Originally Posted by
Steve Demuth
Brandon,
Woodworking is not inherently relaxing, any more than any other activity is. For any activity to be a stress reliever, you have to let the work itself be the end. Go to the shop to work with wood, not to make the best bench you can imagine, or a guitar you've been dreaming about. Make an agreement with yourself that the precision, fit and finish, and look that you are capable of achieving is the right precision and fit and finish for your project. If that's not yet what you would want it to be in the long run, make practice the purpose of your work.
Others here have pointed out some very useful ideas for how that can be. Make wooden toys. Make bluebird houses for a local Audubon project. Carve some green wood spoons, and if they turn out crooked and cracked, use them for kindling and make some more. Build more boxes. Don't be afraid to make stuff that doesn't matter too much, because the making itself is what matters. The point is to touch the wood, cut the wood, make sawdust and chips, and learn some hand skills and some "don't dos" and the feel of the tools. If you want to do this to relax, the point is to lose yourself in the process, not the thing you get at the other end. It can be that for quite a long while
I would also suggest, although I understand that your work schedule may make it impossible, that you look for classes for techniques you want to master, or maybe someone to work wood with. One of the beautiful things about classes is that they give you experienced people on on who to offload your performance anxiety for what you're doing. The instructors are there to teach, obviously, but more importantly for many people, they are there to absorb the negativity that comes from not getting stuff right - to literally be the one to say "not perfect, but good enough for where we're going, and hey, my friend, I've done worse myself."
I do relax by working in the shop - wood, metal, machine restoration, the whole lot. All of them work to relax me, not because of what I produce, but because the process of production gives my brain complete permission to be there, doing that, and having the doing be the point, and be enough.