When I started to plan a good observation about how people relax, I thought about several things according to my habbit and lifestyle. I play guitar, piano, keyboard as my favorite when I feel emotional; I go out hit the road or go to gym when I feel energetic. I go to movie, brunch, dinner with friend when I feel lonely. I take shower, do yoga, sleep when I feel tired or stress. So what are the ritual other people take when they need to relax?

First, I wanna start research about physical aspect of relax, and I started to ask random people. Most of them drink, as a useful way to release their stress. When I discuss with my class advisor Rebecca and classmate Seanita and Daniela, we have several ideas about why drinking help people relax. For the first reason, the alcohol(No need extra explaination). Second, and very important, it's a social atmosphere the makes you feel comfortable. Third, and the reason I think is the most importatn, that you can freely speak of yourself, don't have to care about too much how people see you when you're tipsy; it's a place that you can be just whoever you are. (A bit dirty jokes you wouldn't say when you're sober makes people even happier!)

Then I started to interview people about how they feel about drinking as a way to relax. One of my friend says when people are tipsy, everyone is losen and easily you can make friend them. So that we know when people drink, it's a friendly environment and makes people feel good.

Another friend of mine who's a bartander in Taiwan talked about drinking. He think another reason why people feel relax when drinking, is about humor. When you see drunk people doing stupid things, acting awkward, shouted "I'm not drunk", these silly things initiate humorous sense and make others happy and relax.

This morning I went to Harlem, New York for brunch with gospell music, I met some new faces from all around the world. A mother and her daughter from Hokaido Japan ordered Magerita along with their delicious brunch meal. They started to talk about their family drinking habbit even before I asked them. For them, drinking is always about celebration. Even when they feel bad, they drink, and say: "This drink is to a better tomorrow, Kanbai!(the word they use whe tossing)". So drinking for them is always related to something possitive, happy, and joyful.

By analyzing the information above, I found some key element about how people relax. First, memory of happiness. Things that can recall one's happy memory contribute to make people feel relax. As we know that when people browse through their photo albums, smiling alwasy come to their face and good conversation can be easily initiated.

Second, being oneself. An environment that can let someone being their self can also make him relax. In this busy and highly structured world, it's not easy to be the one you really want 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When you're home, you have to be strong and possitive in front of your children; When you are in office, you have to face your client, your colleague, and most important of all, your boss, the one who pay your salary. So we're living in an age that you have little time for being yourself, and that's why it become important to one's mental health.

To sum up, if a place, a ritual can let you be yourself, you can probably assume that it will help you relax. Moreover, if it also evoke happy memory, it'd probably be the first thing come to your mind when you're stressed and try to find a way out.

Intervew to be continued.