to feel and to be better

"We spend very little time interrogating our own minds." – Richard Davidson

Why interrogate our own minds? Think about what we think about?
To feel and to be better.
This month I invite you to investigate the work of Richard Davidson, a researcher at U Wisconsin’s Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center and author of "The Emotional Life Of Your Brain." He's learned from his research--and from decades of personal experience--that meditation can be a powerful tool for curbing our negative emotions and boosting our resilience in the face of life's inevitable setbacks; meditation helps us “interrogate” our mind: to grow in heightened awareness of our mental processes.
I’ve talked about it before, and I’ll talk about it again, because I need the reminder: that to extend lovingkindness, to be compassionate, is good for all of us. Davidson’s research (to be published in Psychological Science), used a 30-minute compassion meditation (script here, audio file here) with their subjects each day for two weeks. They found scientifically valid changes, compared to the control subjects in
 - enhanced mental focus,
 - increased altruistic behavior, and
 - greater empathy evidenced by changes in neural responses to suffering.

“Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.” – I Peter 3:8

Davidson asserts that warm-heartedness and well-being can be regarded as skills to be cultivated. I find this fascinating. Our brains change in response to experience and training, even showing gene-expression changes within a relatively short period of time (in a day, for practiced mindfulness meditators: Davidson’s research team looked at gene expression in peripheral blood lymphocytes – looking specifically at genes that have been implicated in inflammation; see Rapid changes in histone deacetylases and inflammatory gene expression in expert meditators. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 40, 96–107).
So my summer warm wishes for you are that you might be open to continue learning, to be compassionate, and to be cultivating even greater skills of warm-heartedness. I wish for you to have joy and happiness, to be free from suffering, to be present, to be well.
In lovingkindness, Dee

Hurry is beside the point, useless, an obstruction.

  The thing is to be attentively present. 

To sit and wait is as important as to move.

  Patience is as valuable as industry.

What is to be known is

always there.

  When it reveals itself to you, or when you come upon it,

it is by chance.

 The only condition is your being there and being

watchful.

-  Wendell Berry

“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

 “He has caused his wonders to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and compassionate.”

- Psalm 111:4

Feel your feelings

“Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.” ― P.D. James, The Children of Men

Soul without words.

That’s the meaning of the word alexithymia coined by Peter Sifneos in 1973 [from the Greek thumos (soul, as the seat of emotion, feeling, and thought), lexis (speech), and “a” (an alpha privative indicating no or without)].

I had never heard of the word alexithymia before reading about it in the July/August 2014 issue of Scientific American Mind, but certainly was and am acquainted with the idea of having difficulty in naming feelings (I am NO master at this feelings game). Alexithymia is a personality trait that’s marked by limited internal thinking and an inability to recognize internal emotional states; and people with this trait are at a higher risk for mood disorders, interpersonal problems and health problems.

Approximately 10% of the population possesses the more extreme characteristics of this inability to differentiate and describe emotions to themselves or others, with the rest of us falling somewhere along a continuum.

The Scientific American Mind article reports,
“some people honestly might be disadvantaged, on a neurological level, in understanding and communicating emotions.”

“Brain research is revealing that the neural processes supporting emotional awareness overlap with pathways that create awareness of inner states more broadly, such as stress and fatigue.”

A 2013 study by researchers at three universities in Germany found that individuals with alexithymia have less gray matter in the anterior insula, which helps to govern emotions as well as interoceptions (perceptions of one’s internal bodily states, such as hunger pangs or an accelerating heatbeat).  

Before offering some particulars of alexithymia’s associations to interpersonal problems and medical and psychiatric disorders (if you’re curious you can read more below) I want to first say that there is good news.

Emerging therapies show promise for helping people - that would be for any of us - develop an awareness of their emotions, enrich their inner lives, and improve their overall well-being.

Maybe we could explore or improve in some of these areas?

