Five Reasons You Must Start Resistance Training Today!

Welcome back!

I love list posts.  They are so easy to write, and even easier to read.  If only adopting the habit they propose were so easy…

But in this case, it is!  Resistance training is not difficult to do.  You don’t need to join a gym.  There is no requirement for fancy equipment or expensive clothing.  While a routine does take a little bit of time, you will begin to see and feel significant results in as little as 20 minutes 2 or (ideally) 3 sessions per week.  You could multitask, and do your routine while watching Scrubs reruns.  How simple is that?

Your own body weight can provide all the resistance you want or need, or if you are so inclined, you can purchase some very reasonably priced resistance tubing to use in your living room.

Here’s the trick.  Don’t fall for the fitness magazine articles that suggest complex moves, or drop sets, or supersets, or unbelievably crazy-sets.  Pick exercises that target multiple muscle groups like squats, lunges, front and side plank, or good old fashioned push-ups, and just start doing them!  Here is why you should start today:

Reason 1) Resistance training is a friend of your metabolism.  Why is this?  As you begin to overload your muscles beyond what they are used to, you injure them slightly (don’t go for major injury…that doesn’t do any good at all).  You cause little tiny microtears in the muscle fibers, and this is why you are sore one or two days later.  But this is good news, because as your muscle fibers heal, they become stronger and bigger.  You add muscle mass, and over time, this increases your metabolic rate.

How does that work?  Body fat doesn’t do much.  It just sits there and looks back at you in the
mirror.  It doesn’t use up much energy.  Heck, it doesn’t even need much of a blood supply since it requires so little maintenance.  As a result, it burns very few calories.

On the other hand, muscle is very active.  It requires food (glucose and amino acids) and burns tons of calories by just being there.  Clearly, if you want to be a lean, mean, calorie burning machine, you want as much muscle as you can get.

Reason 2) Muscle, because it requires glucose and amino acids, is very sensitive to insulin.  Insulin opens the doorway to  to the little muscle cells, so glucose and amino acids can get in.  If you are insulin resistant, as in Type II diabetes  (and possibly CFRD), lifting weights will increase your insulin sensitivity as you build muscle mass.  A finely tuned insulin sensitivity mechanism is required for a stable blood glucose level, which leads to good health.

Reason 3) This is a big one for me, and maybe you can relate.  Building muscle and feeling and being strong physically is one area of my life where having cystic fibrosis doesn’t even matter!  My lungs may not be the best in the gym, but I will take on any woman my age in a push up or pull up contest!  This is a very empowering feeling…I have at least a modicum of control over my body which is otherwise at the mercy of my lung status.  Now, some days my lungs even interfere with my time at the gym, and that is OK.  I know that when I recover, I will be back, strutting around the gym with the big boys, knowing that my muscle fibers are no different than theirs:-)

If you have an illness other than CF, lifting may just provide the same benefit.  Lifting weights is a very black or white thing to do.  You do it and you see and feel results in as little as two or three weeks.  You have control of this.  It may not feel like you have control of much else, sometimes.  But you do have control over this.
Reason 4) More and more studies are showing that well-designed resistance training programs in post-treatment management of cancer patients and survivors are beneficial in improving health status and quality of life.   This is true in other chronic diseases as well.  Weight training is anabolic, meaning it builds up the body.  Often, treatment for illness is catabolic, or breaks down the body (think steroids or chemotherapy).  While these treatments are necessary, we can counter their bad side effect of breaking down tissue by weight training.

Reason 5) Weight training is fun!  Ok, maybe I’m in the minority thinking this, but stand by this statement.  When you get over the initial “I have no clue what I’m doing,” and move through the “Oh my God this huts,” you begin to see improvement!  And this is fun!

Are you ready to begin?  I’m starting a YouTube channel where I will teach easy, and very modifiable exercises that anyone can start doing today.  Check it out, and subscribe today!

