My job is social and deadline driven. Here's what works for me:

Lifting some weights in a deserted gym - no music or people.

Stretching for 20 minutes before bed each day.

Getting a full night's sleep.

Going to a favourite restaurant once or twice a week. The rest of the time a simple, high fibre diet with lots of water, no alcohol, cigarettes or drugs.

Doing a part-time postgraduate course to boost some depth and variety to the often-times surface-level demands of work work.

- Programming and/or documenting personal projects

- Tabletop games, though probably 90% of this means either tinkering with games (as opposed to playing them, e.g. creating inserts or new pieces for them) and/or hanging out on BoardGameGeek dot com.

- Reading, mostly anthologies of fiction from Wildside Press which collect many works from the early/mid 20th century, purchasable DRM-free for $1-2 each (for anywhere from 300 to 1500 pages). (Not associated with them, but am a long-time happy customer.)

When i feel i need to totally turn off, I'll turn on a podcast of something im somewhat interested in, and play a game that commands just a slight amount of attention, and pay a slight amount of attention to both things.

Exercise, travel - including “nomading”, learning Spanish, hanging out with my wife and friends - anything not involving computers.

Have you tried shotgunning a couple beers?

[dead]