A few suggestions --

·         * Offer yourself a supportive approach (and/or find friends, counselor, spiritual advisor for support) and emphasize your strengths

·        * Improve your social skills: here’s one spot for ideas, but a google search will give many more

·         * Pay attention to your body: be intentionally aware of and responsive to physical sensations and emotions

Practice progressive muscle relaxation to learn difference between feeling tense versus relaxed/released: to try out, click this for a verbal how to, and this for a video

Be mindful of body cues in everyday moments (such as tense shoulders, constricted breathing typical of anxiety)

·         * Review basic emotions: recognize the difference between thoughts and feelings (sensation or emotion)

Revisit a feelings list  and practice naming your feelings and identifying what physiological sensations accompany an emotion; such as “I had a lump in my throat,” “butterflies in my stomach,” “my heart dropped” or “I was steaming”

·         * Practice mindfulness techniques – observing your emotional state without judging it

·         * Create a bodily map of emotions - learning from this 2013 Finland study described in an NPR blog offers a visual of body warmth or coolness for various emotions (note that love makes us warmest all over!)

“If you keep your emotions locked in a box, then when you want to open it one day you'll find that they're gone.” ― M.D. Arnold

Not becoming more aware of emotions has some rough implications for numerous aspects of life: see the alexithymia wikipedia page (with references and links) for more info and research citations.

Here’s some of what alexithymia has been linked with:

*interpersonal problems

-                 tendency to avoid emotionally close relationships: cold/distant, or non-assertive social functioning ^[35] )
-                decrease in relationship satisfaction between couples ^[38]
-                behaving less altruistically toward others: less distress at seeing others in pain ^[2]

*medical and psychiatric illness

-                 there are links to certain personality disorders,^[54] substance use disorders,^[55][56] some anxiety disorders,^[57] and sexual disorders,^[58] as well as certain physical illnesses, such as hypertension,^[59] inflammatory bowel disease,^[60] and functional dyspepsia.^[61]
-                with disorders such as migraine headaches, lower back pain, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, nausea, allergies, and fibromyalgia.^[62]
-                possible prolonged elevations of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and neuroendocrine systems which can lead to somatic diseases.^[62]

Why is some of this so?

Hans Thulesius, physician at Lund University in Sweden, proposes that individuals who struggle to discern their feelings may fail to regulate stress effectively by being slow to act when the body’s fight or flight response kicks in, causing the body to maintain an elevated stress response leading the body exhausted and vulnerable to sickness.

“Indeed, several studies have found that the diseases most closely associated with alexithymia – coronary heart disease, diabetes hypertension and certain gastrointestinal disorders – also involve lower heart rate variability. This symptom is a marker of an unchecked stress response.” SA Mind p. 70

“Just like children, emotions heal when they are heard and validated.”
― Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

Remember please: emotional awareness promotes healthier minds, bodies, and relationships. And most all of us can truly grow in this area, benefiting ourselves primarily and certainly also those around us.

How about, right now, filling in this blank with a feeling word: “I feel ______.” And how about being kind to yourself even if you’re not terribly happy about the way you feel? You can think what you think and feel what you feel.

May you have words for your soul's being and feel all your feelings this month. May these summer days include many welcome feelings, much joy! 

"You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart." Psalm 51:6

“All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.’” –Howard Thurman

A single treatment

“Researchers have discovered a single treatment that improves memory, increases people's ability to concentrate, strengthens the immune system and decreases people's risk of being killed in accidents. Sound too be good to be true? It gets even better. The treatment is completely free and has no side effects. Finally, most people consider the treatment highly enjoyable. Would you try it?”

So begins an APA (American Psychological Association) “Research in Action” article that encourages each of us to get 8 or more hours of sleep each night. With longer daylight and possibly more summer play time, this month’s wellness email gives a gentle encouragement to still also make sleep a priority.

"A well-spent day brings happy sleep." -Leonardo da Vinci

Maybe try this --

Sleep an extra hour

“An extra hour of sleep can do more for a person’s daily happiness than a 200% increase in household income (Science).”

That rather remarkable statement is made in a Mindful article, and though they reference the journal Science I’m not finding the research, so can’t substantiate the claim.

