Archery and Autism?

I think it was fall out from Lord of the Rings but I took up archery and really loved it. I even got to the point where my club encouraged me to become an instructor although I was really nervous about it and I have no idea why they allowed me to pass the course.

Had to give it up cause I found I had trouble concentrating. The key to archery is keeping your aim consistent and I was just letting loose all over the place. 

But I thoroughly recommend archery. Its a lot of fun, shoots can be inside or outside (best one i went to was in a wood) and because its about concentration, there's not too much noise.

I think it was fall out from Lord of the Rings but I took up archery and really loved it. I even got to the point where my club encouraged me to become an instructor although I was really nervous about it and I have no idea why they allowed me to pass the course.

Had to give it up cause I found I had trouble concentrating. The key to archery is keeping your aim consistent and I was just letting loose all over the place. 

But I thoroughly recommend archery. Its a lot of fun, shoots can be inside or outside (best one i went to was in a wood) and because its about concentration, there's not too much noise.

This is very positive. A lot of recent reading suggests to me that one of the ways to deal with co-morbidities such as anxiety and depression is to realise that both neurotypical and neurodiverse people enter a trance state at numerous times during any given day. And that state is similar to certain sleep phases and day-dreaming. Trance can entered many different activities; many of which would probably be considered quite mundane. This is considered to be a benevolent state, and does not usually indicate that the experiencer has in any way lost control of their ability to react to constantly changing circumstances. Almost everyone can achieve a trance state with music, but some of us have some slightly more unusual ways to achieve it; such as fascination with maps, crosswords and railways. I would suggest that this is why you enjoy the concentration of archery. And a fine thing too, since it is an activity in which both NT and ND can really have something in common. It also suggests that we could also gain great benefit from say darts and bowls.

A local doctor told me that he favoured meditation, but it strikes me that meditation and other work and leisure activities are very easy to integrate. I have successfully practiced meditation in the past, so this was not a huge surprise. There is such a thing as sweeping meditation, so who is to say that it isn't possible to benefit from say house-painting or more artistic renditions of brushwork.

I won't replay all the steps my reading went through, but these thoughts led on to thinking about hypnosis (don't be fooled by those who perform it just as a cheap trick to entertain), and (as I have no support at all here) why shouldn't I consider self-hypnosis as well. There is no reason at all why self-hypnosis cannot be consciously and sub-consciously incorporated into almost any life activity that has both mental and physical elements. This makes it easy to understand that this is something we have all done before numerous times, in what might be labelled our more successful and satisfying moments. And that helps us to realise that our lives are not all a negative experience, so we can begin to reduce the catastrophising.