I’ll third fishing. I spent 2 hours on Saturday standing thigh deep in a freezing river. It is some of the best time you can spend. Time just flys by especially when you’re catching fish and when you’re not you get to look around at some great scenery.
Equipment can be pretty cheep I’d suggest buying an ugly stick and some spinner bait (a lure the spins as it’s pulled through the water) and if course you’ll need a licence which will run you about $40 for it all. Just ask when you buy your licence where the good fishing spots are.
Of course this doesn’t account for the best part of fishing eating tons of fresh fish. I’ve got about 20lbs of fish in my freezer that I’ll be eating this week. No fresher trout sold anywhere then what I had for dinner last night.
I draw, as you can tell by my screen name. While I do a lot of media–from pencil to pen & ink, to watercolor, oil and digital, all you really need is paper and a pencil to start. Can’t get much cheaper than that.
We all drew as children and somewhere along the way adults let us know that we should be more serious. I studied botanical drawing a few years ago at a botanical garden. Now I teach it with the idea that my adult students don’t even know how to hold a pencil as the starting point. Your subject matter isn’t important but I find it particularly satisfying to combine drawing with the study of nature. I also like the intricate detail–pistels, stamens, petals, stems.
There are a lot of reasonable drawing and painting courses around, particularly in the continuing ed divisions of high schools and colleges. Try it; it’s a great way to relax.
When I was first diagnosed with high blood pressure, I spent some time building model airplanes. They were hanging from the ceiling of the room I had my PC in. I was told it looked like a kid’s room.
It was calming and relaxing.
I umpire baseball & fast pitch softball from age 10& under up to NCAA level.
There’s a lot worse ways to spend an afternoon than being part of a good ball game, under the sun and fresh air.
I make extra money
I get to work on my people skills
I get a little bit of exercise.
I always thought about starting an “Ask the Umpire” thread, but I don’t think it’d get a lot of hits.
I play rugby. It keeps you fit, and it’s great fun (you don’t notice the knocks after a while, so it also toughens you up). It’s also, at the amateur level, just an excuse to drink yourself stupid at the clubhouse.
Kayaking. If you have a lake somewhere accesible, you can get a recreational quality kayak, used, for $200-300. Paddle, PFD new, about another $100, but you can probably find those used, too.
If you have no lakes nearby, you might want to explore rivers - but beware, this is extremely addictive. I started with slow moving rivers in a friends borrowed rec boat, and have branched out to my own crossover (good for both lakes and whitewater) boat and seeking out adrenaline rushes.
The coolest thing - Kayaking can be as mellow or intense as you want it to be. I can throw my boat in the back of my truck and stop by a lake to “commune with the loons” on my way home from work, or spend a few days getting whitewater instruction and forgetting that I am 45 and stiff. It is great exercise, and after the initial outlay, pretty much free.
I like letterboxing. You go to a webite like www.letterboxing.org to find clues to a letterbox hidden somewhere in the world, find the box, which contains a book, and stamp the book with your handmade stamp. It combines arts and crafts, orienteering, and hiking; all in all a very geeky day out.
Making bread. Needs: Flour, water, salt, yeast, time.
Benefits: You get to eat or give away what you make
For me, baking bread is a very, very relaxing hobby. You really can’t rush the rise. I love mixing everything together, kneading it, watching it rise, smelling it cook.
If you have a high rush life, baking bread forces you to slow down. It can take several hours to several weeks to make a loaf. Start a sourdough. Babysitting THAT should keep you busy, as well ask keeping up with the extra.
I’m a primitive skills enthusiast. By that I mean that I’ve learned to knap stone points, make bows and arrows from materials I gather in the field and a host of other skills. In fact, many other hobbies such as fishing, hunting, various arts can all be persued in a primitive fashion if desired. Most of the people I know dabble in nearly all the various primitive living skills at some point and then tend to specialize in a handful of areas. Some people get so hardcore with this interest that they could readily walk off into the wilderness and not just survive, but thrive in the wilds. This hobby is excellent for getting one out into the field inasmuch as many of your raw materials can be easily found there. Indeed, that’s part of the fun, learning to identify usable plants and animal parts in your area.
