Engaging activity to switch off?

Hi Friendly Alien, thanks for the suggestion. I have a youtube playlist that has some of those 8/10 hour videos, this is nice and relaxing. I have waterfalls, waves, rain. I like the ones with the live visuals, i.e. someone has actually sat on a beach and videoed it rather than just putting up a static picture and adding a soundtrack. They're really peaceful and it works great when I have my headphones on.

Thanks!

i use those when testing

Craft can be absorbing. I did pottery for years a few times a week. I went to a studio at an FE college, but there's some clay you can work at home, or other crafts, like whittling, or sewing. I need someone around though to be able to settle to it, I can't do it alone.

I need physical exercise everyday, best early in the morning. I totally, totally switch off if that's fell running. Not as hard as it looks, but you do need hills nearby.

And cooking! You get to eat better food, people appreciate it, we have to cook anyway so make a hobby of it! I cook from scratch lunch and dinner everyday.

I think there is a contradiction between "relaxing" and "activity"?

Unless the activity is something so hard-wired into your brain that you could practically "do it in your sleep".

For myself, if I need to relax, I can't be "doing" anything.

You know those "Ten hours of rainfall" type videos on YouTube?

I'll listen to one of those.

Hi, seekeraftertruth. I find the following things really help me to relax:

• Reading 
• Listening to podcasts or audiobooks
• Doing puzzles (like Sudoku or word games, or physical puzzles like Rubix cubes)
• Adult colouring books
• Creative writing.

Hope some of these help :)

Thanks Invisiblewoman. I had a look at Metcalfe Models, they sure have a lot.

I Googled for how to switch off my brain and relax but I just got a load of boring Top 10 lists designed for the masses like "don't access social media in bed!".

Aren't we supposed to have a special in-built ability to calm our minds that we get with autism? I'm sure the professionals are always saying we should do activities with lots of repetition or something? And we have the special ability of hyperfocus. Seems to me that we could combine those to create an easy way for autistic people to just switch off. 

my nephew got one, R2D2 about 12 inches in size, it looked good sitting in front of me, but some parts u could see weren't perfect. The instructions were clearly stolen from Lego. It cant be bought any more so it has gone up in value !  I am helping him build a full size R2D2 (wood and plastic and 3D printing of bits). we have been at it for over a year so far.

Look at Lepin - it's a Chinese high-quality exact clone of Lego at about 50% price.   They duplicate all the expensive Lego kits but it arrives in a cheap brown cardboard box rather than the pretty Lego boxes.     I want the huge Millennium Falcon..

https://lepinworld.com/shop/lepin-star-wars/lepin-05132-ultimate-millenium-falcon/

I love Lego and it really works for me so I am here to try to persuade you! There are a couple of solutions to the 'Lego is too big' problem - you can get micro building block sets which are a lot smaller, Nanoblock is a Japanese brand and is good quality and has quite a lot that are buildings and famous landmarks, there are also some other brands (if you look up Nanoblocks on Amazon and look at related products/people also bought sections you'll soon start to see brands like Loz, YZ Blocks, Diamond Blocks - all of these are Chinese and the quality of the bricks isn't so good but they still work). The other solution is to buy second hand Lego on ebay and then sell it when you've finished building it. If you like sorting small parts then there's plenty of that - I enjoy sorting the pieces by colour and size and bagging them up.

Metcalfe Models is a well known brand of model kits for railway scenic buildings. There are cottages, shops, houses and that sort of thing as well as the railway stations, bridges and such. It looks like the model instructions are downloadable so you can take a look and see if it's the sort of thing you would enjoy doing and also what other supplies you might need. It has been a long time since I did any but I can answer basic sorts of questions about it (I bet there are some model rail enthusiasts on the forum who would know more than me though).

