Sitting in a freezing Starbucks in Midlothian (Richmond) Virginia. Just paid 10 bucks for a daypass for TMobile (Thanks to Linnea’s Aunt Holly and Uncle Rick for some dough). Make the best of it, right? Trying to use our time wisely as we wait for my brother and his wife to get home from work.
We slept at the Bagin’s last night, thanks again, Chris and Marie!
Marie had the thankless task of managing me and the rest of the personal trainers at Boston Sports Clubs before moving to North Carolina. Chris has his MBA and was doing some software engineering. When we were visiting them they talked about the yeehaw moment. Someone does something that reminds you that you are in the south.
The confederate flag tattoos are a yee haw moment. We sat in Holly and Rick’s tattoo parlor and had a pile of yee haw moments. I don’t want to get mean here, or be an elitist yankee, but hearing a girl say that getting her tattoo would cause her to call in sick the next day was a yee haw moment. This girl was huge and on her arm was an old tattoo that said “THICKNESS”. YEE HAW!
Ok, enough of that.
We had a great time at Holly and Rick’s, a great time with their little Dachshunds. Thanks again.
I was in Seth’s office, I can’t remember what we were talking about, but I was scanning his bookshelves. I love bookshelves, I love books. My synapses flood with dopamine when a title seems interesting. Seth always has good books for me to read, Holly loaded us with books, and Chris and Marie also sent us on our way with a stack of books.
A title on Seth’s shelf jumped out at me. “The Hidden Link between Adrenaline and Stress”, by Dr. Archibald D. Hunt, and I am holding the book right now. A few chapters jump out at me.
One chapter shows that elevated adrenaline from stress raises cholesterol in the blood. This combination is a killer. I think it would be difficult to find anyone these days that doesn’t know that stress is mostly bad for the body. I think there are studies that show some positive benefits of stress, such as one I remember (not from the book) on worms. Scientists had spliced a gene into these worms that made them glow when they experienced stress…there was an optimum level of stress that caused the worms to live longer. Worms that didn’t glow didn’t live long.
I think that a lot of us are stressed because we are climbing the wrong ladders, our priorities are wrong. The old ‘working too hard at jobs we don’t like to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t know or like’ thing. If stress is killing you or someone you know, how do you change this, how do you say something? I really don’t know. Stress is part of life, but something is wrong if it is killing us. Jesus told us not to worry…so why do we? We were given brains, why don’t we use them? Hmm…good segway for the next though.
The most interesting chapter in this book is the one on creativity. How do we culture a creative mind? High levels of adrenaline have a negative effect on creativity. Coffee mimics adrenaline. This is interesting, because I find what he talks about in here happens to me all the time.
We are most creative when we are in a drowsy state of mind. Theta waves in the brain just cause us to be more creative…to remember things better. But in this state we are lazier. As we are aroused to activity we become less creative.
In the morning, I lay in bed when I am not in a rush, and I have great thoughts, but as I drink coffee and try to get motivated to write I find that the thoughts are gone. When I drive I think stuff that gets me excited, but when I sit down to put those thoughts on paper, where did they go? When I take the dog for a walk, or go running or biking, my mind floats and it is fun…but I lose the thoughts.
Dr. Hunt has some good tips on maintaining creativity and uses the mind as a garden analogy. Tilling the soil, planting the seed, allowing germination, then reaping and tactics for making each part work best. It seems there is an optimal arousal for each stage. More arousal is needed for planting the seed.
Planting the seed is done by reading and studying, we need to be aroused so we can focus on the subject. Germination happens when we sleep, or in times when we might not even be actively working on the subject. The brain just makes connections on its own, this takes time.
Reaping requires as low a state of arousal as possible. I have found this, even as I type the noise in this Starbucks has gone up and I find it difficult to type…I get frustrated and stress clouds the mind. OK, be like Jesus.
It is interesting that the author uses Jesus as the model for a person who properly handles stress. Yet another reason to read that Bible, read the red letters, huh?