Still consider also these substantiated detriments of an hour less of sleep per night:

- From a University of Surrey sleep study reported on here: “What they discovered is that when the volunteers cut back from seven-and-a-half to six-and-a-half hours' sleep a night, genes that are associated with processes like inflammation, immune response and response to stress became more active. The team also saw increases in the activity of genes associated with diabetes and risk of cancer. The reverse happened when the volunteers added an hour of sleep."

"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it." -John Steinbeck

- In a 2012 article published in the American Journal of Human Biology, UC biomedical anthropologist Kristen Knutson, PhD, reviewed research on sleep and cardiometabolic health and concluded that sleep restriction leads to "substantial and clinically significant changes in appetite regulation, hunger, food intake, glucose metabolism and blood pressure control."

"O bed! O bed! delicious bed! That heaven upon earth to the weary head."

-Thomas Hood, Miss Kilmansegg - Her Dream

- In a 2012 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a team of UC researchers uncovered a molecular clue to how lack of sleep might promote diabetes: Fat cells in people who don't get enough sleep have a 30 percent reduced ability to respond to insulin.

“Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane. It puts brackets about each day. If you do something foolish or painful today, you get irritated if somebody mentions it, today. If it happened yesterday, though, you can nod or chuckle, as the case may be. You've crossed through nothingness or dream to another island in Time.”

― Roger Zelazny, Isle of the Dead

Yes I’ve talked about sleep before. Yes, I’m here again lauding the benefits of sleep. Maybe it’s because it seems like a rather easy and attainable to-do for feeling well and bettering overall health, and we can all use a reminder?

Many of us need an extra 60-90 minutes sleep per night. PLUS more sleep would decrease some of our home stress moments. For fun I’m throwing in this rather interesting bit of research – about more stress at home than at work, and about levels of happiness (different for men and women: can you guess whether it’s men or women who are happier at home?) – you can make of it what you will.

"I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"

-Ernest Hemingway

[Research offers information rather than determination: let's do recall that we can find good in all our moments, at home or work or anywhere, and that happiness can, in large measure, be chosen.]

Before reading on, I’ll close with a wish for you to make the most of the day, and to sleep long and well at night. May wellness and goodness always be with you,

Dee

"And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created."  -D.H. Lawrence

“I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.”

– Psalm 3:5

Be aware of stress/happiness levels at work or home

"Researchers from Pennsylvania State University tested the cortisol levels of 122 workers during the workday and on weekends. Using saliva samples, they found that levels of cortisol – which is a biological marker for stress – were on the whole much lower when the person was at work than when he or she went home.

The researchers also asked men and women about their levels of happiness at work and at home. While men over all reported being happier at home than at work, women were happier at work than at home. Women also reported higher levels of happiness at work than did the men in the study, which will be published soon in the journal Social Science & Medicine. The study was released in May 2014 by the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit group that focuses on work and family issues.

Sarah Damaske, an assistant professor of labor and employment relations at Penn State and the study’s lead author, speculates, “I think it suggests that there is something about work that is good for you. Being in the moment, focusing on a task, completing that task, socializing with your co-workers — all of these are beneficial and that’s part of what’s lowering your stress level.’’

"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

-William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.” – Psalm 127:2

Exercise is wonderful

 “Exercise is wonderful," said Louis.

"I could sit and watch it all day.”

― Larry Niven, Ringworld

I’ve gotta admit that I do NOT love to exercise. We are finally enjoying warming temperatures where I live, which at least helps makes it somewhat easier to exercise: I enjoy moving more when I’m outdoors. To aid in motivation, in this month’s wellness email I offer a few words on exercise (I know I talk about this often – most likely because I need the reminders).

I keep meaning to keep these posts short, and then I fall into the trap of thinking that more info is better than less; so please, just scan the parts that appeal and let go of the rest.These particular aids and benefits are ones that may be newer “discoveries” so it's possible you'll find something you haven't heard before.

Enjoy. And may you move as you relish spring and pursue wellness.

“I’d gone with my usual option. I was running through long tunnels filled with demons and monsters and nightmares, because it was easier than going to the gym.” 