ANTS AND ELEPHANTS

Well, it’s been awhile.  I’ve been a bit under the weather lately and haven’t posted anything as I’ve dealt with illness.  Now, I have a PICC line, through which I am receiving antibiotics, and the magic medicine is starting to work, so…I’m back..

This current illness has prompted several ideas for blog posts, although up until now, I haven’t had the energy to act on the ideas.  One topic that comes up frequently when I deal with my cystic fibrosis and it’s ever-present ups and downs is what my mind does with the very simple information that my body is not perfect.

Do you have ANTs?  By ANTs, I mean automatic negative thoughts.  Do you remember the last time you watched a colony of ants, as the workers stream in perfect lines to and from the ant colony with the single goal of procuring food and whatever else an ant needs to live a good ant life.  Perfect, tiny little single file lines of ants, determined to stay in line and do what is expected for an ant to do.

This is the way unhelpful thoughts travel in your brain.  They are a series of repetitive synapses that have traveled the same neuronal pathways in your brain so many times that they have worn grooves in the sand of your brain.  Now, they are automatic, as are their emotional and behavioral consequences.  So it is very appropriate for the acronym for “automatic negative thoughts” to be A.N.T.  I’ve read that humans have about 50,000 to 70,000 thoughts per day, and that 90% of them are repeats.  We think the same things, over and over and over.  It reminds me of that ant in a single file line, doing exactly what the ant in front of him/her (probably him I guess) does, without question.

Here are some examples of my ANTs:  “This disease sucks.  You just got through two months of P90X, only to have to stop!  You’ll never get through this 3 month program.  IV”s again?  I  (sometimes I’m “you” and sometimes I’m “I”  If you lived in my brain, you would have me committed.) already had 3 weeks of IV’s just a few months ago…My CF is progressing.  My lung function probably stinks right now…God, what if it doesn’t come back.  What if I am now on that downhill slope?  Oh man, I am coughing so hard…what if I start to bleed and never stop?  No one is here to help if I have massive hemoptysis…what would I do?  WHAT?  103 pounds…oh no… You’re disappearing.  How can you be losing so much weight?  What does THAT mean?  Do you now have to deal with CFRD and insulin, too?  That would really suck.  You know Julie, that CFRD usually means worsening of CF.  The good days are over.  Your luck has run out….” and on and on and on

They are automatic.  I don’t try to think them.  They just happen.  And they’ve happened before.  It doesn’t seem to matter to my brain that it is thinking useless, negative thoughts that it has already informed me of a million times, thank you.  They keep on coming.  I’ve tried to stop them..but that definitely does NOT work!  You can’t successfully tell yourself not to think something.  Just try…right now, try to NOT think of a pink elephant lying belly up in your living room.  See?  You can’t do it.  Just by imagining what you don’t want to think, you think it.

But I’ve learned a trick in dealing with these thoughts.  It’s come with practicing mindfulness, which simply means being aware of what is happening while it is happening.  In other words, I’m watching my thoughts.  And at the same time, I am watching what my body feels in response to these thoughts.  It’s not pretty.  What I see is a direct connection between negative thoughts and bad feelings.  “Duh,” you say.  “That’s a no-brainer!”  Exactly.  These processes occur below the level of your “brain,” or consciousness.  But when you become conscious of them, something pretty cool happens.  It turns out that you can’t be fully conscious of something you are doing that is harming you, and continue doing it.  When you directly experience the fact that negative thoughts lead to bad feelings, you will appreciate that you have direct control of how you feel.  All you need to do is decide to think alternative, more positive thoughts.

So instead of, “Your lung function probably sucks right now!” I can gently decide (consciously) to change the thought to, “Yes, my lungs are a bit under the weather now…..and that is why I am taking care of them by resting and infusing wonder drugs.  Thank God I have health insurance and access to  great health care!”  The ANT will try to take over, and I will have to be very alert for this, as the grooves run deep.  But as long as I catch them, I can always substitute a life and health affirming thought for the negative one.  Over time, the affirming thought grooves will deepen and the negative grooves will smooth over from disuse.

