One thing is for certain, when we are having a hard time with cancer or any other tough disease we are going to need some help. But who do we get help from? The people we are closest to? Sometimes..and sometimes not.
Every notice when you are sick (or someone you love is sick) that the people you think you can count on are actually different than the folks who help you the most? I know! Its weird right?
How do we deal with that?
Is it OK to ask for help?
Well, I am kind of in love with this episode of The Hope For Today Cafe. In this podcast my good friend Deborah Kimmett and myself wax funny about how to gather your tribe around you when you are sick. Please give it a listen and share!
I’ve been thinking about happiness a lot lately. It might seem a bit odd to be talking about happiness in a blog that sometimes deals directly to living with cancer. Ridiculous even. Point taken. Living with cancer can be one of the biggest challenges we face over the course of our lives, so where does happiness fit in? Well, I had cancer a few years ago now and one thing I noticed during all of the tests and treatments and time for recovery was that life goes on for us and those we care about. The journey is often a marathon and not a sprint. So, if we can help ourselves find even small moments of happiness or even an afternoon of feeling good on this journey, we deserve it! The big question of course is “How?” How can we squeeze a bit of happiness out of this strange time of our lives? Heck maybe ‘Happiness” is too big a goal, maybe just “feeling a bit better” is a more reachable target. Either way, there are very simple things we can do to help make it happen.
#1 Spend some time in nature.
Spending time in nature has been shown to improve our mood quite dramatically. In a major study, Trent University Researcher Dr. Elizabeth Nisbet, found that people who spent time in nature on a regular basis felt much happier and as a bonus watched less TV. Do you have to do something dramatic like white water rafting or fly through the air in one of those squirrel suits? No! Just spending some time in a park or ravine or on a nature trail will do just fine.
#2 Write down a list of things that you are thankful for.
Keeping a gratitude Journal or even making a list of things that you are thankful for can have a very significant impact on how you feel. Again, you might have to dig a bit deeper considering the circumstances, but if you start small you might end up with a pretty good list. For instance when I make a gratitude list my most recent cup of coffee is usually the first item and then I go from there. At the University of California at Davis, psychologist Robert Emmons found that having a gratitude journal helped improve the mood of participants as well as increased their tolerance to pain. Isn’t that something? So what are you thankful for? Coffee? Lunch? The latest episode of Game of Thrones?
3: Your Favourite Music.
Can you remember your favorite song right now? The song that gets you completely cranked up, can pull you out of a dark mood and make you dance like a maniac even if you’re doing your taxes? Me too. In fact, I remember being 13 years old at the top of a ski hill that I was terrified of and listening to Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll” in my head to get the courage to ski down.
Once again the benefits of music are backed up by science. Music can be a very wonderful tool in helping us to feel happier in our daily lives, moment to moment.
In an article published in The Huffington Post called “The Happiness Habits of Exuberant Human Beings” they state that
“Over a three month period, researchers from the Group Health Research Institute found that patients who simply listened to music had the same decreased anxiety symptoms as those who got 10 one hour-long massages.
So, feeling a bit down? Play your favourite song or if you’re really ambitious create a playlist of tunes that makes you feel good and you’re well on your way to having a tool that is scientifically proven to help you feel better.
We often think about finding happiness as one of those things that might be impossible especially when going through one of life’s greatest challenges, but by using even the simplest of techniques (that are backed up by science!) we can just maybe make this journey a bit easier and feel a bit better along the way.
The timer on my phone is set to 4 minutes. “OK everybody, go!” A group of folks start scribbling in old school notebooks. We are writing something pretty simple. In fact, I had asked, “What is something terrific that happened this week? People actually smile as they write. This might not be what they expected when they joined a cancer support group called “Write For Your Life”. It wasn’t what I expected either. As they hit the three minute mark, I remember my first experience with therapeutic writing. I sat down at a Starbucks, put a notebook on one of their tiny round tables and was pressing so hard with my pen through the paper that I was sure I was engraving my thoughts on the unsuspecting wooden surface. It seems the wooden laminate wasn’t ready for how angry I was at being sick. I had written things like “Why did I get cancer? What am I going to do now? How am I going to pay my bills after surgery?” That was a pretty tough day. I certainly didn’t leave the coffee shop with any easy answers, but I did feel a bit better. It turns out, that wasn’t a coincidence. My friend Eugene Nam explained to me that Therapeutic Writing has benefits that would make any drug company jealous. Writing and journaling when you’re sick has been proven to (believe it or not) lower blood pressure, alleviate depression, reduce stress-and get this-reduce the length of hospital stays.
I say “Two Minutes” to the group. They write a bit faster. I noticed something else that happens as well. When we write in a group we give people the option of sharing what they have come up with. People tell bits of their story and we all learn from everyone’s experience. At times we have all doubled over in laughter when someone talks about something ridiculous that happened or listen intently while a member shares a particularly tough challenge.
My timer rolls past one minute. People scribble even faster, trying to put the finishing touches on their short piece. “Remember, it’s OK if it’s not perfect, it’s your story and however you tell it, is just fine.”
My phone chimes.
“Ok Everybody, times up. Does anyone want to read their piece?”
I have no idea what’s going to happen next.
Here’s some fancy research on how great Therapeutic Writing is…
Writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events has been found to result in improvements in both physical and psychological health, in non-clinical and clinical populations. (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986)
In clinical populations, a meta-analysis (Frisina et al, 2004) of nine expressive writing studies found a significant benefit for health.
