Puttering therapy

For most of our history, humans walked, hunted, foraged, planted, harvested, cooked, socialized, ate, built, cleaned, fornicated, bore children, wrangled children, occasionally battled, and slept.

We got up to things, many of them physical. That was our default program.

Default wasn’t hours of intense intellectual activity followed by techniques to reclaim the mind space, such as affirmations or sitting upright, still, and focused on the breath.

When the monkey mind is running amok, sometimes the only solution is to restore default.

Get up to things.

Putter.

Puttering is mostly physical, minimally intellectual.

Household chores (especially activities that involve organizing or sorting, like sorting laundry or tidying a closet) are great modern puttering.

Art forms (playing a musical instrument, painting, drawing, sculpting, calligraphy, dance) too.

Puttering captures the monkey mind and prevents it from monologuing, but the task shouldn't be so difficult that it frustrates or tires.

A few more examples:

Gardening, small home improvements, cooking a new dish, creative baking, crocheting, model building, moderate-level house cleaning.