So, have you ever been smacked upside the head with an unexplained dose of anxiety? It sucks doesn’t it? Well recently, I was going along and minding my own business when I was hit with a wack of anxiety. It was very strange! Ordinarily I can cruise through pretty much anything and feel calm and cool. Going onstage? No sweat! Big meeting? I got that. Final Episode of Game of Thrones? Ok, that can freak me out a bit. But really, most of the time, the word anxiety has little meaning other than something that “other people” experience.
Not so the other day. I woke up and for some reason and I couldn’t get started working. Everytime I was about to start my timer to do the “gazillion” things I had to do, I was totally freaked out by them. So, I relaxed for a bit and then tried again. No go. I just felt more and more tension in my chest and started to feel down right “freaky”. It was like an ocean tide of bad feeling had just rolled in and there was nothing I could do about it.
Before I knew it, most of the day was gone. The next day? Pretty much the same deal. I started to feel pretty terrible and had no idea how to change my mental state. So what gives?
A few months ago I found out that anxiety runs in my family. This should have not come as a total surprise as I had heard some family members described as “worriers”, but then I realized that these stories actually went back generations. (Here’s a hint: If you hear stories about your family being worried before the Model T was invented, it might be a family issue)
Ah! It seems this whole anxiety thing may have deeper roots than I thought. It doesn’t seem fair that genetics, that mysterious part of our make-up that brought us our eye colour, height and our love/hate of Star Wars, would have something to do with how we feel on a regular basis, but it does. Apparently our genetic history can really affect how we feel.
Here’s the other side of the coin. Many years ago a relative who I won’t mention (We’ll just call him “Dad”) was feeling really worried. In fact, he was walking around the house anxious a lot of the time. Finally it got to the point where he needed to go to his doctor. After examining him, taking his blood pressure and asking him some questions, the doctor came up with a pretty terrific prescription. 1: Stop watching the News. 2: Wear looser underwear.
So, he went home and did both of those things-and he felt better. For me it wasn’t so simple. However, I woke up one morning and the crazy tension in my chest had lessened. I was able to work again, and as I got a bunch of stuff done, I started to feel capable and OK.
Many of us deal with this. My own small foray into the world of unnamed anxiety was tiny in comparison to what others deal with. For some, waiting a few days and making different underwear choice doesn’t cut it. Folks sometimes need medical care for their condition. If you are dealing with this or something like it, I really hope you get some assistance.
My few days of discomfort was enough for me, thank you very much. Hope it doesn’t happen again, but if it does, at least I know there are others fighting the same fight and just waiting for the tide to go out.
Here are a couple of resources for dealing with anxiety here.
Are you crazy about art? I mean any kind of art. Do you get down to old Led Zeppelin tunes? Do you do needle point? Square dance? Do water colours? Woodburning? Do you paint amateurish acrylics of your dog doing water sports? Do you make needle point pillows of Harley Davidson motorcycles jumping through rings of fire? Well if you are doing any kind of art at all, or appreciating it (like our breathtaking jack o lantern up there) you are doing yourself a world of good.
It turns out, the arts are good for us. In a very big way.
I had the pleasure recently of speaking at a conference called The Art Heals Health, Health Heals Art Symposium in Toronto. There was a very impressive group of people there who are committed to exploring how the arts help all of us be healthier. There was a neurologist there named Dr Luis Fornazzariwho showed us incredible research (with diagrams of the brain that were lit up like Vegas on New Years)
This is what Vegas looks like at New Years
proving that when we either do or appreciate art in any form we are stimulating neural pathways and helping our brains stay healthy (I am assuming you only have one brain- I mean brains like “all of our brains”) It turns out that our brains really need to be exercised and stimulated on a regular basis to make sure our minds stay limber.
In my own research for my upcoming book Doing Happiness: Uncovering The Hidden Benefits of Feeling Good, I came across research that shows that art does other great stuff for us as well. Art helps make us happy! Yes, that’s right. As well as keeping our brains cooking, doing any kind of art (including Norwegian woodworking) can help us to be happier in a measurable way.
Want to know the best part? You do not have to be good at whatever you’re doing to get the benefits. That’s right. You can absolutely suck at your art and you’ll still get all the benefits to your health and level of happiness.
Don’t know what art to do? Here are a few suggestions…
1: Buy some acrylic paints (they’re cheap!) and paint a landscape. There are some GREAT lessons on youtube for every level of skill, and that’s a trip to ART CITY. I mean who doesn’t love Bob Ross?
2: Make a playlist with your most favourite music on it and go for a walk. It’s a great way to transport yourself to whole different way of thinking.
3: Dance like your choreographer is Gary Busey. (Wouldn’t that be interesting?)
4: Go to your local art Gallery and wander around. (If you want to sound impressive, mutter things like “How very didactically expressionistic!” even when ordering a coffee.) Personally, I am crazy about the AGO for a bunch of reasons.
Remember, you don’t actually have to make art, you can just appreciate it. Now we know that art is good for us and helps keep us smart, happy and gives us a shiny coat we can take advantage of it whenever we want, and remember you’re not wrecking the living room by painting a mural of your favourite Swedish Death Metal Band on the wall, your making art and staying healthy!
The patient experience can be a crazy thing. Often it is more emotional than we think and these feelings can come out at times that are absolutely not convenient. I remember when I had just been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I thought I took the news pretty darn well. In the doctor’s office, I had been fine. However, out in the world it was a completely different matter. You may not be aware of this but cab drivers and cyclists have a deep abiding love for each other. Truly, we stop at red lights and take the opportunity to give each other affectionate and lingering hugs. Actually that is not really accurate. In fact, you could say that cab drivers and cyclists don’t get along at all. I was riding north on University Ave in Toronto (a major street with a ton of traffic on it) when a cab driver pulled up to me in the next lane and cut me off.