Expressive writing about one’s breast cancer, breast cancer trauma and facts related to breast cancer, significantly improved and physical and psychological health, such as the quality-of-life (Craft, Davis, & Paulson, 2012; Henry et al. 2010)
Testicular cancer survivor participants assigned to the positive expressive writing showed significant improvements in physical and psychological health (Pauley, Morman, & Floyd, 2011)
What do you want to know about happiness? Seriously.
It seems to me that happiness is one of those things that all of humanity is after but not that many of us get on a regular basis. After we have enough to eat, a warm place to sleep and access to a decent PVR all of us start to wonder about how to obtain this strange commodity called happiness.
We stumble on it on occasion in strange places that always seem really funny to me. In fact, one of the happiest times I had this past year was standing ankle deep in water during a thunderstorm while unplugging the drain at the side of my house. Really. This raises several questions, the first of which is probably “Why don’t I get out more?” There are a whole ton of questions you might have about happiness as well. Ones like…
Can we be happier on a daily basis? Is it something we arrive at when we get a new BMW convertible? What about sex? (I mean in relation to happiness..) What about money? Is it the root of all evil or does it actually help us get more satisfaction in our lives? What about genetics? Can we do simple things everyday that will help us increase our happiness?
What are your questions about happiness? I really want to know. In fact, I am currently writing a book about happiness and I would love to get your questions and input. What do you want to know happiness?
I am a huge fan of Mr. John Cleese. Yes, I was one of those irritating teenagers who could repeat the Argument Sketch (A brilliant Monty Python bit) ad nasuem.
I love Cleese’s work. Its funny, absurd and wickedly smart. A few years ago he did a talk on creativity. He talked about what creative people have to do to have an effective process. The “How” of creativity if you will. Most people don’t really believe that the HOW of creativity exists. They think that we (those who create) just blunder about until some great (or not great) idea falls from the firmament and then we write it, sculpt it, draw it, or deliver it in whatever discipline we choose. Cleese doesn’t agree with that. He feels we need SPACE to create. Here’s the video here…
He believes (as does another hero of mine, some unkown named “Stephen King”) that inspiration does show up but that it will show up much more often if we are present, ready and waiting for it. We have to keep our appointment with creativity in order for things to happen. Like a lot of appointments though, sometimes we have to wait for the other party to show up. Sometimes we have to twiddle our thumbs and wait.
I honestly think that most people can’t handle the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen next. Sometimes when we are making something we have to sit there for long periods of time waiting for something to happen. OK maybe its not that long, but it FEELS like a long time.
I have done some creative work in my time. A couple of books, a bunch of live comedy, a CD with a very good friend of mine, and in the process of ALL of them there was some time spent just wondering what the heck to do next, but if we stick with it and stay in that uncomfortable space for a while, an idea will magically bubble up from somewhere. Call it the collective unconscious, call it the depths of your psyche, call it Harold, but whatever you call it, something, some idea or inspiration will arrive.
Keith Richards, another remarkable artist who I have a tremendous amount of respect for was asked how he writes. He said “You don’t really write, you transmit.” When we are writing, improvising or whatever, we sometimes lose yourself in the process and feel a kind of beautiful “Lift Off”. The thing we are working on creates itself in an almost effortless fashion. That is a wonderful feeling, but we have to force ourselves to show up and do our art in order for that to happen. So what’s the big deal here? I think that as creative folks we have to embrace what most people do not. We have to come to terms with not knowing how its going to turn out. We have to hang out in the “uncomfortableness” of being unfinished and trust that somewhere out there or somewhere in here, there is an answer and it will arrive.
It was my absolute honour to present A Spoonful of Laughter to the L’Chaim Cancer Support Group for Jewish Women last night. From the moment I walked in people were telling me jokes. “Oh, You’re the comedian? I’ve got a joke for you! A postman and a raccoon were walking down the street and…” And so it went. I was in stitches.
Taking a group of people who have had very little to no experience doing Improv through a workshop can be an adventure but these ladies went for it with incredible trust and enthusiasm. We talked about the medical benefits of laughter and how laughter can be such a powerful and positive tool for healing in our lives. As always at about the 20 minute mark the energy in the room shifts in a palpable way. We transformed from a bunch of individuals concerned about how we look in front of others to a unified group that is ready to share and take risks. Frankly, I love it. I’ve seen this happen again and again with groups of 15 to crowds of well over 100. When that happens it sets the stage for very good things to happen. We could see bits of this last night when by the end of our evening people were sharing their stories about the cancer journey, laughing at each other’s jokes and generally having a blast. Who knew a cancer support group could be such a good time?
The timer on my phone is set to 4 minutes. “OK everybody, go!” A group of folks start scribbling in old school notebooks. We are writing something pretty simple. In fact, I had asked, “What is something terrific that happened this week? People actually smile as they write. This might not be what they expected when they joined a cancer support group called “Write For Your Life”. It wasn’t what I expected either. As they hit the three minute mark, I remember my first experience with therapeutic writing. I sat down at a Starbucks, put a notebook on one of their tiny round tables and was pressing so hard with my pen through the paper that I was sure I was engraving my thoughts on the unsuspecting wooden surface. It seems the wooden laminate wasn’t ready for how angry I was at being sick. I had written things like “Why did I get cancer? What am I going to do now? How am I going to pay my bills after surgery?” That was a pretty tough day. I certainly didn’t leave the coffee shop with any easy answers, but I did feel a bit better. It turns out, that wasn’t a coincidence. My friend Eugene Nam explained to me that Therapeutic Writing has benefits that would make any drug company jealous. Writing and journaling when you’re sick has been proven to (believe it or not) lower blood pressure, alleviate depression, reduce stress-and get this-reduce the length of hospital stays.