1. Meditation

If you mention meditation to people here in Germany you usually get weird looks. It's kind of a pity really. I've always thought differently about it. I started to meditate 10 years ago, since thought it was cool. Maybe because I loved Dragon Ball, where Goku and friends got stronger when they meditated? Anyways, I bought some books and started doing basic breathing meditation for 10 minutes a day. It was kind of hard at first, but got easier over time. After doing it for several weeks I noticed that I was becoming less stressed, more happy and less anxious. I was able to concentrate better and became more self aware. It was fantastic and I was wondering why not anyone would do this? Why didn't they teach it at school? It's like one of the greatest things to do to become more happy.

Some time later I found this study. It says, that doing meditation even irreversibly rewires your brain to achieve the results I mentioned. That's pretty cool actually. You don't even have to do meditation all the time, just doing it once for some time in your life is enough to become a better person for the rest of your life.

2. Yoga

Again, if you mention this to people here in Germany, you get weird looks. As a male even more so. And again it's such a pity. So many people I know complain about back and neck pain, stress and all this stuff. They take pain killers or other meds to get rid of it. Why not work on the cause instead? We are mostly sitting in offices all day long these days. That causes our muscles and tendons to shrink, which causes the aforementioned pains.

Yoga is for exactly these things. It stretches your tendons, strengthens your back and calms your mind. It's not even as exhausting as a full workout in the gym, but much more beneficial. It's something anyone can and should do, regardless of age or other circumstances. On top of that you learn to do headstand. How cool is that?

3. Making

I started coding when I was 12, because I wanted to play games that didn't exist. I didn't accept the fact that whatever I wanted to have wasn't there. I needed to have that so the only way was to create it myself.

The first game was in Visual Basic. It was like Space Invader. It was thrilling to for me to have total control over how the game works and what I could do with it. Usually you'd have to to cope with it if a game didn't work like you wanted.

When I was 14 I created games in Java. One custom version of Tetris and a game where I could shoot down a band I didn't like. A nice side effect was that my computer class teacher let me play my games during class, since he really couldn't teach me anything anymore.

This passion of mine still hasn't stopped. I created many things throughout the years. Some with more success, some with less. But I always learned a lot.

4. Music

I have been playing the piano since I was 6 and I'm convinced it helped me a great deal in developing my brain into what it is today. While playing music you need to concentrate. A lot. You have to repeat things over and over again, become totally engrossed in a task and overcome your limits.

5. Games

I love playing games. It's the best thing to detach yourself and relax. These days I usually play a few games League of Legends after coming home. It's always a good break.