― Jim Butcher, Skin Game

Aids to exercise (in addition to being outside while exercising).

-          TALK POSITIVELY TO YOURSELF

In a small randomized study of 24 participants, researchers at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, along with other institutions, found that folks who used encouraging self-talk, such as “You’re doing well” and “Push through this” during a high-intensity cycling session pedaled longer before reaching fatigue and had a lower rate of perceived exertion than those who said nothing or, worse, were negative on their rides.

“Exercise is a great leveler. It doesn't matter how rich you are, you can't just buy your way into a great body. You have to do the work. I find that comforting. It's one of the few things in life where we're all on a level playing field.”
― Vinnie Tortorich

-          MAKE MUSIC

Producing tunes instead of simply listening may make your body more efficient: music may not simply distract us but also reduce the effort (recall chain-gang chants, military cadences).

In a small study doneby Thomas Fritz, a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, and other research facilities, and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy ofSciences, USA , half of the study participants passively listened to music during exercise, and half made music while working out by using software that interactively turned their movements into tunes (the music would start when participants used the machines). The music makers used less oxygen during their routine – a measure of exertion – and they also felt they were working less hard than those who just listened.

Music production may make exercise easier by activating so-called emotional motor control, posits Fritz, the study’s lead researcher. Emotional motor control is responsible for spontaneous actions such as a genuine smile; deliberate motor control, in contrast, implements purposeful action such as a fake smile. To activate this more efficient system (of emotional motor control responsible for spontaneous actions), Fritz says, try singing along or pumping iron in rhythm with the tunes in your exercise playlist. [Dee's note: to say it another way - look for whatever is good or enjoyable about whatever you might be engaged in, including exercise!]

“Listening to the music while stretching her body close to its limit, she was able to attain a mysterious calm. She was simultaneously the torturer and the tortured, the forcer and the forced. This sense of inner-directed self-sufficiency was what she wanted most of all. It gave her deep solace.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

Benefits of exercise, possibly surprising…

-          YOUNGER SKIN

This New York Times Well article, says

“Exercise not only appears to keep skin younger, it may also even reverse skin aging in people who start exercising late in life… researchers at McMaster University in Ontario… found that after age 40, the men and women who exercised frequently had markedly thinner, healthier stratum corneums and thicker dermis layers in their skin. Their skin was much closer in composition to that of the 20- and 30-year-olds than to that of others of their age, even if they were past age 65.”

Note that there is no evidence that exercise reverses wrinkling and other damage from the sun, so we still need to wear sunscreen if exercising exposes us to the sun.

 “To resist the frigidity of old age, one must combine the body, the mind, and the heart. And to keep these in parallel vigor one must exercise, study, and love.” 

― Charles-Victor De Bonstettin

-          INCREASED CREATIVITY 

As reported in another NY Times well blog, Dr. Oppezzo and researchers at Stanford University had undergrad students complete creativity tests (such as coming up with alternative uses for button or other common objects, for about eight minutes), either while sitting at a desk or waking on a treadmill at an easy self-selected pace. Their findings, published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition showed that for almost every student, creativity increased substantially when they walked. Most were able to generate about 60 percent more uses for an object, and the ideas were both “novel and appropriate.” They had another group of students sit for two consecutive sessions of test-taking and subsequently walk for about eight minutes while tossing out ideas for object re-use, then sit and repeat the test. Again, walking markedly improved people’s ability to generate creative ideas, even when they sat down after the walk. In that case, the volunteers who had walked produced significantly more and subjectively better ideas than in their pre-exercise testing period.

Again, walking markedly improved people’s ability to generate creative ideas, even when they sat down after the walk. In that case, the volunteers who had walked produced significantly more and subjectively better ideas than in their pre-exercise testing period.

Dr. Oppezzo observes, “It may be that walking improves mood” as its primary effect, she said, and creativity blooms more easily within a buoyed-up mind. Or walking may divert energy that otherwise would be devoted, intentionally or not, to damping down wild, creative thought, she said. “I think it’s possible that walking may allow the brain to break through” some of its own, hyper-rational filters.

