Field Notes: Placebo power, aphantasia, winter tips, changing our thoughts
❄️ Plus, Winter Camp ❄️
Hello, dear friends,
I have fallen into a busy season here. What do you do when you are in a busy season? Do you ride it out? Do you feel overwhelmed? Dismayed? Sky-high-energy until it crashes? I am finding less room for writing, and I almost thought about canceling Winter Camp, my side project that gathers a community for a month of gentle prompts and live meetups. But then I realized, dropping Winter Camp wouldn’t clear space; such fun and connection sustains me in the cold, dark season, it gives me a jolt of joy and something to look forward to, it keeps me healthy and human. I imagine some of you feel the same way, too, about things that crowd our days but also give us reasons for our days.
So, I’m happy to share that Winter Camp registration is open! I’m hosting two virtual sessions, one in Nov.-Dec. to help support us as the cold, dark season arrives, and one in January, to give us a creative spark in the fresh new year. The new January session is called Winter Art Camp, when we’ll each focus on a monthlong project, a little gift of accountability around your creative practice, whatever that might be. Learn more here.
Now onto this week’s Field Notes, 6 interesting things I’ve run across lately related to wellness and illness.
1} This post on @HopeHeals — Katherine Wolf experienced a catastrophic stroke, survived, forever changed, and has, with her husband, Jay, has since been creating “sacred spaces for families with disabilities to experience hope through the inter-ability community.” I mean, how could you not love her instantly? I’ve been following Katherine and Jay on Instagram for a while, but this particular post is so wise. I agree and believe in what Katherine notices about our thoughts here, as she shares how she rides with the kids during school drop-off while her husband drives; she can no longer drive.
Katherine observes that all the other cars at school drop-off have only one parent, and “if I hadn’t had a life-altering stroke, then maybe one of us would be sitting in the carpool line, while the other was halfway to a high-powered job downtown. Independent and able.” She could feel sorry for herself. But then, “when I allow hope to filter the facts of my life, the truest reality locks into focus. Because a really hard thing happened to me, I have the privilege of joining my husband and kids on the drive to drop-off every morning. “
”I don’t have the option of being anywhere else, which means I get to be present in the place that’s actually most important.”
”I’m not shy about narrating this out loud to my kids to invite them into the practice of telling the best version of their stories. Slowly but surely, they have begun seeing our unique family as wonderful rather than weird. As chosen rather than cursed. And when I offer them this alternative narrative, I’m really offering it to myself.”
“Friend, we can’t often change the facts, but we can always change our thoughts.”
“And, if you’ll allow me to be your motivational speaker and life coach for just a moment, I’m going to invite you into the life-changing practice of re-narrating reality.”
“First, acknowledge what hurts. Then recognize where there’s deep hope. Once your thoughts change for the better, somehow it’s okay if the facts don’t.”
So very very true.
2} The Rediscovery of Circadian Rhythms (Noema) — A fascinating read about the importance of our body’s internal clock, which is getting more and more attention these days.
“In five years of training most medical students won’t hear anything about circadian rhythms or sleep,” said Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience at the University of Oxford and author of Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionize Your Sleep and Health. Meanwhile, “if I came up with a drug that halved my chances of stroke, cancer, over a five-year period [just some of the potential benefits of a synchronized circadian system], I’d be off to Stockholm to pick up my Nobel Prize.”
3} All Placebos are not created equal (The Seeds of Science newsletter) — In this fascinating collection of studies on the power of placebos, Sam Atis notes that the kind of placebo makes a difference — a placebo injected into a joint relieves pain better than a cream placebo, which relieves pain better than a pill placebo. What?! And wow. But there’s more! Studies have shown that your doctor’s warmth and compassion is also a factor in the measurable impact of a placebo. I interpret that as, if a doctor you trust tells you a treatment will work, that treatment will make a bigger difference than if it is administered by a doctor you don’t trust. Finally, he also notes that the placebo effect has become bigger over the years, but only in the United States. “The implications of this are pretty serious,” Sam writes. “The placebo effect in the United States has actually become quite a lot stronger over time, meaning that drugs that once would have been approved may not be now — because their performance relative to that of placebo is less convincing.”
4} Discovering aphantasia — Artist and writer Austin Kleon muses on aphantasia — “when your brain doesn’t form or use mental images as part of your thinking or imagination” — after this tweet below by the writer John Green. It turns out we are all on a spectrum from aphantasia to hyperphantasia.
I’m guessing I’m a 4. I can’t make an actual image of an apple appear in my mind. Can you? How amazing and different our brains are!
And this has me thinking about the wonderful books of John Green, so let me recommend …
5} The Fault in Our Stars — If you haven’t read this novel by John Green yet, maybe now is the time. It’s a love story about a teenager who has incurable cancer, and it’s funny, sweet, philosophical, and delightful. Yes, it is also sad, in that way that life is beautiful and sad, too. I don’t want to tell you anything more so you can simply enjoy it. (Side note: The Fault in Our Stars has been banned in some U.S. school libraries. Banned Book Week was earlier this month, but every day is a good day to read a banned book.)
6} How to light the dark months (The Clearing newsletter) — Katherine May, author of the exquisite Wintering and Enchantment books, shares “10 ideas for fighting the gloom in the dark half of the year.” All are gentle and lovely, like “Make candlelight ordinary.” I especially like “Notice dawn and dusk,” which makes me realize that these special liminal times, which happen twice a day, every day, are usually unremarked upon, unnoticed, unsavored.
She writes:
“At this time of year, it’s easy to feel like the dark has snuck up on you, the day suddenly gone. One way to combat this is to notice the transition points in the day — the time when it gets light, and the time when it gets dark. This might mean taking a few moments to look out of the window around sunrise and sunset (most weather apps will tell you the exact times), or it might mean spending a little longer, when you have the time, standing outside while the light changes. This is partly to help your body to understand what season you’re in, but it’s also a lovely, meditative practice to connect with the rhythms of the day at this specific moment in the year.”
Winter is coming, but we can ready ourselves in little ways that make a difference. (Winter Camp is here to help, too.)
I hope you have a lovely rest of the week, perhaps with a little glance at the beauty of dusk or dawn.
To our journeys,
Brianne