If someone else is helping me relax, it’s to have them do just about anything with my hair.
To help myself relax, I massage my ear lobes, and sometimes fold them up into the actual ear canal and press inward. Sounds weird, looks even weirder – I know.
I usually do it when I’m stressed, worried, or deep in thought. It helps me center, and shut out the world. It feels really good if you do it when your ear lobes are cold, like when you first return indoors in the wintertime.
I started doing this when I was a little kid, and have never been able to stop. My Mom used to say that my ears were going to look like Dumbo’s, and guess what? +35 years later they still don’t. Funnily enough, some years ago I learned from a friend who is into accupuncture that there is a pressure point in your ear lobes :P
the only time I try to be aware of my “ear habit” and not do it is if I’m in an important social situation, because it usually freaks people out to see an ear folded up like that, ha ha.