A Healthy Resolution Without Diet or Exercise

That’s right, to start the New Year off on the right foot, you don’t need to join a gym or shun the sweets. It seems that having perspective is good for you.

By way of review, perspective helps people see things as they really are, not as some exaggeration taken from social media or the news. It separates the important from the trivial. One of the easiest ways to exercise strong perspective is to have gratitude, to appreciate what we have instead of always yearning for more, nicknamed “the hedonic treadmill.” An important skill is to learn to make the right comparisons.

A recent NPR piece expounds upon the health advantages of such activities as keeping a gratitude journal. “There's a growing body of research on the benefits of gratitude. Studies have found that giving thanks and counting blessings can help people sleep better, lower stress and improve interpersonal relationships. Earlier this year, a study found that keeping a gratitude journal decreased materialism and bolstered generosity among adolescents.” 

There is also some evidence that it may lower the risk of heart disease and mitigate the symptoms of depression. [Links to all studies are provided in the NPR article.]

But it’s not necessary to keep a journal if some other reminder does the trick. Choose any daily routine or landmark along the commute to stimulate some thoughts about how lucky we are as Americans.

In her 2013 book The Myths of Happiness, Dr. Lyubomirsky, a recognized expert on the subject, agrees. Gratitude and appreciation, including appreciation for the others in our lives work toward “lending our lives greater meaning.” Her research suggests that “a new attitude toward money, time, spending and possessions can stimulate people to rise [above adversity] in ways that they previously had not envisioned, to contribute more positively to society, to thrive via cooperation and independence and to live more authentically and more lightly on the earth” (pp. 158-159).

 One trick to this appreciation is to make the right comparisons. Many Americans feel down or deprived by just looking around. Social media consistently portrays groups of friends having a wonderful time (while you sit at home). Stories are often of exceedingly glamorous or seriously miserable experiences, defying competition on both ends of the spectrum. The news media constantly scare the audience with isolated tragedies, without making comparisons or mentioning how rare they might be. (That’s not their job.) Other wrong comparisons include not being able to get your dream job or afford your dream house, dream vacation or dream car, or even keep up with the neighbors. (It’s nice to have a car with no payments that runs well and a house to keep warm and dry.)

What are the right comparisons?

The quote is sometimes attributed to the late George Burns, “When I get up in the morning I read the obituaries. If I don’t see my name there, I go to breakfast.” Older people find it easier to appreciate another day of life and the friends of today and the past. I was reminded recently that one hundred years ago instead of worrying about not getting enough likes on Facebook or stressing over the political shenanigans in Washington, Americans were concerned about their young men coming back from WWI alive or not dying from the worldwide Spanish flu pandemic, while they had a live expectancy 30 years shorter than today.

 If you are not one of the one-percent in the US, it’s easy to forget that the majority of Americans, anyone making over $32,400 a year, is in the top one-percent in the world (and people are risking their lives to come to this country).

But there are many less extreme reasons to be grateful in each of our lives, if we only take the time to find them (and write them down if necessary). 

A resolution to show gratitude, to improve behavior in the dimension of perspective, is free, painless, good for your health and good for society. (It may not be great for the economy, as people stop buying things they don’t need, but I’m not too worried about that.)

Perspective Reminder

One aspect of perspective is the ability to appreciate what we have and not constantly yearn for more or better.  This may apply to both material possessions and relationships.  It's important to appreciate what the present situation holds, because you never know when it will all be gone.

Consider the victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting.  They woke up on a Sunday morning expecting to enjoy a concert.  The worst outcome that could possibly be anticipated was a bad hangover on Monday morning.  Instead, by Monday morning some 58 were no longer alive.  No one expected it.  This was an extremely rare, hopefully one-time, event.  But no one expects the oncoming car to swerve into their lane at the last minute, and this happens many times a year.

I was reminded of the need for perspective not only by the Las Vegas tragedy, but also by a recent conversation I had with a small group including Sam, a retired botany professor, born in 1918 and Edna Mae, a neighbor, born in 1930.  She was complaining about the walnut tree in her yard dropping nuts on the ground.  As soon as she finished picking them up for the garbage, more seemed to drop.