"But he said to me, ‘The Lord, before whom I walk, will send his angel with you and make your way successful." - Genesis 24:40a

"All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Or, How to Philosophize With the Hammer

 ~~~

“If there had been an exercise I'd liked, would I have gotten this big in the first place?”
― Jennifer Weiner

Clean

"Our house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy." 

The wellness focus this month is on cleaning – a rather unglamorous activity yet still necessary, like plenty of daily life. And maybe also cleaning is beginning to be on our minds as spring hints at unfolding?

Below are a few tips and numerous links for green cleaning: a little nudge to reduce our exposure to synthetic chemicals. This ‘green’ world is a big one so what I offer here is barely a glimpse.

*Experiment with making your own cleaners.

It’s economical and relatively easy to use natural and common ingredients such as vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice, and borax. Add essential oils for their antimicrobial properties along with pleasant scent.

[see some recipes here: Aura Cacia's “Green Cleaning with Essential Oils”]

An example of a basic recipe for an all purpose cleaning spray is 1 part white vinegar to 1 part water in a spray bottle (but avoid using vinegar on marble as it can damage the surface or using straight vinegar on tile grout). Add essential oils or lemon juice (fresh squeezed or from squeeze bottle). See more recipes at simplehomemade. 

*Read product labels. 

 Avoid 

-products with a signal word stronger than “Caution,” -petroleum distillates or phosphates, -products with artificial fragrances or dyes (not needed and potentially harmful).

You can research the chemicals listed on product labels through the NIH Household Products Database or Toxnet, the Environment Working Group's Cosmetics Database, or Scorecard [more at Green Clean Certified].

 Look for biodegradable, septic-safe, non-toxic. 
(Note: “The term "nontoxic" is not regulated, so read the ingredient label on household cleaners. For example, alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEs), which are found in some detergents and disinfectants, may cause hormone problems. Ammonia can irritate breathing, burn skin, and is poisonous if swallowed.”)

Find and purchase cleaning solutions that bear the Green Seal logo. (Green Seal certifies cleaning products to be effective at cleaning yet safer for human health and the environment).

Find yet more ideas at these links:

http://www.healthyhouseinstitute.com

http://www.housekeepingchannel.com

checnet.org/healtheHouse/chemicals

lowimpactliving.com

I readily admit that I don’t much like household chores, so I’ll be the first to remind myself of benefits of cleaning and using safe ingredients: to name just a few, cleaning reduces toxic exposure, offers good exercise, provides a pleasant environment.

"Housework is something you do that nobody notices until you don't do it." ~ Author Unknown

"I've always enjoyed doing dishes. Maybe it was the fashionable yellow gloves that I loved so much. It's weird, I know, but I find cleaning cathartic." ~ Rachel Nichols

PS: if you’re interested, below I offer a link for more lemon juice uses, and a couple of stats/studies.

10 creative ways to use lemon juice

Stats/Studies

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), indoor air can be two to five times more polluted than the air outside. In some cases, indoor air can be up to 50 times more polluted. The pollution can be caused by a number of sources – gas stoves, building materials and furniture, carpet, household cleaning products, personal care supplies, dust, air fresheners or pesticides.

A study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (Volume 44, Number 7, July 2002, p 685 – 691) measured the incidence of bladder cancer for study participants in 32 different industries and occupations as compared to a control group of the general population not employed in any of the occupations studied. The study further isolated the data by how long each participant was employed in that industry or occupation. FINDINGS. Housekeepers and butlers were found to have an increased risk of bladder cancer as compared to the general population, 3:2 for those subjects who had been employed in this occupation for 10 years or more. The elevated risk was thought by the study authors to be attributed to exposure to solvents, which are often found in household cleaners, particularly all-purpose cleaners, de-greasers, and furniture polishes. Other occupations with increased risk include those with high exposures to metals, rubber, plastics and solvents such as tire workers, mechanics, painters, printers, plumbers and dry cleaners.

Ripples of kindness

"There is no small act of kindness. Every compassionate act makes large the world." ~Mary Anne Radmacher, American writer and artist

"A kind word is like a Spring day."  ~Russian Proverb

This month’s 1^st Wednesday wellness, with a focus on kindness, takes a look at some research that gives me a little lift. The first two studies below reveal that even babies have an accurate sense of what’s happening around them: of behaviors that are kind or not, or of who might be a friend or not. The last section asserts that adults who merely witness kindness experience elation.

 