Try to catch your ANTs.  Remember, don’t try to force them away (remember the elephant).  When you catch and ANT, replace him with an affirming thought that carries with it positive feelings.  Is this Pollyanna, New Age garble thinking?  I don’t know.  But would you rather feel bad, anxious, worried and depressed, or hopeful and grateful for what is good in your life?  Which feelings do you think are healthier overall and better for you?  Does being depressed and worried help you in any way at all?  Will it change the outcome?  I would argue that being optimistic and grateful can change the outcome…for the better.  So why not give it a try?

The Gift of Giving

I have recently taken on a new challenge.  I love challenges!  THis morning I was sent an email link to the most fantastic site, called the 29 Day Giving Challenge.  It was started by a young woman with multiple sclerosis, who found happiness (check out her video on the home page) and abundance through the simple act of giving a small gift to someone else every day for 29 days in a row.  This has erupted into a huge movement of giving by thousands of people across the world!  Imagine.

So today is Day 1.  I just joined the Global Giving Village, as one of the 29 Day Giving Challenge member suggested.  I think I’ll update my giving here, to keep me honest.

You know, having CF is no picnic.  But when I check out these organizations and what they do, it reminds me first, that I really have so much to be grateful for, and second, that the quickest way to happiness is to give to others.  Of this, I am certain.

Now….off to the pharmacy for the third time this week!

What is the Right Career?

How is a career choice related to wellness?  First, when I write about wellness with CF, I am not simply talking about physical health and wellness, but also emotional well being…a sense of contentment and fulfillment.  Many things are related to this sense of wellbeing, and fortunately, most have little to do with physical health.

I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about happiness lately.  If you’ve read my column before, you probably know that I find the field of positive psychology fascinating.  Essentially, it is the study of what causes people to be happy and to live rich and fulfilling lives.  Happiness is a popular topic these days.  You see happiness “secrets” revealed on book and magazine covers, on PBS specials, on happiness blogs, websites…you name it.

My purpose is to mine the field of positive psychology and happiness research to come up with scientifically validated ways to improve the subjective wellbeing of people with chronic illness, and of course, cystic fibrosis is a perfect example.

So what does this have to do with career choice?

The research tells us that one of the most important elements of living a good, fulfilling life, is the ability to use your strengths in a manner that serves a purpose that is larger than yourself…one that you believe in deeply and that aligns with your core values.  Those people for whom work is a calling feel the most fulfilled.  And there is a strong positive correlation between happiness and using your strengths every day.  Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could do that and get paid?  You can…and you should strive to do just that.

We all have strengths, and I’m sure you have a very good idea of what your particular strengths are.  It has only been a recent discovery that people who are the happiest immerse themselves in using their strengths rather than using their finite amount of time and energy to “shore up” their weaknesses.  I believe that the very first thing to take into account when deciding a career path is “What are you good at?”  Notice, I didn’t say, “What do you think you can handle, given CF?”

If you want to try a fun and often revealing exercise, take the VIA Signature Strengths Survey at http://www.authentichappiness.org.  This is a series of 240 multiple-choice questions (it takes 45 minutes or so), and when you are done, you will immediately see which are your top five (or Signature) Strengths.   I thought I knew what my results would be, and I was close, but there were some that completely blew me away.  You will also get an interesting perspective on your own strengths by asking those that know you well what qualities they most admire in you.  Finally, make your own list of things you love to do and that you know you do well.  Try to narrow this down into five or six things in which you take great pride and satisfaction.  Combining all of these methods together will give you a very accurate map of the kind of career you will find most fulfilling.   It will be the one(s) where you see the need and the opportunity for these strengths at every turn.

Looking back to my decision to go to medical school to ultimately “cure cystic fibrosis,” I realize that I could have used this advice.  When one thinks of a good researcher, strengths like the capacity to love and be loved, humor, zest, curiosity and love of learning, and hope/optimism/future mindedness (my top five) are not the ones that first come to mind.   A great researcher would show strengths like industry, diligence, critical thinking, caution, judgment, ingenuity, and leadership (not even close to my top five).  While my passion was in the right place (curing CF), my strengths were not suited well to this career decision.

