I’m not a fan of shopping either. To quote Mitch Hedberg,
“I went to a record store, they said they specialized in hard-to-find records. NOTHING WAS ALPHABETIZED!”
Agreed, as a classical music person I struggle every second to understand jazz when I listen to it; can’t identify the chords; don’t “get” what I’m supposed to be getting. It’s complicated, intensive music even at its “smoothest”. Even if I weren’t interested in the musical theory of jazz I can’t imagine I’d find any of it “relaxing.” Jazz doesn’t repeat anything; there’s nothing to mentally “get a hold of”. Some people apparently find saxophones relaxing instruments to listen to; I don’t.
Agree with many posters here:
Massages I find invasive and annoying. I’m not much of a hugger, so personal space invasion is an issue.
Cruises just look awful to me, crammed on a boat with 2000 other people, no thanks
Baths. I just get really hot and bothered, and can’t find a comfy position. I actually had my bath removed so I could have a walk in shower (which I love, BTW)
Any art, for it to hold any interest or value for me, has to invoke an emotional response that pleases or interests me. Jazz? it never does, just annoyance, irritation and stress. Not worth my time.
Sunbatheing has always been a big one for me. My mother was (I suspect) a sun lizard and loved sunbatheing. It’s so boring. Plus unless it’s below zero I really don’t enjoy the sun shining on me very much.
Clothes shopping is terribly boring, plus I have a lack of clothes sense. Once I discovered Woman womanwithin.com I went with that. Still go with that.
I do not still drive.
I didn’t mean it to be male centered, knowing a woman who buzzed her head and then regrew.
I’m going to guess that most US women are not in social environments where they could cut off all their hair without it generating a LOT of attention, and not good attention.
When there were lice in my kids’ school I thought about it. If my son had contracted lice, I would have just shaved him bald and washed all the clothing and linens. If my daughter had contracted lice I would have gone to a great deal more work to kill the lice without removing all her hair.
I just cut 5 inches off my hair and trimmed my bangs. Looks better than must salon cuts I’ve had and the long hair took just three snips with the scissors. Straight hair parted into 2 ponytails snip snip, missed a bit, snip again Done!
First of all, I want to give props to the OP for what I think are two legitimate answers. Both taking a shower and driving are things that I legitimately do find relaxing, and I imagine a lot of other people do, too. I feel like most of the answers in this thread are things other people might find enjoyable rather than specifically relaxing, though. The only answers in this thread that I find genuinely relaxing are going to the beach and white noise.
Anyways, my contribution is sitting on a soft sofa. I have gone over to people’s houses before, been invited to come in and sit down, and had to sit on the floor because their sofa provided excruciatingly inadequate back support. I also distinctly remember one manager who placed a “comfy chair” in his office in an effort to make his subordinates feel more comfortable coming in and talking to him. Every time I walked in, I would sit down in the regulation “guest chair” that the office had provided him with, and he would suggest that I come sit down in the more comfortable chair, and I’d have to respond that I didn’t want to.
Relaxation audio apps. My wife was having trouble sleeping and downloaded some to listen to before going to sleep, but they drove me crazy. There was music and a person talking on the audio. There is no way I can go to sleep with someone talking at me, my brain interprets it as data coming in that I have to pay attention to.
Oddly, what I do like to hear when I go to sleep is the city traffic, there’s a bus stop across from our house and all night you hear the bus come to a stop and load/unload passengers, plus traffic and sirens. I like that kind of sound for sleeping for some reason.
I find massages relaxing, and i notice that was mentioned a lot.
Since this thread seems to have evolved into a debate about what constitutes “relaxing,” I’m not sure this one absolutely counts, but I thought of another thing that people at least seem to find unwinding / nonstressful, but that I find very stressful:
Telling jokes, and listening to other people tell jokes. It’s like a minefield that brings out all of my social anxieties. I, personally, find it mortifying to tell a joke that nobody laughs at (which is usually what happens if I attempt it, because apparently all the jokes I know are old ones that everyone has heard before), so I try to titter politely at everyone else’s jokes, but what if they notice I’m only being polite? And what if somebody tells a joke that is kinda-racist or kinda-sexist – do I laugh anyway? Will other people judge me for laughing? Will other people judge me for not laughing? Aaarghh!
My brother was heavily into Jazz. To me, it sounded like random notes, bearing no relation to each other. I’d prefer to get a root canal.
I can listen to early jazz, like Dixieland, but when Bebop originated, they lost me.
Relaxing? Give me Mozart.
Oh, my gawd! I thought I was the only one! Jazz sounds pretty much to me like a radio stuck between two stations. I find Nirvana at 80dB more relaxing.
I agree with those who find background noise from a TV or radio stressful.
Just watching TV, if it’s something I actually want to watch, is enjoyable and relaxing and not stressful. But I have my limits: I can only stand so much watching at a time before I reach my limit and it starts to stress me out. So, I guess I don’t enjoy binge-watching or movie marathons.
There are several other things in this thread I could say “Me too” about. One that I haven’t seen mentioned: changing clothes. Some people seem to find it relaxing to come home after work and change into sweats. Not I. The act of putting on or changing clothes is not something I enjoy, and while it’s not exactly stressful, it’s more stressful than just continuing to wear what I have on.
Are you a man? There’s nothing for me as relaxing as taking off a goddam bra when I get home from work. I never wear them except when at work, shul, riding a bike, or maybe something like applying for a loan or facing a jury, if I ever had to. But wearing them for work can sometimes be very long, no pun intended, stretches.
ETA: I do agree that changing clothes a lot is not fun. Probably because my mother was a school clothes/play clothes mother, who made me change every day when I came home, and then made me change into pajamas again at bedtime-- I couldn’t just sleep in a T-shirt and underwear.
So now, while I do take my work pants off when I get home, and spray them with something, and hang them, so I can avoid washing them, if I haven’t worn them too long, and put on yoga pants and socks (non-slip), I wear the T-shirt I was fortunate enough to be able to work in, and this is what I sleep in as well.
Ah, but that’s taking something off, not putting something on.
If I were wearing a tie, I’d take that off when I got home. But I wouldn’t put something else on in its place.
See my ETA; I think mostly, we agree.
Music is totally out for me. I have my own playlists and I can take MY music for about an hour a day. But if someone else is choosing the music, I don’t want to be within earshot of it, even for a minute.
Same for having TV on all day, or any other versions of “noise in the house”.