There's something about needing to focus on a singular action that really helps you detach, I find. I don't think it's necessarily avoiding it - when you're detached and not thinking about it I think you give yourself space to reorient. Sometimes the world gets too noisy and you can't think straight.
That said, I once tried to relax by playing a chess game and I almost punched something I was so frustrated with how quiet and slow the game was ;)
It's something that takes tons and tons of practice. The more positions and tactics and openings you burn into your long term memory the less you need to keep in short term memory.
The best players in the world have put so many thousands of hours into the game that they can beat casual players trivially without thinking more than one move ahead. They owe this ability to having vast knowledge of fundamentals and theoretical lines in all the most common positions. This is how they are able to win simultaneous exhibitions against a large number of casual players.
it's not always about thinking many moves ahead with chess - often it's a case of looking for interesting patterns on the board that you can turn into an advantageous situation. Did the other player king-side castle? Look for ways to pick away at their pawns. King and queen/rook within 2 knight moves of each other? Could be an opportunity for a fork. You pick up more of these patterns over time, and you can start to scan for chains of these types of attack/defense.
Blitz is frowned upon at the upper levels by a lot of players for that reason. However, some such as #1 rated of all time "Magnus Carlsen", play a bit of blitz on the side.
Fishing in general but fly-fishing specifically is this for me. A midday walk to somewhere with a view I also find to be helpful for rebooting the brain.
Colorado Springs is about the same altitude (~6000ft), Denver is only a little lower. By and large you don't notice unless you do something that makes you breathe hard, in which case it'll take you a while to catch your breath for the first few weeks.
Honestly the biggest annoyance about living at altitude is baking recipes require adjustment pretty much all the time, you can't just use a bread recipe designed for sea level and expect it to work right.
A British friend of mine lives in Colorado. He loves everything about the place, except for one thing: he can't get a decent cup of tea there for love nor money. (Because water boils at too low a temperature.)
I think the problem you'd have is that good tea is a function of both time and temperature - you'd end up ruining the tea because of the time it takes to get the vessel to pressure.
Unless you had some way of keeping the tea isolated until the vessel got to pressure...
My experience says that 6000 feet will be noticeable, but you'll be able to, say, climb a flight of stairs and be a bit more winded than usual. As another example, the Paradise visitor's center at Mount Rainier sits at (IIRC) 7K feet. Plenty of fat people waddle out of their cars and make it across the parking lot just fine. They don't generally go very far up the mountain, but they make it. And the residents of Denver, CO seem to survive at 5200 feet.
To me, "noticing altitude" starts at about 10K feet. For reference, life-long endurance athlete who still stays in pretty good shape in his middle-age.
I tried to sprint to make a connecting flight in Denver (after waiting on the tarmac for 30 minutes to get a gate, grumble). What a mistake. I never had a chance.
Sad part was it took me a few minutes to remember why I was suddenly an invalid.
As always, YMMV. I can run a marathon in under 3:00, and making an airport connection in Denver probably wouldn't phase me much (I've run in Denver, but not to make a flight). OTOH, I distinctly remember going up Pike's Peak at >14K feet, and found the walk across the parking lot to be challenging. I can't imagine what climbing a >20K foot peak must be like given that humbling experience.
That was really hard for me at Estes Park, higher in the mountains near Denver. Growing up in Indiana, humidity tolerance is practically baked into my genome.
I was in Bogota earlier this month. We flew in from sea level, and felt some degree of crappy for a few days (and a bit scared that we were suffering mosquito-borne ailments from our previous adventure before we realized the altitude).
We eventually settled in, but 8000 ft up is for real.
Yep, I get sick almost every summer. It is 9K+ where we stay. I absolutely love the weather there, however the traffic is insane. Also, where my sister in law lives there is a really cool park where people work out, walk, and show off their dogs. I have never seen so many exoitc breeds of dogs. Also, Also, Andres carne de res!
I'm actually incredibly interested to know if su filindeu is historically linked to la mian in any way (apart from the obvious pasta came from China argument)
Your link describes the arabs bringing it to Sicily somewhere around 8th/9th century. So? Do we know they didn't get it from China? Of course Italian pasta is unique, it has had ample time to develop its own culture around it, but I've never seen evidence that the initial idea was born in Italy. It would be a bit like the Japanese claiming they invented Tofu. Well, no, but does it matter?
In addition to the Maryhill WW I memorial, I've also been to Carhenge: http://carhenge.com. One of these days I'll have to get to the original (or at least most famous) one.
That said, I once tried to relax by playing a chess game and I almost punched something I was so frustrated with how quiet and slow the game was ;)