Now, this didn’t turn out all bad.  I loved going to medical school.  My love of learning and curiosity strengths were force-fed every day for 10 years of training.  I got to tell great pathology jokes.  But let’s just say that sitting around diagnosing cancer (after the intellectual thrill of figuring it out) did nothing for my zest, my hope and my optimism.  And who loves their pathologist?  Was I happy?  Not so much.  When it came time to retire to take care of my children and myself, I went through a slight existential crisis (well if I’m not a doctor, then who am I?), but then settled into post-physician existence quite happily.

Now I am entrenched in career number two, coaching and training wellness to people, who, like myself, live in less than perfect bodies that often require care and attention above and beyond the norm.  I use my strengths in a much more effective an ongoing way, and I am appreciated for them more than I ever was sitting at my microscope.  And, I care deeply about the meaning and usefulness of my work.  I feel that I am doing what I “should” be doing.  Given that I have always had a passion for fitness, nutrition and stress management, I get a kick out of sharing this with other people, and love learning even more about these topics.  This leads to a sense of fulfillment and contentment that I didn’t feel as a surgical pathologist.

So what can you learn from this story?  First, it pays to learn your strengths and give them serious consideration when choosing your career.  The same goes for following your passions, and figuring out a way to merge your core values with your daily job.  But finally, what you can learn from this story is that sometimes, despite your best intention, your “dream” job takes awhile to manifest.

You may decide on one path, and find out later that it doesn’t work out as well as you had hoped.  Or, you may love what you do for a time, and then physical challenges may force you to be more attentive to your own health needs than that particular job allows.  All of this happens…to everyone, really.  When you are first deciding on a career, in your early twenties, it may seem like you only get one chance, and you can’t afford to mess it up.

You might be making yourself crazy by thinking, I can do this now, but what if I get sick?  Sure, be practical.  You probably shouldn’t become a firefighter!  But why paralyze yourself by imagining what may happen in the future?

Barack Obama said something in his inaugural address that stuck me (actually, most of what he said struck me…but this I remember).  He said he rejected the notion that as a nation, we couldn’t both follow our values and be safe.  To paraphrase him, I reject the notion that as people with cystic fibrosis, we can’t both follow our passions and be well.

Your career is obviously a very personal choice…one that you will live with day in and day out.  Most people you talk to will give you practical advice:  Think about your health.  How stressed will you be?  Will you be able to care for yourself appropriately?  How healthy are you now?  What can you do now?

These are obviously important to consider.  But remember also to consider the following:  What are your strengths?  What are your values?  Is it more important to you to work your tail off doing what you love, or to work at a less stressful job so that you can place more energy and attention on your own health and family?  These aren’t right or wrong questions.  They are just questions…to which only you know the answers.

The Wellness Recovery Package

As a nation, we are in deep doo-doo.  Jobs are disappearing in droves.  People are losing their homes, their health care, their confidence in the “American Dream.”  It’s a tough time, no doubt.  At a time of crisis like this, the worst thing we could do is to ignore the fact that this is an extreme test of our stress resilience factor.  While clearly, some people are hurting more than others, the uncertainty we all face is stressful.

We will get through this, of course.  Despite all of our hand wringing, the universe will unfold and we will survive.  The question is, will we come out stronger and wiser, or will we be a collective frazzled mess.

I’m a fan of the stronger, wiser option.  One way to do that, is to use this opportunity to improve upon those things in our lives over which we have control.  We don’t have a lot to say about freeing up the credit market, but we can dump our own “toxic assets” by dropping a few pounds and getting closer to our ideal weight.  We may not be able to do much about our home’s dropping value, but we can focus instead on the value that those we love bring to our lives.  The obvious greed of Wall Street may make us mad as hell, but instead of letting it eat at our gastric lining, we can make use of that energy and hit a heavy bag with abandon.

