As sole traders and small business owners, it's generally accepted that our mental wellbeing and health is under greater pressure and strain than our salaried counterparts':
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8393630/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/avaw7j/freelance-mental-health-self-employed
One of the outcomes of the Covid pandemic, is that we all suddenly felt we had enough of a shared excuse to start to talk about this more openly and honestly - and having done for so for a year or two, a habit seems to have been established that it's now taken as read that any network, professional body, or business support programme will create space for us to have conversations about the stuff that's going on in our heads.
Inevitably, when such times arise, and I'm in the room (physically or virtually), someone always asks people to share with everyone else what their personal practices are for their mental wellbeing. And once you've been part of a few such conversations, you'll start to spot recurring trends: walking; listening to music; cooking; and such like.
But my response always seems to shock and stun each such group when it comes to my turn.
I talk about whiskey.
When I recognise that my anxiety and stress is building, I sometimes pour myself a whiskey - and then see how long I can take to drink it: not in terms of speed, but in terms of the length of time.
You see, a good whiskey is distilled to be savoured and enjoyed slowly: if you drink it too quickly, you miss out on the flavours, aromas, and sensations that people have spent generations developing the skills to impart in these small glasses of amber liquid.
And as most of the other examples people share in how they self-manage their own mental well-being involve practices that force them to slow down, to be more focussed and immersed in a single activity, the way that whiskey is crafted would seem to equally achieve these broad approaches of others' practices.
A good aged single malt whiskey forces you to do in order to fully appreciate and enjoy it (and with inflation, recession, etc it's getting harder to afford, so I also don't want to squander it!).
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