Thanks Be to Friends

Posted: March 19, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , | 2 Comments

I love when I learn scientific proof for something I always believed in my gut.  I just saw a segment on CBS Sunday Morning about the power of friendship.  Not just the schmaltzy importance of friendship, but evidence that friends help us carry life’s loads.

 

A Professor at UVA asked people to put on a heavy backpack and estimate the incline of a very steep hill.  Then he did the same thing except that the person had a friend stand by their side when they did it, nothing else just be there.  Overwhelmingly people who had a friend there estimated the difficulty of climbing the hill as dramatically easier than the people who were alone.  The mere presence of the friend somehow lessened the perceived burden.

 

Another professor gave people small shocks while they were getting an MRI and recorded the pain receptors in their brain.  Then he did the same experiment with a friend holding the hand of the person receiving the shocks.  The pain receptors hardly registered anything when a friend was present thus creating less wear on the body.

 

Dieting works the same way, at least for me.  By sharing the burden of needing to lose weight with my friends helps me actually stick to my plan and not feel deprived.  This blog is my daily connection to so many friends, old and new, known and unknown, that spreads out my burden so I don’t feel I am carrying it alone.

 

Worrying is something that causes our body’s physical stress and most of what we worry about is anticipatory.  Will something bad happen?  How bad will it be? Having a friend somehow helps dissipate a problem, according to these learned Professors.  I am going to go one step further and say sharing the problem with your friend can make you feel better, as long as you don’t overwhelm your friend with your problems.  Don’t expect your friend to solve your issues, but just having someone close to listen can reduce your pain receptors, whether you can see them on an MRI or not.

 

Of course the old saying holds true here, “To have a friend, you must be a friend.”  I want to thank all my wonderful friends who help me carry the load and encourage you all to spread your difficulties out into the world and not carry anything alone.

 

 

 

 

Life Without Sound Effects

Posted: March 18, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments

I love games.  To me computers, ipads and smart phones were invented really just to act as substitutes for game playing friends.  Of course actual live friends who also like to play games are my number one choice of game interaction, but in the late of the night when I am snuggled down in bed next to a non-game-loving-ipad-magazine-reading husband playing solitaire on my ipad is a good second choice.

 

I usually play electronic games in the silent mode so as not to bother anyone else or so I can still watch TV while playing.  Even though I am playing game against myself and no one will be the wiser if I win or lose I still play uber competitively.

 

What does that mean in solitaire?  First I play Las Vegas rules which means that the deck of cards costs 52 imaginary dollars and for every card I get in the Aces piles I earn back 5 dollars per card.  You only get to turn the discard pile over three times before the game is over and you turn the cards three at a time so if you can’t move the top card onto a different pile you don’t even know what you are missing underneath.

 

The second way I compete is that I play speed solitaire, trying to move all the cards to the Aces piles faster than I have before.  Since I have been playing this particular game on my ipad for a number of years it gets harder and harder to break into my top fifteen fastest games.  I think my best time was one minute and 22 seconds.

 

Today when I had ten minutes between commitments I pulled out my ipad and starting playing solitaire.  For some reason the volume control was up one notch from silent which I did not notice until I failed to win my first game and I heard a faint sound of a crowd saying “OOHHHH,” in that “too bad for you” kind of way.

 

Wait a minute, why was the crowd feeling sorry for me?  Although I had failed to clear the board I did win a good amount of imaginary money because I had gotten my spades pile up to 5, hearts to jack, diamonds to 10 and clubs to 4, which in monetary terms meant I had earned $155.  When you subtract the $52 initial investment I had net $103 — Nothing to feel sorry for me about.  Yet the sound effects still played a little pity party for me because I had not cleared the board.

 

I quickly dropped the volume control back to nothing because I don’t want anyone else to determine what the sound effects for my life should be, but me.  We all don’t have the same perspective on what is good or bad, or successful or failure, nor should we.  Each one of us needs to decide if a situation is funny or scary, not the man playing the organ at a silent picture show.  Today I encourage you to ignore the sounds that others, be they live humans or mere machines, make about you and create your own life’s soundtrack.  Mine has a lot more laughter and cheers than sobs and jeers.