Sam recalled that when he was young they used to look for walnuts; they were among the only nuts they had.  “There wasn’t much variety at the store, and the store was four miles away – on horseback.”  They both recalled their mothers doing the laundry in a tub, sometimes heated over a fire to boil the clothes.  The wash was then fed through a hand-cranked wringer and hung outside on the line to dry – even in the winter, when the frozen articles were later brought back inside to finish drying.  He also mentioned that in the hills of West Virginia, when the Great Depression hit, his family didn’t even notice.

Then everyone remarked about the amount of change in daily living in a single lifetime.  People lived in conditions that most can’t imagine today.  Most, because of our inexperience, could not easily adapt to such a life, if they could at all.

As far as most Americans are concerned, life 80 years ago is unimaginable, if they ever think about it.  It’s not nice to be reminded of our lack of perspective by a mass shooting or a family tragedy.  It’s preferable to relax and reflect when possible.

On a side note, it’s very difficult to keep perspective when the news media are primarily interested in pushing people into a panic about the latest news.  The terms Breaking News and Heard It Here First carry that sense of urgency that translates into emotional stress. 

One example of many reports on the day after the shooting, each with an expert giving advice on how to cope with the induced stress, advised viewers that “even those just watching the devastation from home can feel the effects. It's called secondary trauma.”  They went on to say, "You don't have to be at that event to be traumatized by it.  You can see pictures repeatedly or watch a video of those images and experience that trauma just as if you were there."  Another expert advised those feeling stressed to watch less of the coverage.

And so it goes.  The media contributes to the trauma; then, as a public service, tells viewers how to cope. 

Learning from Harvey

The effects of Hurricane Harvey on Houston and southeastern Texas were devastating.  You couldn’t miss the pictures on television and websites.  This was a major disaster and the residents, as well as the country as a whole, will take years to fully recover.  Of course there has been some criticism:  the lack of an evacuation order; the lax zoning regulations in the city; the flawed design of the federal flood insurance program; what some considered a slow response by a mega-church, the Mayor, the Governor and the President.  These are to be expected, but overall there is a lot to admire and a lot to learn.

The most important lesson from Houston is that in times of crisis Americans pull together to overcome adversity.  People from many miles away arrived with boats and monster trucks to rescue those thousands that were trapped in their houses as the water rose.  No one asked for a pass or a membership card or questioned the religious affiliation or political beliefs of their fellow citizens as they loaded them onto the trucks and fishing boats.  Whites helped blacks; blacks rescued Hispanics; everyone lent a hand wherever help was needed.  If someone showed up from Fort Hood, no one would have turned down a ride to safety because the rescuer came from the a place named for a guy on the wrong side of the Civil War.  This was a real crisis with lives at stake!

Another point of learning that came through very clearly, is that at times of severe crisis, material possessions quickly lose their value.  People had to decide what was important enough to carry along with them in the limited space available, perhaps only a backpack or a purse – sometimes it was just the wet clothes on their backs.  That is an excellent lesson for the rest of the country to consider.

Finally, there is something about gratitude, gratitude that when you got out of bed this morning, you didn’t step into ankle-deep water.  (The thought did not cross my mind until I began to write this.)

We should also be grateful that America is so prosperous.  We have the neighbors with boats and monster trucks.  Some found motels and hotels on higher ground to retreat to until the danger passed and they could return to assess damage.  State and local governments had people and resources to assist. 

Most didn’t even notice that earlier this summer, there was also unusually severe flooding in Asia.  Whereas in Texas fewer than 50 people died, in that flood CNN reports, “at least 1,200 have died and more than 41 million people have been affected by monsoon rains and severe flooding. The rains are now moving northwest towards Pakistan, where more devastation is expected.  An estimated one-third of the entire country of Bangladesh is underwater.  In the scarce news of this disaster that appeared on American television, coverage of powerboats, monster trucks and National Guard troops were nowhere to be seen.  The response to such a weather event is highly dependent on resources, and America is equipped to respond.  It may not be as swift or efficient as some expect, but it’s far superior to most.

These are perspective issues:  appreciation and gratitude.  There is precious little time for reflection and gratitude as we gulp down a cup of coffee before rushing to the next meeting or picking up the kids.  But knowing our neighbors and strangers will help in a crisis and understanding that missing out on the next must-have purchase would not be the end of the world may be worth a little quiet time.

Trying to Stay Non-political

As I’ve said before, I try to keep away from any political subjects, first because there are many other writers who love to make political comments, but more important because Washington is unable to fix problems we have brought on through our own behavior.  The only difficulty with this stance is that almost everything that happens lately is reframed as a political dispute making it very difficult to find behavioral examples of a non-political nature.  (A clear demonstration of a national perspective failing is that Senate hearings take center stage while what used to be considered real news is treated as an afterthought.)

