Starting Friday, January 20, at 7am Eastern Standard Time, I’ll be posting self-care posts every 4 hours from 7am EST to 11pm EST until Monday the 23rd, at which point, starting Tuesday the 24th, I’ll be putting up one self-care post a day at 12pm EST for the foreseeable future.
What will they consist of?
Simple…
-Animated gifs or live videos of cute animals (that will be the bulk of it over the weekend)
-Science documentaries on YouTube
-Episodes of podcasts I listen to that either aren’t political at all or only barely brush politics (The Read will show up somewhat often, as will The Black Guy Who Tips; This Week in Blackness will be an exception that shows up, but only when the show goes off the rails or otherwise is largely humorous; you’ll also hear from Joseph Scrimshaw and what his guests are obsessed with, the Geeks Without God will make a weekly appearance, Katharine Heller and Sally Tamarkin will show up with the Struggle Bus every week, Dr. Pamela Gay and Fraser Cain will expound upon astronomy once a week on Astronomy Cast, as will Ralph, Paul, and Jen on Awesome Astronomy, and you’ll hear from NASACast; I’ll also be sharing Night Vale, Oh No Ross and Carrie, and Inquiring Minds episodes that aren’t political; Katharine Heller will come up again on Tell the Bartender, and Ed Levine will show up interviewing the leaders of food; I’ll also bring SinCast, from the makers of CinemaSins, and you’ll hear from three different Doctor Who podcasts).
-(Coming off of Serious Eats) Food posts. Things like text recipes (most will not be my own as I don’t have the time to come up with recipes that often; though I will rarely post my own recipe or my own twist on a recipe), Buzzfeed’s “Is It Worth It?” series, video recipes (a good bunch from Serious Eats and How to Cake It), and so on… (I will including warnings for vegans if the food posts involve meat, and will also attempt to quickly come up with ways to do a vegan version of the recipe if that’s possible)
-Animal livestreams
-Great Guitar Solos and Astronomy Picture of the Week will continue (only now with the added Self Care title, tag, and category)
-Other stuff that makes me happy
-Suggestions from you: if you have ways you do self-care that I can post about, tell me in the comments on this or any of the posts. I’ll ask at the end of each post.
Every post will simply be called “Self Care” and a title-appropriate short description of what’s in the post.
These posts will not be places for socio-political or religious debates, discussions about the not incoming administration, or anything of that nature. And they most certainly won’t be the place for trolls. The comments will be heavily moderated (assuming anyone comments).
These posts will be safe spaces for healing, jokes, laughter, and virtual hugs. They will be spaces to share more links, animated gifs, images, and whatever else makes you happy (and your shares may be featured in a future self-care post with a credit and link to you).
We all need self-care. I know I need it, and I know that there are so many more who need it way more than I do. So I hope my sharing these things is helpful in some way for all of you.
There’s a woo trend on youtube called ASMR. I don’t know much about it, but it’s like relaxation videos & they seem like they might work for that purpose, woo or no. Not my usual way to unwind tho, could be worth looking into for this kind of thing.
I do think ASMR has some interesting ideas behind it. Like… I definitely get a similar effect when listening to amazing guitar solos (especially that performance of Comfortably Numb at P*U*L*S*E*; that guitar solo always takes me to another level and calms me down). I’ve yet to see any of the videos making outlandish medical claims (admittedly, that may be because of where I’m [not] looking), mostly just noticing that it relaxes some people and taking advantage of that.
If there’s interest from other readers, I will definitely include some.