As our President gives press conferences and leads town hall meetings delineating his Economic Recovery Plan designed to lead us out of this mess, I would like to propose my own “Wellness Recovery Plan.”

To use the same rhetorical tool as our President uses, I will describe my Plan as a combination of three things….a “three-legged stool,” if you will.  This is a very simple plan consisting of three things…three actions…to take each day, that together will work to improve your physical, mental and spiritual wellness.  I promise that if you do these three things consistently every day as we all work to get out of the economic hole we are in, you will emerge as our country will,  stronger and healthier.

The Plan is to take ONE step each day in each of three Initiatives:

1) The Movement Initiative
2) The Eat This, Not That Initiative
3) The Wealth Appreciation Initiative

The Movement Initiative

Every day until this crisis ends, make one choice in favor of movement.  This may be a choice to walk instead of drive.  It may be to stand and stretch during commercials instead of sitting numb as marketers feverishly peddle their junk food.  It may be a choice of stairs over the elevator.  The point is to, at least once a day, make a clear choice to do the healthier thing.

This doesn’t need to be a big deal.  It doesn’t have to be overwhelming.  I’m not asking you to train for a marathon.  These are small, easily accomplished tasks.  As you look for ways to make this choice each day, you will naturally become more conscious of how to be more active without even trying.  It will work….but only if you do it.

The Eat This, Not That Initiative

You can probably guess this one.  Again, it is a very small choice that I am asking you to make, every day.  We all know what the better choice is when we are faced with a nutritional quandary.  It is usually pretty obvious, but if you really are unsure, there are books out there to help (Eat This, Not That).  It may look like eating an apple instead of chips…or a drink of water instead of that Coke…or munching on a bowl of whole grain cereal at night instead of ice cream.  It could be as simple as drinking skim milk instead of whole milk.  If you make just one decision in the direction of better nutrition each day, by the end of this crisis you will be healthier, possibly lighter, and definitely more enlightened about how much control you really do have over your health.

The Wealth Appreciation Initiative

So your 401K doesn’t look so great right now.  It is depressing, but it is what it is.  You can focus on that and be bummed out and angry.  The result:  You will be bummed out, angry, and less wealthy than you were a year ago.

Option two:  You can focus on the wealth that exists in your life right now that cannot be taken away.  The result:   You will still be less financially wealthy than you were last year, but your emotional wealth will grow exponentially.

Take time every day to take an honest inventory of your true wealth.  This includes the important people in your life, the dogs who love you, the home you live in, the amount of material wealth that is in your life, especially when you think about the millions and millions of people around the world who have so much less.  We may think we have it bad…but compared to the rest of the world, we are still quite well off.  As you start focusing on what is good in your life, what isn’t so great takes on less importance.  It also simply feels a lot better.

That’s it!  It is a very simple plan.  It pales in complexity next to what the Senate and House must wrangle over this week.  But it will work.  And it is one way to take charge, right now, when life seems so out of control.

Top Ten Ways I Thrive (yes, even in this economy)