Perspective is about values, what is important and what is trivial, setting appropriate priorities, separating wants from needs and gratitude for our blessings.  Two stories this week, when taken from a nonpolitical angle, reinforced this need for perspective:  the President’s son’s shirt and the Boston Globe’s comments on air conditioning.

As Barron Trump exited the helicopter with his parents upon arrival on the White House lawn, he was wearing a t-shirt with the words “The Expert” on the front.  Within a matter of hours people going to J. Crew’s website found a message saying that the shirt was sold out and offering other suggestions.  Some observers point out that the shirt was already sold out before everyone saw young Trump wearing one, but others attribute some of its popularity to his appearance on camera.

It could have been the news spot or the President’s son could have just jumped on the same bandwagon as many others.  In either case a $30 t-shirt most people didn’t even know existed suddenly became a must-have item.

In the second instance the Boston Globe published an editorial suggesting that readers should reduce or eliminate the use of air conditioning for the summer.  They pointed out that since “the first window unit was brought to market in 1939, air conditioners have become ubiquitous in the United States. Today, almost 90 percent of American households have one – as do the vast majority of restaurants, stores, museums, and office buildings.”  They go on to warn about the high amount of energy usage with a global-warming impact equivalent to each family driving 10,000 extra miles per year. 

Conservative sites were quick to point to it as another example of climate-change hysteria and to question whether the Globe would be turning off the air conditioning in their own building.

Setting aside the politics, the Globe has a point that air conditioning is one more thing we take for granted.  It wasn’t that long ago, certainly within my memory, that families would look for an excuse to go to the movies in the summer just to enjoy a couple of hours of air conditioned comfort before returning home to the sweltering heat.  People in cities would sleep on the fire escapes and those in the suburbs might spend the night in the basement.  Today we look at an outside temperature of 92 and decide we will stay in the house in comfort.  Jokingly referring to a 4-60 air conditioning system in the car (4 windows open at 60 mph) would be lost on today’s car buyers.

We can live without it, but would prefer not to, and are probably more productive at work and at home with it.  From a perspective point of view, A/C has crept from nice to necessary in only a couple of generations.  Many can’t imagine living without it, but many others in the world have no choice.

Thanksgiving

Usually at this time of year I write about perspective.  Black Friday yields plenty of good behavioral examples.  It is common for people to throw perspective out the window, pay no attention to the distinction between wants and needs, line up or camp out in anticipation of the “door-buster” sales, and in some cases literally risk their lives and those of their neighbors in a human stampede to secure the best bargains.

This year I’d rather write about perspective from the standpoint of yesterday’s celebration, Thanksgiving, one day set aside for gratitude.  

We live in such a comfortable and convenient world.  Even those considered poor in America today have far more than many people living in the rest of the world.  The vast majority has access to indoor plumbing, refrigeration, microwave ovens, color television, the Internet and much more.  They can play games on their smartphones to pass time while waiting in line for free winter clothing for their children.

And the rest of us are much better off.  As we sit in front of the wide screen HDTV watching football, we don’t need to get out of our seat to change the channel or to run our own instant replays using the DVR.  The house is heated and the food plentiful.  A major worry is how to recover from having eaten too much, not where the next meal is coming from or how we are going to pay the rent.  This is a big step forward for many families over only a few generations, but we take most of this for granted.

Instead of appreciating all the conveniences and comfort, instead of being thankful for what we have, we complain about more and more trivial things.  We have hot buttons.  We experience outrage and offense at insignificant words and actions of others.  No one is allowed to tell jokes unless they are the right kind of jokes – “A shopping mall Santa Claus in Florida is out of a job for telling a 10-year-old girl that Hillary Clinton was on his ‘naughty list.’”  (The mother explained that the girl was a Clinton supporter.  So we have a politically savvy 10-year-old who still believes in Santa Claus!)

Gratitude, on the other hand, draws us toward the present.  It focuses our attention on what we have and how lucky we are to have it.  When we don’t take the time for gratitude, regrets from the past and worries about the future overwhelm us.  We make up scary scenarios about possible future disasters.  What if this happens?  We dwell on disappointments.  This may be the result of having too many possessions, too much food and too much free time, but it’s probably more of a case of searching for things to upset us to publish our distress and get sympathy from likeminded friends on social media.

