SING FOR YOUR HEALTH

Hydrangeas through the Looking Glass

Well, not just sing.  Dance, paint, draw, color, journal.  Play the instrument lying unused somewhere.  Pick up the craft you used to love.  We don't even have to do these things well.  Mediocre is fine.  Beginner is great.  Failure doesn't exist.  Like Einstein said, "You only fail if you quit trying."  And that from a genius.  

Or spend time in a museum or at a concert or play.  For me, there is nothing like a play to help me understand myself and others.  The acting brings another dimension that goes beyond reading.  And of course, appreciating the majesty of fine musicians, artists and actors takes us out of ourselves.  The world seems a better place.  Last evening the wind ensemble at our local School of the Arts made our community seem a better place. 

Immersing in the arts is an excellent way to elevate our mood.  There are now Centers for the Arts in Medicine.  Duke University Medical Center has an Arts & Health program that includes performances, rotating visual arts and journalling kits for patients as well as coloring kits with detailed images of the stained-glass windows that adorn Duke Chapel.  During radiation therapy patients choose their music; my mother picked a little swing with Frank Sinatra.  

Struggling with depression, one medical student exercised, tried therapy and medication and had a strong faith, as many of us have.  But his head was still full of noise that he didn't need to hear.  He took his thoughts and turned them into poems, the missing piece, he said, of his wellness puzzle.  I try that too.  I fall in the beginner category.  And as the chatter gives rise to verse, the thoughts themselves change.  I revise the words to follow my uplifting spirit.  It's a cycle that works.  

The same cycle infuses my prayers.  As God hears me, the prayers reflect the change in my mood. By the time I'm finished I feel blessed.  Worship services themselves are an art form with chanting, soaring organ, instrument and song.  The psalms are poetic, the readings confessional, lamenting, epistolary or narrative. The paraments textile artistry in green, white, red or purple.  Visit any cathedral in the world. At its best, church should, like the hymn, "raise you up on eagles' wings."  

Writing works too.  Many of us take our endless thoughts to our journal.  I had a Bonfire Day on March 22, 2022 where I took four years of painful writing and decided the keeping and rereading was at a cost.  But, wow, did the writing help when I needed it.  

While we may intuit that art is soothing to our souls, in our busyness or sadness we may forget.  We may not have the money to book a concert or the time to go to a poetry reading.  But surely, we can sing and dance around the house.  Singing reduces cortisol, the stress hormone.  Don't know if there's research on this, but I bet the louder the better.  

In these difficult days we don't want to miss any healing power we have.  Our voices, movement, our creative brains, the gentle ways we move from focus to flow, the ways to be contemplative, the ways to reach our subconscious.  How wonderful when what we enjoy is good for us too.  

Alexa, play my music.  I'm going to finish this post and collage-journal.  

                                     In gratitude, Nina Naomi