I was recently asked to list my top five to ten strategies for “thriving.”  Given the body I inhabit, I picked ten.  Here they are:
1)  (I bet this is a unique top pick)  GREAT DRUGS…legitimate ones, of course.  I would literally be dead were it not for biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry.  Daily inhaled and oral medications keep me breathing and digesting with the best, and I am thankful for that every day.  My willingness to accept the need for them, and to follow a diligent routine has to be my top strategy.
2)  A sense of purpose.  This has come to me late(r) in life, but is rapidly rising to the top of the list of things that keep me going.  I now understand (I think) why my soul picked this particular body to reside in this time around.  It was a mystery for awhile why I went to an elite medical school, only to retire after 5 years of practice.   Then why, of all things, I became  a certified personal trainer?  And then, a wellness coach?  Huh?  I thought the idea was to go into medical research and somehow help to cure CF…
Now, every day I coach people like myself to incorporate exercise into their routines just as it is becoming a medical certainty that exercise is VERY important for people with CF.  Because of my MD, I am asked to speak and write about this topic.  I am passionate about the importance of exercise in keeping myself healthy, and have been told that I am a “beacon of light” for the CF community.  Now that is a sense of purpose.
3)  A sense of humor.  One of my signature strengths is humor, and it is a good thing!
4)  My two sons, who have revealed within me a depth of love and feeling I never would have known.  They keep me going.  They keep me attentive to caring for myself…because they need me.  They keep me laughing…and screaming (it’s good for the lungs).  They, amazingly, are capable of both warming every cell in my body and driving me crazy at the same time.
5) Connection with others.  The love and support of my partner, my family and my friends, specifically, provides an immeasurable amount of fuel to keep me going when times are not so great.
6) Faith.  This is a hard one to describe, as I am far from religious.  My faith is centered on a felt sense of trust that I am connected to a greater whole, one that was there before I was born and that will be there when I am gone.  When I am lucky and can let go of my brain for awhile (in meditation), I don’t feel separate from this greater whole at all.  That keeps me going.
7) Movement!  When I don’t exercise every single day, I feel like I am letting myself down.  My dedication to pushing my body is what brings me to age 48 in pretty good shape (for someone with my genotype).  Of this, I am certain.  Certainly, I don’t do now what I did in my 20’s.  But, as I’ve said countless times before: I ran until I had to jog.  I jogged until I had to jog/walk (now).  When I can’t do that anymore, I’ll walk fast.  Then…I’ll just walk.  If there comes a time when I can’t walk, , I’ll roll (but I’ll push myself!).
Sleep!  I love to sleep, and sleep loves me.  I don’t function well without 8 hours…at least.  Sometimes I take 2 hour naps in the afternoon, and I refuse to feel bad about it.  I know my body…it is worthless when it needs sleep.  I acknowledge that it needs more sleep than the average body.  When I lose sight of this, I remember the constant battle that takes place in my lungs, and then happily surrender.  This probably should have gone up there after the drug thing.
9) The unending quantity of information on the web makes lifelong learning as easy as finding the on switch.  Since ‘love of learning” is another SS,  I’m never bored.
10) Dogs…I collect them (six today).  I know…you are probably scratching your head, but if there is one thing that keeps me in the moment, it is a dog.

What keeps you going?

Irrefutable Evidence of a Universal Plan

I have had a massive left-sided sinus infection for a few days now.  Misery does not even come close to the right descriptive for what I have felt.  Thoughts of ripping out my watering, throbbing, burning, itching left eye, and scooping out the offensive obstruction were persistent.  Competing with them were images of just finding the nearest guillotine and taking care of it, once and for all.

Today is a new day.  I feel better, and for that, I am extremely grateful (in addition to Theraflu and brandy).  While showering this morning, I was able to find the underlying message in my recent illness.

As I always do now, I was mentally thumbing through my NOTDEADYET acronym, looking for new and exiting ways to use this tool in my upcoming day. The letter that stood out today was “E:  Envision the Opportunity“…found within your illness.  Here is why:

Yesterday, in my extreme desperation, I purchased a product new to me, called “Sudacare.”  This is an effervescent tablet containing lavender, mint, eucalyptus, menthol and camphor…which, when it dissolves in water, creates a veritable Drano-mist for the nose.  The idea is that you place this tablet on the floor of your shower, and take a long, hot time breathing the fumes.

You would think this would be quite evident to your sense of smell while showering with such a tablet, no?

So, I kept looking at this thing, shrinking on my shower floor, wondering when I would smell it.  Was it defective?  I smelled NOTHING.  Then it dawned on me…perhaps I was defective?

I then proceeded to sniff the shampoo, the conditioner, the Ivory soap (the smell of which reminds me of childhood vacations), the refrigerator contents, and alas…Cisco’s breath.  Nothing.