When I teach yoga, I emphasize the need for gratitude.  It draws students to the present, to spending one hour on the mat away from the stresses and worries of a typical day.  Being grateful for just one circumstance or one relationship can drive out fears and worries.  Focus on the breath, and as you feel the cool inhale at the tip of the nose, know that even that single next breath was never guaranteed to you.  But we all take it for granted and instead compound our misery with imagined slights, while we play the prophet by manufacturing a future of ruination.

Our ancestors saw everyday as gift, as they struggled against nature to stay alive.  Our struggles are so minor that we have time and energy left over to stress over tomorrow’s possibilities and to be nasty to people who didn’t vote the same way we did in the last election (or the ones before that). 

Perspective from the Past

Last Friday as one of my students was leaving yoga practice, she commented on how much better her back felt and that it had been only about a week since she could barely move due to an minor injury from overexertion in the garden.  She mentioned how we often don’t appreciate being able to move around without feeling pain.  The same could be said for days when we don't feel sick and a host of other situations that we constantly take for granted.  This is one aspect of perspective, feeling gratitude for what you have instead of unsatisfied or grasping for more and then feeling anxious about not being able to afford it or disappointed about not getting it immediately.

All the advertising and other hype we are exposed to daily preys not only on our insecurities but also on this yearning for more fueled by a shortage of perspective as neighbors and friends try to outdo each other with personal possessions and special experiences.

A book I just finished again brought this home to me.  It was a study of the changes in the standard of living in the US over the past 150 years.  The book, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, showed graphically that the advances in technology that led to an improved standard of living for everyone came at a rate unheard of prior to 1870, but still not at a steady pace.  Most of the life changing inventions came about in the first half of the 20^th century, despite the Great Depression and two world wars.  Advances leading to real improvement in how we live have been scarce since 1970 with the exception of a one-time surge in information technology in the 1990s.

The details are not important.  What this 660 pages of fairly dry reading brought home to me was an appreciation for what we have today, conveniences that were unavailable to those living just a few generations ago. 

Begin with not waking up with dead horses in the street.  Before automobiles, the stench of horse manure, urine and carcasses in the streets of most major cities was constant.  They had no sewer system to deal with that and all the other waste.  There was no electricity and conveniences like indoor plumbing and central heating were rare.  Work was hard and dangerous.  Life expectancy was low and those who lived beyond a “retirement age” continued to work, often losing their regular job because they were no longer physically able.

People in rural areas had other problems.  Farm work, which employed over 45% of the working population, was very dangerous, with working conditions as unpleasant as nature could make them.  In addition, they were isolated for long periods with no phone and no radio.  If they needed a doctor or supplies, they rode to town, and arriving there, were at the mercy of the single retail outlet with no way to tell how fair a deal they were getting.  (Competition was limited or non-existent until Sears and Montgomery Ward began to send catalogs.)

Since then our houses have been networked with electricity and water supply (including sewage) along with all the appliances that they enabled:  telephones, radios and televisions, washers and dryers, stoves, refrigerators, microwaves, dishwashers, central heating and air conditioning.  No more walking to the pump to fill a bucket and haul it in to scrub the laundry or wash the dishes or take an infrequent bath.  No more eating only what is in season and worrying about spoilage.  No more freezing in the morning waiting for the stove to heat up, where the first one up had to haul in the wood or coal to start the fire.

Cars and trucks, along with the roads themselves slowly improved to the point where a daylong trip in the past became an easy drive today.  And travel by car has also become progressively safer – and would be safer still, if drivers could put the phone down. 

There are so many other advances and inventions that we take for granted.  Progress in fighting communicable diseases like polio and diphtheria has been enormous.  Medicine offers treatment and cures unheard of even a couple of decades ago.

In the first ten minutes of the day we enjoy so many of these conveniences from the time we curse the alarm, turn on the light switch and stumble into the shower.  Then we get to the drive thru in our heated or air-conditioned cars to pick up a coffee on the way to work in a temperature controlled office, where we can stand around and complain about the most trivial discomforts or inconveniences.

Things can always be better and there is no need to become static with appreciation, but it doesn’t hurt to reflect on what we have, even if only as a barometer to gauge how inconsequential some of our daily problems really are.  That’s how perspective helps keep our lives in balance.