Cycling is another great one for sure but unfortunately in my local community most of the bicycle infrastructure is best described as an afterthought at best so I'm playing frogger with my life and staying absolutely focused on my surroundings.
It's physically and mentally exhausting.
It's a different kind of bliss but still bliss for sure as if I do it enough during the week my sleep schedule is so much better.
I don't know where you live but in most places you can find quiet back roads with little traffic as soon as you get out of the city. I try to avoid cycling in car traffic as much as possible.
Somewhere I've read that it takes at least 45 minutes to mentally detach from work. For me, that usually just means having different thoughts, but to stop all thoughts, I'll have to exercise my body rather furiously.
I wish you the best of luck on those surgeries, one of my friends is currently going through the same shitty situation after he got hit by a car last year while out running.
He's hoping he'll be able to run again before the year is out.
He just had another surgery back in July and he's doing damn good after that one.
I call it a "perfect moment" and I try to make a mental note when ever I experience one so that I'll be more likely to notice the next time it happens. It's most often in the nature for me as well.
What? How? For me it's like when someone says "Don't think of an elephant!". If I try to not think I'd only be thinking about not thinking. And then I'd be thinking about how I'm thinking about not thinking and then... until it's thinking about thinking all the way down.
That's the reason why I loved semi-blacking out while stretching. This stopped happening after puberty, but it was always a short enjoyable moment of silence and absence of worries. I kind of miss it.