING for your overall success. Mental health, physical health, physical flexibility, coordination improvement, focus improvement, organ health improvement, mindfulness improvement, emotional stability improvement, sleep improvement, the list goes on… getting into a habit of walking either an hour before work or an hour in the evening each day is life-changing. At my peak, I walk an hour in the morning AND evening, and the results I experience in my life are crazy good. I was doing this habit when I tripled my income alongside EOG.
- I go to a boxing class.
- Board games with friends… WHICH games aren’t so important. Depending on what country you’re in, the local games will differ. In Canada/US, some of my favorites are Dominion, Splendor, Chess, Pandemic, Cards against humanity, and maybe some others… it doesn’t matter, all that matters is having fun with friends
- If you play chess, get a tactics book, or an opening book, or any book, and study it. If you’re a beginner and want to explore chess a bit but don’t know much about it, buy “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess.”
- Sometimes on the weekends I’ll want to do something but not really have anything to do, so I’ll just bring a book and a journal to a coffee shop, and then read, write, people watch.
- People watching deserves it’s own category. Sometimes I like to walk around the mall just to see who’s there. Bonus points for you if you talk to anyone you find cute.
- Solo physical activities/sports that you can improve at on your own make good hobbies. Maybe you want to learn juggling… I did that for a bit and it’s real fun. Maybe you want to learn better balance and one day be able to do a headstand or 1 legged squat or something. Things that have a clear pass/fail, you can either do them or can’t, are fun to learn. For example with juggling, there’s 100’s of tricks to learn. There’s being able to do the trick at all, and then there’s also being able to do the trick an increasing amount of times. Some people dedicate their life to that, lol!
- Meditating.
Some of these things I don’t consider hobbies, but entire secondary pursuits. I don’t juggle anymore, but it’s a good example. You don’t just “juggle for fun” every once in a blue moon. That’s not a habit. A habit is something you do consistently. The habit is practicing juggling, because the goal is getting good at juggling.
The easiest habits to form are habits that correspond with your goals.
Your main habit will either be work or school because that’s what you do full-time. But then there’s that “free time” you mentioned. Some people don’t have secondary pursuits, so outside of full-time, they only have “free-time.”
But people with secondary pursuits accomplish their other goals in their “free time.”
Focused on health? Go for walks, maybe start a diet and have your hobby be cooking for yourself.
Focused on mental health? Go for walks, meditate, and read books in your free time.
Focused on fitness? Workout.
Focused on learning a skill like language, juggling, balance, writing, etc.? Do that in your spare time.
The question you shouldn’t be asking isn’t “What should I do in my free time?” But it’s “Given all this spare time I have, but extra energy and ambition, what can I focus on that will add spice to my life, without distracting from my main goal, aka work/school.”
I’m sure that part of why you want screen-free hobbies is because you want to unwind from school. So you’re looking for alternate activities that support your main goal while still giving you something extra.
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Reading, walking (I live in an area with tons of trails, green space and parks), and woodworking… though I’ve not done many woodworking projects yet this year - no time lol.
And soon… back to going to the gym.
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Going out for a walk, card games, reading a book, cooking.
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Walking, I try for at least 1 mile a day. Reading for a minimum of 15 minutes a day.
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I´m going for a walk by the lake in 5 minutes.
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