Thank you for that; it’s good to be reminded to rein oneself in when “common sense” advice is to give it your all, for the best advice never seems to be common. :)
As for exercise that’s also great advice; I ought to blow the dust off my stationary bike! There’s too much traffic and stop signs to get in really good cardio just biking to and from work anymore. That’ll also give me an extra push to get in more epsom salt baths like I should be doing anyway thanks to my acts-twice-its-age lower back pain. It’s all coming together.
Soothing music would definitely be a great help when needed. Many of the mostly-loud bands I’ve taken a “noise detox” on per your advice (which is helping with being overexcited at home, now if only I could turn down the sound at work…) also have calm and slow tracks that I can re-introduce. There’s always myNoise.com, too.
And then for chanting, to start off with I’ve edited some parts of the panca sila one: slowing down the more hard-to-pronounce parts (and speeding up the parts I’ve already memorized) so I can better follow along or just listen. Hopefully that’ll be a help in memorizing it so I can someday do it alone. :)
Again, thank you.