It's a rainy, ugly day here in January.  There's nothing new happening, and my mood has slowed to a gray haze.

The combination of the weather and the season invite me to think about a kick-start.

I wonder if you are running on fumes and need one, too?  When we're living with chronic pain -- and unpredictable physical and emotional challenges -- our reserves get low.  Something as ordinary as bad weather or a demand from our boss or family can send us into a funk.

I've had fun imagining some quick pick-me-ups that we could use -- ideas that can propel us into a little better space and give us some happy energy.

I'm planning on doing one a day for the next week!  Let me know how it works for you.

Shake Up That Routine

Usually I do the same things in the same order every day.  Yes, this saves time.  But the rut I get into has a limited view.  These ideas are small, and may seem silly, but even a little tweak can release a little energy that can build.

• Go a different way to work or school, or on your carpool today.  It takes a little thinking, but that's the idea!  New sights!  Different vantage point!
• Eat something different for breakfast.  I get stuck on my usual -- what if I made a poached egg?  Or had a new kind of fruit?
• Take a class you've never tried.  On my list is tai chi and pilates.  Yours might include bridge, or Spanish dancing, or Thai cooking.  A short-term commitment to an innovative experience can stimulate your creativity.
• Say no to something.  Give yourself some free space.
• Take 15 minutes to daydream.  Most of us push and rush and tick off to do's with no time to let our minds relax and expand.

Physical Comfort

• Bring some fresh flowers into your home.  A flowering plant.  Start some seeds.  Living green presences can lift our hearts.
• Take a dip into a bath (investing in some good smelling oils or bubbles) or go to a sauna.
• New sheets?  A snuggly comforter?  A better reading light?
• Something to look at from your desk or kitchen table that makes you feel happy.
• If you sometimes get a massage, try a different kind.  If you never get a massage or body treatment, this is a great time of year to try something!  Get a referral from a friend.  Some of my clients like the hot wax treatment on their feet.  Reflexology is an easy way to start.

FUN

• Getting yourself in gear to allow something fun.  That can be a challenge when most of life feels like a long slog up hill.
• What unused gift cards do you have lying around?  A restaurant you haven't gone to, some shopping?  You may have a treat waiting for you that you have put off.
• A board game you haven't pulled out in a while, coffee with a friend, going to a movie, allowing yourself to get and read that fun looking best seller -- you have some ideas of your own that you haven't accessed, and this is a chance to let it happen.
• Some of you are creative -- you write or sew or paint or make jewelry -- but your projects are in a closet or heaped up in a corner of the room.  This is the season to bring them out and make some space and time.  Creative pursuits are the elixir of happiness.  Enjoy.

OK, those are my quick start ideas.  It can be hard to move yourself from slug pace towards something that will give you a mental and physical lift, but it's worth it!

Let me know how it goes.

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We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily difference we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

-- Marion Wright Edelman

The effect of giving on mental and physical health seems to be in the air these days.  A new book by Cami Walker -- 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life -- was recently brought to my attention.  Diagnosed with a progressive illness, holistic healer gave the author a prescription for feeling better:  giving a gift to someone every day for 29 days.  Walker's book is a description of how that benefited not only those who received, but how she -- the giver -- also reaped rewards.

Giving is a practice that researchers have studied.  The benefit seems to be about two things:  giving meaning and a biological boost that may be hardwired. Hands-on volunteering -- that is, work that involves direct contact with people -- seems to hold the most benefit (Psychology Today, 1988).  It is not clear exactly why this works, but the effect is unmistakable:  those with chronic pain feel better, are more able to cope, and possess improved moods.

This is what the professionals like to call a synergistic effect -- it is less cause and effect, and more a subtle weaving together of all the influences into a more healthful and positive state of being.

It doesn't have to be formal volunteer work.

On her new Web site, 29days.org, Walker invites comments and gives ideas about how to give.  She suggests that giving is a way to strengthen your health, along with exercise and medication.  It may be as simple as a note or a phone call.  In a recent article in Yoga Magazine, one of the authors describes her practice of baking a cake for someone every Saturday.  It may be adding a volunteer hour to your week, and doing a less structured act on other days.

If you decide to take on this opportunity, it seems that what is most beneficial is the daily practice that invites you to turn outward to someone else.  That is what reminds us that no matter what the state of our health, we have something to offer, and that there are those who need us.  The emphasis on thinking of others may relieve stress, and it certainly opens our hearts.

The web of connection and relationships made of kindness and openheartedness is the healing balm that spreads in every direction, even in ways we cannot see or know.

We are gearing up for those New Year resolutions.  Do you think you are ready to try the 29 days challenge?  If you do, let me know how it works for you, what you choose to do, and how you feel.

Have a blessed and lively holiday season, and may your New Year be healthy and full of opportunities to give and grow.

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In surfing around the internet, I came across a very interesting study on the link between the immune system and the brain.

We intuitively know that there must be a link:  we experience that we are whole selves, not parts.  But medicine seems to study disease by disease, not the interrelationships -- until now.

There are more and more studies that address how one thing affects another and, in this study, the scientists looked at how chronic inflammation (like in rheumatoid arthritis or heart disease) creates a depressive response.  The inflammation itself changes the chemistry in the brain.  This debunks the older idea that depression is a reaction to a disease, or even another form of poor coping with a chronic illness.

Instead, here we see that the disease of depression is the biochemical reaction to inflammation -- not a psychological failure or a maladaptive reaction to pain and limitation.

These studies were done on mice, and so there is a way to go before we can make definitive correlations to people, but I think there is something to pay attention to in this research.

Often our impression of depression is that it is a failure of will or a personal weakness -- not a serious illness with its own symptoms that go away when properly treated.

Classic signs of depression are feelings of hopelessness, sadness, and futility, along with sleeping problems, irritable moods and angry outbursts, lack of energy, and gaining or losing weight.  Recent statistics suggest that one in ten people have depression, and among those with RA newer studies put the incidence at twice that of the general population.

Depression is vastly under-treated because people feel embarrassed or ashamed.  In addition, many people don't want to be on yet another medication.  They "don't like taking drugs."

The tragic downside of this is that, when someone is treated for depression, it goes away.  They feel better.  They have more energy and the world seems like a friendlier and easier place to be.

What the inflammation research tells us is that, if you have RA (or another chronic illness with inflammation), the depression is a result of that disease.  It isn't your fault, and it can be treated.  You don't have to live with all those sad, angry, painful thoughts all the time.

To read the article, click here.

If you suspect you might be depressed, talk to your doctor and get an evaluation.  Don't be afraid of a brief course of anti-depressants.

You want to enjoy -- not just endure your life.

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