I love that you guys are adding to our Ways to Avoid Purging list. I have a few more ideas, and at work today people made good suggestions also.

I think it's worth noting that while the list was developed to help people not purge, anything on it can be helpful in any agitated, anxious, mad, frustrated, etc state of mind- regardless of whether purging is an issue.

(Just because I'm cautious and want you all to be healthy and safe... a reminder about only participating in these if you are healthy/strong enough)

1. build scary or angry or goofy monsters out of clay
2. throw (small) ice chips at a cement wall or onto the ground (please pick a wall that has no windows/anything breakable and where there are no people/animals that can be injured)
3. dig your fingers or fingernails into a pillow as hard as you can (no fair injuring yourself- that's SO not the point of this list- or any other that we come up with)
4. hit a tennis ball into a wall
5. make pirate noises- see if you can be so ridiculously grumpy as a pirate that you can't help but laugh (after you've been plenty grumpy enough for awhile of course!)
6. turn on a hose and spray a tree or wall really hard (you know... the usual caveats about not injuring/breaking things...)
7. stomp around like a 2 year old
8. squeeze some clay as hard as you can or pound on it
9. make a really grumpy sock puppet and wear it around while it talks in a really grumpy voice
10. use visualization- even if you're not healthy enough to stomp around or whack a tennis ball, don't underestimate the power and usefulness of imagining these things. Studies show we react very similarly to "virtual" things as to things we are actually doing with our bodies. Sometimes visualization can be even more fun/helpful/effective than things we can actually do with our bodies, since we can imagine anything. 

We'll keep  this list going as long as people have things to add. Feel free to continue to add whenever you come up with things- no time limit on additions :)

Comments

[Super Egg]

4 me i oddly enough am looking for something tender in these times. it always helps me to just curl up to one of my kitty cats. and it doesn't take much energy to do that which is a good thing.

[Courtney]

Yeah Super Egg, I can't believe how therapeutic my dog is! Good one!

[Ann]

A good way for me to wind down sometimes is to hang out with my best friend's little boys. One is only 8 months old and the other is 7. They both rock my world!

[Super Egg]

hey courtney, glad to know there are more animal lovers out there! i would love to have a dog one day too.