The first study, published in 2010, concluded that humans have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life that possibly allows them to judge the actions of others (i.e., as good or bad, kind or unkind).

A research team at Yale’s Infant Cognition Center conducted a series of experiments over eight years. The most basic of these experiments involved showing a baby examples of good and bad behavior with puppets or objects (same scenario repeated 6 to 14 times) and observing which behavior the baby preferred. [If you're curious to see how they did this work with babies, watch this 5-min video.]

In the experiment, a puppet is seen trying to open a plastic box. The puppet tries repeatedly, but he just can't open the lid all the way. Then, a bunny puppet comes along and helps open the box. That is followed by a different bunny puppet slamming the box before running away.

The baby is then presented with the two bunnies. Eighty percent of the time, the one-year baby chooses the helpful puppet (bunny or other character) over the mean and unhelpful one. Among three-month-olds, the percentage rises to 87 percent. 
 

The second study is not specifically on kindness, yet is still fascinating in its revelation that infants form positive or negative associations about people and actions. Even before babies have language skills or much information about social structures, they can infer whether other people are likely to be friends or foes by observing their likes and dislikes.

In a 2013 study, done by U Chicago researchers and written about here at Science Daily, 64 nine-month-old infants were randomized into groups to watch videos showing two adults. The adults each ate two foods and reacted in either a positive or a negative way to each food they ate. In some videos the adults shared the same reactions (both liked the food, or both did not), while in others they reacted differently (one liked a particular food, the other did not). 

A second round of videos focused on social interaction. In these, the same adults greeted each other in a friendly way, or crossed arms and turned their backs to each other, with an unfriendly "HMPH." 

The researchers assessed the babies' reactions to the videos by how long they gazed at a still screen at the end of each one. It's known that when babies see something unexpected, they look longer, as they try to make sense of it. The infants' responses suggested that they were surprised when adults who liked the same foods reacted negatively toward each other, and when adults who disagreed about the foods behaved like friends. 

The researchers’ suggest that this is some of the first evidence that young infants are making inferences about the social interactions in the world around them. See more at this NSF Discovery File or read the article.

 

 "When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people."  ~Abraham Joshua Heschel

By the time we’re adults there's been myriad of opportunities to observe the social world, and we've all learned that kindness is greatly preferable to unkindness. Good feelings come from both giving and receiving kindness. Possibly less obvious though is that merely witnessing kind actions is a “peak experience” that is beneficial to our body along with our psyche and spirit.

In this Psychology Today article, researcher and social psychologist/professor Jonathan Haidt, calls the witnessing of kind actions ‘elation’ and describes it as a “warm feeling in the chest, a sensation of expansion in [the] heart, an increased desire to help, and increased sense of connection with others…Elation seems to have a ripple effect, triggering cognitive, emotional, and behavioral changes...It makes people more open, more loving, grateful, compassionate, and forgiving." Research by Haidt and Chris Oveis shows that this 'elation' feeling acts on the vagus nerve, which regulates heart rate. They found that "when people watching a video of an 11-year-old boy who helps the homeless said they felt a warm glow in the chest, there was a corresponding change in heart rhythms, in a way that has been associated with good health." 

Kindness transcends the separateness we often experience as human beings."It connects us to one another, brings a renewed faith in human nature, reminds us of the goodness which human beings are often capable."

"Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not."  ~Samuel Johnson

Maybe especially this month, while still enduring the northern cold of which many of us are weary, we can warm up our moments by collectively seeking out friends, and keenly watching for kindness.

May you enjoy the ripple effect of being, receiving, or witnessing anything kind and good. 

"Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." ~Ephesians 4:32

"Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns."  ~Author Unknown

"A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person."  ~Dave Barry, "Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn"

