Stress: Fountain of Youth?

There has definitely been an inordinate amount of stress in my life recently.  The past month has brought the sudden death of a family member,  my husband's job loss, and culminated in last week's marathon clean up to our rental property in Naples, after the tenants skipped out leaving the place in a shambles and owing us two month's rent.  So imagine how comforted I was to read that stress can actually strengthen your body and help you live longer. It's true.  The process is called hormesis...when the body is under stress, healthy cells will crank up and produce extra compounds to fend off the harmful chemical effects of the stress reaction.  The body tends to overcompensate in favor of the healthy cells, so as long as the ratio of stress is lower than the amount of good cell  byproducts, the strong, healthy cells become more plentiful and stick around in the body, defending you against all kinds of other menacing evils that develop with age.  Much of the research in this field has been done with physical exercise, chemical toxins, and taxing intellectual work, all of which stimulate the body to create stronger cellular structure and neural connections.

Makes sense, doesn't it?  The human body is quite a marvel of self-preservation.  Over the past few weeks, I've half expected to look in the mirror and find myself transformed into a withered and decrepit hag - but I usually look pretty much the same as I looked three months ago before all this happened.  Well, a few more gray hairs perhaps.  Last week before we left for Florida, I wouldn't have bet a nickel that Jim and I could clean, repair, and paint that house ourselves.  But somehow we did, working six to eight hours every day, and falling on our faces as soon as we hit our bed at night before getting up the next day and starting all over.   As I write this,  the finishing touch (new carpet throughout) is being installed, and the house looks  brand new. 

There are plenty of adages about the human spirit being able to rise to the occasion, and finding strength in adversity.  While I know that our troubles are certainly small potatoes in comparision to many others in the modern world, it's still not been an easy time for us, so I was rather gratified to know that my own heart (not to mention back and shoulders!) would come through when I needed them.  

And it's a bonus to think that all the stress and all that physical labor last week might have set off a firestorm of cellular regeneration which will help me live longer and stronger.

Masks

 

In the land of a thousand dances,

I have at least that many masks.

~unknown

Even within our deepest connections, I believe we use masks to play a constant game of emotional peek-a-boo.

No wonder I thrive in solitude and flourish in aloneness.

It allows me moments to sit naked, stripped of all my masks, and be only the question instead of always worrying about being the answer.

Cafe Writing~When I Was A Kid

Take eleven minutes (use all eleven, but don’t go over), and write on the subject of when you were a kid. This is a timed exercise and it’s expected that it won’t be perfect. Any format – fiction, essay, verse – is welcome. You would expect that aging would dim the memories of childhood, but in fact the opposite seems to happen.  The older I become, the more vivid are some of those images from years (and years!) gone by, and they return to me in bright flashbulbs of  light, outlined in crystal clarity in my brain.

This month's Cafe Writing theme (SPACE) has called one of those images to mind..the night of July 20, 1969, and Neil Armstrong's historic walk on the moon.  I see myself, seated cross-legged on the floor of my Aunt Mary's living room,  huddled with my cousins around the black-and-white tv screen.  We're eating birthday cake, I think - banana cake, to be exact, because that's my cousin Robby's favorite, and it is his birthday after all.   There is noisy chatter from my younger cousins splashing in the pool,  my Aunt Marge is searching for a napkin to wipe the frosting from baby Kevin's fingers before he smears it on his navy blue sailor outfit, and my grandfather sits in corner in the La-Z-Boy chair, murmuring something in Armenian which is unintelligible to me, but obviously expresses his amazement .

I watch the screen, where there is an odd looking man in a white puffy suit, and he appears to be almost floating on the grayish ground beneath him.  He's surrounded by blackness, an infinity of blackness that worries me, for I'm afraid he will suddenly bounce too high and fly off into the void all around him.  But no, he manages to plant the American flag he carries into the rocky ground, to hover beside it for a moment as if paying homage to the greatness of this county which has sent him here to a godforsaken planet on the outskirts of the universe. 

All the while, I sit and eat my banana cake, hoping to discover the toothpick my Aunt Mary always bakes in the cake batter, which will guarantee me a prize.

Stage Fright

Last week I traveled with my boss and another co-worker to the local offices of a large insurance company which is one our biggest accounts.  We were hosting a "lunch and learn" session, and my boss was giving a presentation on traumatic brain injury.  The reason for my presence was to serve as an accompanist of sorts for my boss in her presentation,  to maneuver through the Power Point presentation in coordination with her talk.  I've done this before for her, sat quietly behind the laptop screen, listening carefully so I can advance the slides perfectly in time with her speaking.  There's an eerie similarity between this activity and accompanying singers on the piano, the listening, the reacting, the being ready to react to any derivation from the script.  It's something I'm good at, after nearly 30 years of experience. 