I also really love crafting of all kinds. I suggested long stitch kits to someone else on the forum recently. The geometric ones are full of repetition and pattern which I find soothing. Here is one place that sells them: https://www.thehappycross-stitcher.com/collections/long-stitch-kits . You can make them into cushions. They might make a nice present if you don't want to keep them for yourself.

If you look on ebay, there are loads of matchstick kits - from landmarks to boats - and they come with full instructions and all the matches you need..    There's also lots of model kits to make castles - if you can think of what you'd like to make, there's a kit out there for you.

As for selling things, there are other hobby groups that want to buy ready-made items that you can have all the fun building and these guys buy them off you - model railway people and the war-gamers like ready made & painted scenery items.

From what you describe maybe knitting? or beading?

Sounds like something 'crafty' with small components is what you need to give you the focus you're after.

Maybe making a model out of matchsticks? or tapestry/cross-stitch?

Paint by numbers (don't laugh!)

I'm more physical so I get 'flow' from running, sailing or riding my motorbike, though also from working on electronics projects (small components, intricate wiring etc.)

This is a great idea but I'm afraid doesn't interest me. Lego is too big and I have no interest in models. I might be interested in making a castle or village but the only models I've ever seen are aeroplanes, which don't interest me at all. Maybe if I was more creative I could make things out of matchsticks. It's great that you can sell the finished project! 

This is interesting. Both you and @out_of_step suggest something where you can just focus in on doing one thing. I guess this is something we're good at. I think I need to find something that utterly absorbs me, that's why I thought intricate work would be the answer. But I haven't found that thing yet (other than bagging up the game components, but I think that was a one-off, a combination of repetition and sorting). 

Various things over the years.

With video games, I found it depends on the game itself, I don't have much time these days to play them, if I wanted to relax I would aim towards more turn based or RP based where it's interaction based rather than reaction based. Still I wouldn't call it the zen centredness that NT's seem to get when "relaxing", I don't think I'm capable.

I tried mindfulness meditation for ages, like a square peg in a round hole I kept trying at that as my CBT therapist loved it. This was before my ASD was diagnosed, years before. I would either get bored, my mind would go on an adventure (very often to places I woudn't want it to go) or I would fall asleep.

I paint miniatures and I do leatherwork (the latter not for a while as I don't have time for projects atm). With leatherwork, I do carving and pattern work very intricate.

Another thing I do a lot at the moment, I bought a cheap pair of bluetooth noise cancelling headphones (£20 from Amazon). I will listen to music, or audiobooks, or even just Youtube while doing house work or cooking. There are various activities, like cooking that are helpful, with my headphones on, other things are sharpening my knives, or organising something (alphabetising my DVD's helped one time and just gives me satisfaction when I can look to my collection and immediately see the one I'm looking for).

In all these things, I wouldn't say they were truly "relaxing" like NT's would say, I don't think I'm truly capable of that, I'm just not wired that way. I would say they help me "zone out" and forget the world and focus on one thing. I think that's my relaxing, take something I can control, control it, shut out the world for a bit.

Puzzler magazine so it's a mixture of different types of crosswords (straight and cryptic which aren't too challenging but not dead easy or both with general knowledge), numerical crosswords, logic based puzzles where you have to deduce linked information from clues, there's loads really! And it's good because there's different puzzles depending on your mood, level if challenger you want, concentration and energy levels.

What kind of puzzles do you do? 

Have you looked at model making or Lego?     I love to make things - and I sell them afterwards to finance the next thing - and often make a profit too!

Maybe when you are doing the tasks they need a focus and purpose. So looking at a map is good but what is the focus of the task? 

I have recently re-discovered puzzle books. I like the ones with a variety of different types of puzzles. They focus my mind so much I don't think about anything else. When I feel anxiety coming on, I get my puzzle book out. My mind is on nothing else while I am doing the puzzles. Ive also flirted with jigsaws but I got a bit bored.

I've watched someone play it on YouTube and I'm not very creative, I wouldn't know if I'm designing my park right or wrong.

Would you like Planet Zoo?