The light we throw

Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our own minds.  
- Laura Ingalls Wilder, novelist (1867-1957)

An active reminder

I have to exercise in the morning before my brain figures out what I'm doing.  ~Marsha Doble

A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.  ~A.A. Milne

I'm sorry to say that I've never loved to exercise, so I need to remind myself of the benefits of movement. On this first Wednesday of February, I feature a couple of recent studies that intrigue me, and maybe motivate me, at least a little.

For us oldies, excerpted from a favored nytimes wellness blog --

 

[In short - moral of the story: it’s never too late! Never too late to start moving. I like that they qualify active as “one hour per week of moderate or vigorous activity... Formal exercise was not required. An hour per week of “gardening, cleaning the car, walking at a moderate pace, or dancing” counted, said Mark Hamer, a researcher at University College London who led the study.”

“For the study, appearing in the February issue of the British Journal of Sports Medicine, scientists isolated responses from 3,454 healthy, disease-free British men and women aged between 55 and 73 who, upon joining the original study of aging, had provided clear details about their exercise habits, as well as their health, and who then had repeated that information after an additional eight years…

In the eight years between the study’s start and end, the data showed, those respondents who had been and remained physically active aged most successfully, with the lowest incidence of major chronic diseases, memory loss and physical disability. But those people who became active in middle-age after having been sedentary in prior years, about 9 percent of the total, aged almost as successfully. These late-in-life exercisers had about a seven-fold reduction in their risk of becoming ill or infirm after eight years compared with those who became or remained sedentary, even when the researchers took into account smoking, wealth and other factors.”

For you youngers, also excerpted from a recent nytimes wellness blog --

[In short, moral of the story: don’t just sit, get moving, for your brain’s sake! This study, done on rats, whose brains they say are similar enough to humans to extrapolate findings, is a bit harder to follow, with its talk of the rostral ventrolateral medulla and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) affects on vasoconstriction. But, bottom line is that being sedentary seems to cause some neurons to branch out in ways that overstimulate the SNS with potential increased blood pressure and heart disease.]

“For a study recently published in The Journal of Comparative Neurology, scientists at Wayne State University School of Medicine and other institutions gathered a dozen rats. They settled half of them in cages with running wheels and let the animals run at will. Rats like running, and these animals were soon covering about three miles a day on their wheels. The other rats were housed in cages without wheels and remained sedentary.

After almost three months of resting or running, the animals were injected with a special dye that colors certain neurons in the brain…

And, as it turned out, when the scientists looked inside the brains of their rats after the animals had been active or sedentary for about 12 weeks, they found noticeable differences between the two groups in the shape of some of the neurons in that region of the brain.

Using a computerized digitizing program to recreate the inside of the animals’ brains, the scientists established that the neurons in the brains of the running rats were still shaped much as they had been at the start of the study and were functioning normally.

But many of the neurons in the brains of the sedentary rats had sprouted far more new tentacle-like arms known as branches. Branches connect healthy neurons into the nervous system. But these neurons now had more branches than normal neurons would have, making them more sensitive to stimuli and apt to zap scattershot messages into the nervous system.

In effect, these neurons had changed in ways that made them likely to overstimulate the sympathetic nervous system, potentially increasing blood pressure and contributing to the development of heart disease.”

I'm in Minnesota: it seems harder to exercise when it’s subzero outside! (I better qualify that: it’s harder for some of us, not all of us. A few of us seem to do just fine in the cold – namely my CFR office/boss Christopher, see “Didn’t Get Froze”).

Even though it's not easy to exercise, maybe many of us can keep exploring ways to be active? 

May your February include warmth in the midst of cold, and plenty of movement. As always, I wish for only and all goodness for you.

"Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person's physical, emotional, and mental states."  ~Carol Welch

“I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No sloppy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.”  – I Corinthians 9:26-27, The Message paraphrase

Take care of your body. It's the only place you have to live. ~ Jim Rohn