There are two things that will get someone hooked on learning primitive skills if they are going to have any interest in all. First, is learning to make and then shoot a bow and arrow that you made with your very own hands. Next and in my mind the best is making fire. Whirling up your very first coal with a bow drill, or still better, a hand drill and then blowing that glowing ember into flame is a near mystical experience. Remember Tom Hanks in Castaway and his reaction when finally making fire? Honestly, that’s pretty much how it was and still is, for me any way. There was a sense of connection with all those ancient ancestors that had to do similar. If that doesn’t spark an interest (pun intended) in primitive skills nothing likely will.
Hootie
PS… if anyone has any interest PM me and I’ll send them the link for an excellent primtive skills forum.
It depends on what you are trying to get out of the hobby.
4 Things:
Guitar: If you like music and think you’d enjoy “getting into the groove” of a song, guitar can be an easy instrument to pick up and enjoy. And if you get into the “toys” aspect of guitars, there is much geekery to found and money to spend…
Yoga: profound physical and mental benefits - and emotional and spiritual, too, if you choose (you don’t have to). Again, like music, the biggest payoff is getting into “the zone” and taking yourself out of the everyday world.
Reading: Take yourself to a different world. I read fiction, non-fiction, magazines, etc. As long as it is fun and engrossing.
Collecting Something: You either have the collector’s bug or you don’t. In my case, I do, and relate it to my other interests, books and guitars. It can be really fun to get into the geekery of collecting.
Bottom line - it has to be something you honestly find engrossing and that can get you into The Zone - out of your everyday world and all of its stresses…
Partner dance (ballroom, latin, swing etc) has everything you need for stress reduction, cardio and stamina training, plus the added benefit of keeping your brain in good working order as you age. I don’t have a link to the NEJM study but AARP has an article posted that refers to it: http://www.aarp.org/health/fitness/get_motivated/lets_dance_to_health.html
I’ve been taking ballroom/latin/swing dance lessons for about 10 years (I’m 45) through various Adult Ed programs and private studios. Group lessons for social level dance (as opposed to competition) are pretty inexpensive, averaging around $10/lesson. Once you get over the weirdness most of us initially have about touching strangers and worrying about looking like a dork in public, it’s totally fun and opens up an entirely new world of socialization.
Did I mention it increases confidence?
The TV shows make it look very easy (physically), but you’d be surprised at the workout you get from a relatively downtempo dance such as waltz or tango. One thing I really love about these styles of dance is that they are completely inclusive - you don’t have to be a specific weight, body type or age to participate. I have dance friends who are in their 80’s as well as high-school age kids.
Another huge advantage is being able to look cool on the dance floor when you go to a wedding or something. Everyone ooohs and ahhhs even if we feel we’ve danced like crap.
Amateur radio. The FCC requirements have relaxed some, and it’s easier now to get on the shortwave bands than it used to be. You can ragchew, Dx (make as many distant contacts as possible), contest (Dx as fast as you can), moonbounce (sending a UHF/VHF signal off of the moon and listen for someone to answer - fairly specialized), slow-scan television, digital modes, public service (Skywarn weather spotting, ARES emergency communication, Hurricane spotting and communications, backbone support for walks, rides and marathons). I have had a lot of fun just building and testing antennas and portable setups.
I teach Taekwondo. It has gone beyond a hobby for me and become a lifestyle and a second profession. It’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys and it is tremendous stress relief.
It sounds so mundane; yeah, yeah - just get a diamond- shaped thing on the end of a string with some twine attached and just let the wind take it up…
That is what I thought until I tried it.
It is not as easy as it looks and can be developed into an amazing art form.
This link has has inspired me to try to work with more than one kite. I am still in early stages, but I am trying.
All you need is a kite or two and some open spaces.
Exercise is derived from running with the kites, reeling them in, picking them out of trees, running with the wind …etc.
It’s nice to find a fellow kite person on the SDMB at long last!!
I just made such a neat, nice winged box kite (it’s a replica of an old U.S. Weather Bureau kite from around 1900), but I made it out of modern materials.
I’ll second this one. Scrapbooking can also be done digitally, which greatly reduces expenses. I happen to prefer all of the cool textures and dimension of paper.
Scrapbooking has also led to an interest in another hobby: genealogy. After inheriting a number of heritage pictures, I was inspired to learn more about the people in them. That led to a dormant interest in various local histories. Travel to some of the locales became the next progression. The possibilities are endless.
It has also spawned the hobby of cardmaking. I usually have enough leftovers from a layout to make a couple of greeting cards. A box of 50 stationers envelopes runs about $5…so I have less than $1 in any card that I send and the recipient usually appreciates the thought and effort of a handmade card.