Every time I attend one of these presentations I'm thankful for my musical training, which has stood me in good stead for events such as this.  My boss, one of the most confident women I've met, works hard to conceal the insecurity she feels in these situations.  Indeed, all last week her behavior  reminded me of my high school students the week before competition..."Can we rehearse this afternoon?" she'd come asking me right after lunch.  "Should we run it just one more time?" she'd query after our third run-through.  "How does that sound to  you?"  she'd question, trying out a small joke.

And when things don't go quite as planned, she's always amazed at my aplomb.  Last week, I ended up running the presentation for our guest speaker, a neuropsychologist who truly enjoyed the sound of his own voice.  "Wow," she said over lunch, " I can't believe you just jumped in there and followed along with him - he was all over the place!"

Jumping in and following along are my specialty, I wanted to say.  How many times have students skipped pages, or sung the wrong verse, or decided to change their song at the last minute?  How often has the piano been so badly out of tune, it seemed to be in a different key?   Or the E below middle C gets stuck every time you press it?  Or the sound system doesn't work?  Or there's no light on the piano and the stage director forgets to turn on the spots?  Versatility and flexibility are the mainstays in any musician's repertoire.

Last winter I visited Taliesin West, the winter home cum school of architect Frank Lloyd Wright.    One of  the requirements for students enrolled in Wright's program was the ability to play a musical instrument,  sing, or dance.  In fact, there is a lovely little theater on the grounds where regular performances are held.  According to our guide, Wright believed that if you could "present yourself well on stage, you could present yourself anywhere."

Musical training comes with a myriad of  benefits, that's for sure.    There is a sense of inner confidence that comes from performing experience, the ability to step into character and stay there until you've completed your role, the power to think on your feet and handle the unexpected.   Wright was correct -  it's great training for life in general.  But like any skill, it must be continually honed and sharpened.    Which is one of the reasons I keep returning to my musical activities, even though they sometimes play havoc with my personal schedule.

I like being able to present myself anywhere...whether it's on stage at the keyboard of a nine foot concert grand, or a conference room in Lansing manning a Dell laptop computer.

Walking Woman

We're in the process of adjusting to a new lifestyle around here.  Jim is working at home  all the time  now, which means he's usurped   chosen the dining room for his office since that was literally the only viable space available.  Our poor little house was not meant to be home and office space both, and the irony is that my mom rattles around in her much larger house while we're sort of busting out at the seams here in this one.  Why don't we switch houses? you're thinking.  Let's just say there's about as much chance of that happening as there is for gasoline to return to under $1 per gallon. But I digress...what I've really come to talk to you about is walking.

I began a home walking program a couple of months ago, and it's been a hugely positive addition to my daily routine.  I'm now a charter member of Leslie Sansone's Walk At Home club - I simply pop in a video every morning, choose whether to walk 1, 2 or 3 miles, and in 30 minutes I've completed a total body workout.  There are so many videos to choose from (I get mine from Netflix) that you can literally do a different workout every day for six months. 

Now this might sound hokey to you...I suppose walking in your bedroom in front of the tv set does seem a little silly on the face of it.  But I definitely see a difference in the way my clothes fit, I feel lots more energetic, and best of all, my chronic backaches have improved significantly.   And just the other day, I was standing at the sink with my arms folded in front of me, and felt a suspicious tightness  inside my upper arm.  "There's something hard in here..." I said aloud. 

My husband chuckled.  "That's probably muscle, from all those weights you've been lifting."

Guess what?  He was right.  (Hand weights are incorporated into many of the walking programs.)

I readily admit to being a powder puff when it comes to physical activity.  I've joined gyms, and signed up for exercise classes.  Bottom line is, it has to be convenient.  I have enough places to go during the day, and getting in my car to drive somewhere to exercise just doesn't work for me.  But if I can get up from my couch and get a good workout right in my own home, then hop into the shower and start the day, I feel way ahead of the game.

Now each morning while Jim sips his second cup of coffee, reads e-mails and the online news, I'm power walking in the den with Leslie and the crew.   My morning exercise is something positive I can do just for me, and it makes me feel better about myself physically and emotionally (walking is  a great stress reliever, and there's been plenty of that around here lately!)

I like being a walking woman.   

How about you?  What's your relationship with exercise?  Love it or hate it?  Have you had success with any particular kind of exercise program?