(This is not me.)
I slammed on my brakes and came to a skidding stop; inches from his back bumper. We shared a few words with each other that were not “Happy Birthday”. Ordinarily that would have been it and we would have each gone our separate ways. But no! I was under the influence of a cancer diagnosis which was baking in my psyche like a bubbling toxic cake. Suddenly, my perceptions changed. The buildings of University Ave seemed to fall away and were replaced by the façade of main street from the old west town of tombstone. I stood facing the cab driver in tense silence. A tumble weed drifted by. The town bell clanged twelve times for noon.
The cab driver spoke. “Draw!” I coiled all the rage I had into my throbbing right arm and like lightning I drew my six shooter from the holster strapped to my leg. I aimed down the barrel at my adversary and I realized…that I had completely lost my mind! There I was on University Ave in a shouting match with a cab driver. We were both filled with rage. Oh sure we had something to disagree about but no one was hurt and we both could have just got on with our day. But no, I had completely dove in to the conflict like this was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Did I have the right to be angry? Sure! Was this the best way to handle it? Nope.
Somewhere in the depths of my brain a little voice sad “Rob, calm down! You’re acting like a maniac!” So I literally took a step back, got on my bike and went home. I’m sure that I would have handled it differently if I wasn’t completely shocked by having this thing called cancer, but I didn’t. It made me realize that sometimes we think we have dealt with something on an emotional level but our psyches need to catch up with our logical minds. This can make us do strange things, like think we’re Clint Eastwood on University Ave. Wherever you are and whatever your story is, hang in there and watch out for tumble weeds.
Who doesn’t love nuns? Well, I’m sure there are a few people. However there is a specific group of nuns who can teach us about how happiness can really improve our health. There was a group of sisters in Milwaukee who signed up (I’m not sure if they “sign up,” it kind of makes it seem like they have a draft pick for nuns. “Sister Mary Margaret is a first round draft pick for Notre Dame, Bob!” “What a great choice for them Marv, she can rhyme off 12 hail Mary’s a minute. That’s really going to help them in the playoffs!”)
Anyway, one hundred and eighty nuns entered the order of Notre Dame back in the 1930’s and they measured how happy they were by looking at their diaries. After studying the “happy” or “unhappy” language in their diaries for many years and combining that with their levels of health and the length of their lives, they found that the happiest nuns outlived the unhappy nuns by an average of , wait for it…nine years. Nine years! That is an incredible difference if you ask me.
You could say “Ya but, what about differences in circumstances? Probably some nuns had a terrible life while others stayed at the Nun Club Med” Well, I am no expert on nuns (for a bunch of reasons) but according to the research, one of the reasons they studied nuns was that the sisters were living lives that were very similar in circumstance to each other. Their routines, food, and social lives were almost identical. This lead researchers to the conclusion that, all things being equal, “being happy” had a profound effect on the length of the lives of the sisters. It makes me think that feeling good can have huge benefits for us as well. So, it turns out that happiness is incredible good for us! You might be interested in my upcoming book “Doing Happiness: Uncovering the Hidden Secrets of Feeling Good.” More soon!
It was my first time attempt to dock a houseboat. I was spinning the wheel of the craft and praying that the slow moving boat would eventually obey my directions and turn. We were approaching a marina in the Trent Severn Waterway. We neared the dock a little quicker than I had hoped and I struggled to remember the instructional video we had seen the day before. We were supposed to approach at a certain angle and at a speed that was called “dead slow”. I was going more at a speed that could be called “dead fast”, and didn’t want all of us to be “actually dead” when we came into contact with the dock. I did my best to slow our progress. My brother-in-law on the bow said “Ok Robbie, slower, I think we got it.”
We finally nudged the dock very gently. I turned the wheel harder and threw it into reverse, bringing the stern of our intrepid ship in line with the dock as well. We tied up the boat and I finally exhaled. I had successfully docked for the first time. It wasn’t perfect mind you, but no one had been maimed and there was no damage to anything so I considered it a huge win. We scrambled off the boat and went to buy bait. I don’t usually feel like a super hero when I buy worms, but I did today. I heard a voice from further down the dock.
(what Weathered Marina Guy might have looked like)
“Who’s driving the boat?” asked Weathered Marina Guy.
“It was me!” I said in my manliest of voices (which is actually pretty damn manly).
“I have owned this marina for 30 years and that was the worst docking I have ever seen!”
I was pretty crushed, but wait there was more.
“I really don’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends, but really, that was terrible!” He was actually embarrassing me in front of my in laws, which was worse, but hey, who’s counting? He went on for a while about how lousy I was at operating a craft and with a somewhat withered sense of self esteem, we were on our way.
Free of the humiliating clutches of Weathered Marina Guy, we approached the locks at Buckhorn. Again, I had never done anything like go through a lock while piloting a boat, but we went for it. I had to do everything possible to not think about what Weathered Marina Guy had said to me a couple of hours before. I approached at “dead slow” and cruised by several boasts that looked like they might be worth more than a small house. Once again I held my breath. The huge doors of the lock opened and we went in. Water rushed in and rushed out. The lockmaster was amazingly helpful and in 30 minutes we were lowered about 10 feet and were on our way.
I was thrilled. Ordinarily, having somebody tell me I was terrible at something would have been really tough to take. However, right after the experience I was able to redeem myself and once again, started to feel pretty good.
We celebrated by finding a spot near some cliffs that was 20 feet deep and jumped off our houseboat into the cool water below. It was some of the most fun I’ve had in a while. Funny enough, I was holding a Go Pro while I did it. so, you can see it too.
Have a great day everybody and remember, having a blast is the best revenge!
Many thanks to Egan Houseboat Rentals! They are great people who really know what they are doing.