I believe the medical term is “anosmia.”  I currently have absolutely no sense of smell.  It’s a very disconcerting thing, really, because it also affects my sense of taste.  But I digress.

Here was my realization from this morning’s shower.
As often happens on days that I oversleep and am rushing to get the kids fed, lunches made, and get off to school on time, the sewer backed up.  Just at the moment when I could delay no longer, and excused myself to convene with my dogs in MY bathroom, my son shouted from the OTHER bathroom, “Mom, the toilet is flooding!”

Sure enough.  I had to use the emergency trick a nice plumber had taught me to stop the water from rising.  One more millimeter would have been disastrous.  Knowing the probable answer, I went outside to look at the cleanout (this is a recurrent issue at our house…. it has to do with roots––that’s all I know).

You guessed it.  There was not simply water and tissue backing up out of the hole in the cement, created by the cap being blown off by the pressure…There was so much more.  And it wasn’t just in the hole.  No, it was all over the driveway…spilling into the street.  I will not try to describe the disgust I felt.  Griffin summed it up best:

“GROSS!!!!  LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!”

Suddenly, I didn’t have to do anything to rush them out the door.

And the irrefutable evidence is this:

I smelled nothing.

T: Tom, Too Late, Thanks

T stands for a lot of things this week.  In the original NOTDEADYET acronym, T stood for Thank everyone, everyday, for everything.

But as you’ll see, T also stands for “too late” and now, for “Tom.”  I wrote the following on the flight home, after spending the week with my family following my brother’s death:

TOO LATE

I am very sad to write that my plans for visiting my brother in hospice are not going to be realized.  Tom died last Friday night, a week before I was to go see him.

As the next blog post was scheduled to be concerning gratitude, I’ve decided to write about how much I appreciated Tom.  Too late, perhaps.  But maybe not…maybe he can read these words as I write them.  Who really knows?

Tom was my lunch buddy when I was young.  Back then the terror threat level was much lower, and kids were actually allowed to leave campus for lunch…to go home, to go to the nearby hospital cafeteria, or in my case, to go eat lunch with your big brother.

He was “in between” high school and college and was living at home and working at my father’s monument business, carving and setting tombstones.  I think he knew that I was having a rough time.  I was “Bub,” the young, quiet kid who watched her parents in daily anguish over sick children and their unknown futures.  Going home to a mother who was severely depressed was often not the best option, so Tom was sent to deal with me.

I don’t even remember what we talked about back then (this was forty years ago), but I remember the camaraderie…the company…the understanding.  We both had crabby pancreases (or is it pancrei?), with resulting malabsorption that meant we were always hungry and LOVED to eat.  Neither of us particularly loved the next morning, but we were willing to deal with it.  We would gorge on fried food and mild shakes, then he would bring me back to school and he’d go back to work.  We shared a junk food pact.  It was a “don’t ask, don’t tell” agreement.  No one knew about the Kentucky Fried Chicken and pecan pies except us.

Tom was quiet back then, but I do remember that I could talk to him about my concerns as a kid…a sick kid…with a sick mom.  Ours was a heavy scene at home.  Worry was always the theme of the day.  Tom shared with me the realization that the health issues we (and our sister Kathy) were born with were the major source of the anguish.  Neither of us could do anything about it, and we shared that frustration.

He was quiet back then, and he died a quiet death.  There was no drama.  There was never really any drama around Tom.  He was an amazing source of strength in his silence.  He stuttered along at a lung function that barely supported life for over 10 years, never complaining once.  Whenever I would talk to him, all he wanted to do was turn the subject to me, and how “my CF” was doing.  The last conversation I had with him was over Skype, when he was in the hospice house.  He could see me and I could see him.  I was showing him pictures, and holding my dogs up to the computer to say hi. I (we) got the chance, via technology, to be there without really being there. Even then, when he was clearly dying, he asked how I was, concerned because I had a PICC line for IV antibiotics.  This was Tom.  His focus was always on the other person.  He took care of his friends, needing to be a source of strength, because he knew that this fed his own strength and resilience.

I chastise myself now, because I know my own fear of watching his decline kept me from knowing him better as we grew older.  It scared me to see him get smaller, and weaker, and struggle more and more to simply breathe.  So, I retreated to the safety of denial, 2000 miles away.

Even though I never told him directly, I am forever grateful to this big brother of mine.  He spared me lonely times as a child.  He paved the way for me, living so much longer than anyone ever thought he could, so that I am no longer in doubt that I can do it, too.  He was a gentle giant of a man.  I will miss him.  He is somewhere more comfortable now, hopefully hanging out with Kathy, and I hope he can read these words.

Y: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. THE KEY TO HAPPPINESS

A very interesting study was done in 2002, looking at what made college kids happy(1).  Now, I know what you are thinking.  All college kids are happy!  Why wouldn’t they be?  They have no responsibility.  They get to wake up when they want.  They are free from parental control for the first time in their lives.  And then, there are the fraternity parties…

Not so, apparently.  Using multiple assessments, 222 college kids were divided into groups that were “very happy,” “average,” and “very unhappy.”  Countless studies have of course been done on unhappy people with various psychopathologies, but this was the first to focus on very happy people.  The conclusions were fascinating.

Several variables were assessed, including things like social relationships, personality and psychopathology, the perception of wealth, number of objective positive and negative events they had experienced, grade point average, physical attractiveness (rated by coders by looking at pictures), use of tobacco and alcohol, time spent sleeping, watching television, exercising and participating in religious activities.  All of this data was collected over about 50 days by having the subjects do daily logs.

The researchers were looking for the key(s) to happiness…what variable(s), if any, would be either sufficient or necessary (or both) to put someone in the very happy group?  The term sufficient in this case would mean that all people who had that variable were “very happy.”  Necessary would apply to a variable if virtually every person in the very happy group possessed the variable.  Are you with me?

Now with that very simplified explanation of the study done, on with the results.  Sadly, NONE of the variables evaluated were “sufficient.”  There is no magic key to happiness…at least, not in this study.

However, a few variables were found to be necessary conditions for high happiness…the one that this article is concerned with is that “very happy people have rich and satisfying relationships and spend little time alone relative to average people.”  It also helps to not be neurotic or have much psychopathology (i.e. depression), and to be an extrovert.

Bummer.  So there is nothing magic to do or get that will, by itself, provide happiness.  But, trying to manipulate the variables that are necessary to be happy is a good way to improve your odds, right?  Of the four (lack of neurosis, minimal psychopathology, extroversion, and rich social relationships), the easiest one to work on is the last.

Happiness does not appear to occur without rich social relationships.

Hence, the  “Y” rule in NOTDEADYET.  You are not alone!

So, don’t be a recluse.  Reading blogs and commenting is fun and encouraged (hint), but is not sufficient to build rich personal relationships.  What is necessary is to connect with others…in person.  And this applies even more, I think, to people living with the stress and inconvenience of chronic illness.

When you don’t feel well, it is very easy to hole up and not be social. I get it.  You don’t look your best.  You don’t feel your best.  You don’t have energy to be social.  You don’t want other people to think they need to help you.  It’s just easier to curl up with your dogs and watch Keith Olbermann!

But therein lies the problem.  Hanging out alone keeps you mired in yourself.  It becomes easy to feel sorry for yourself, jealous of others, and just generally pissed off that you don’t feel great.  And there is no one there to tell you differently!  You get no other perspective.

The next question becomes, “How do I just start being social when I’ve never been before?”

It starts with calling someone.  At first, maybe it will just be family members.  Connecting more frequently with them is a great step in the right direction.  Over time, you might be emboldened enough to call a friend to set up a date for coffee or lunch.  Then, maybe you can make a goal to call a different friend once a week.  Then…you get it.  Small steps.  But necessary ones!

1) Diener, E., Seligman, M., (2002). Very Happy People. Psychological Research, 13(1), 81-84.