Welcome to January and a brand new year! All the holiday frivolity, mirth, and busyness are but a memory and the grayer, cooler season is settling in. Since the passing of winter solstice, the days are now lengthening and even the indomitable Lowcountry sun is taking a few days off now and then. Who’d have reckoned upon getting snowed in during camellia season? For many folks, cold temps, sunless days, and the return of real life can bring about the post-holiday blues. Lethargy has come to call and taken up residence for a while.
In myriad households, conversations seem to begin with: “My mood’s as gray as the weather,” “Please don’t make me get out of bed,” “I cannot speak to another human being today,” or “Noon’s not too early for a cocktail, is it?”
If any of the above sound familiar, take heart. The upside to being down is that you can do something about it. Time to up your endorphin levels!
In case high school science is but a fuzzy memory, endorphins are hormones that are released when your body feels stress or pain. Made in your brain, these chemicals act as messengers to help relieve pain, reduce stress, and improve mood. Endorphins produced withinthe body itself are known as endogenous endorphins, or endogenous opioids, as opposed to those introduced from outside the body, called exogenous endorphins, such as those produced either semi–synthetically or synthetically by opioid medications.
In this column, we’re focusing on the endogenous variety, those your body makes itself.DIY opiates.
Just look what you can do for your body without medication. Endogenous endorphins have the ability to ease the symptoms of depression, help with stress and anxiety; lessen bodily aches and pains, including alleviation of childbirth pain; help with sleep issues, ease a tendency toward addictions and impulsive actions, contribute to weight loss, and improve self–image byincreasing levels of confidence, which leads to better self-esteem. Pretty cool, huh?!
You can boost your endorphins in many ways. Have you heard of a “runner’s high”? That’s an endorphin boost empowered by running. Other ways include power walking, creating art, swimming, dancing, biking, getting a massage, having an acupuncture or an aromatherapy treatment, meditating, laughing with friends, watching your favorite TV show or movie, volunteering for a nonprofit organization, belting out Grateful Dead songs in the shower (superacoustics), eating a bite of dark chocolate, or having sex.
I’ll bet something on the list might appeal.
Music is also a terrific endorphin trigger. I’m sure folks who regularly attend USCB’s Chamber Music Series would agree. Musical Director Andy Armstrong and the world-renownmusicians who join him present performances that just get better. Every. Single. Time. By the end of a Sunday afternoon concert, hundreds of smiling patrons file out of the USCB Center for Performing Arts simply overflowing with endorphins.
The question is, how in the world do those wondrous chemicals work in the body? Simply put, listening to music that gives us chills, for example, floods the brain with endorphins that trigger the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter (or chemical messenger) made in the brain that plays a role in how we feel pleasure and rewards and how we think and do. Dopamine also helps us to focus, work towards goals, and find things interesting. Comprendes?
Recently, I happened upon a re-broadcast of popular television host Stephen Colbert interviewing the late geneticist, Dr. Francis Collins, former director of the National Institute of Health and also of the Human Genome Project, the world’s largest collaborative biological project. This brilliant scientist explained scientific terms understandably to non-scientific minds, and often humorously. After discussing the effect of inspiring music on the mood, and the role endogenous endorphins played in lifting spirits, the doc gave an example to clarify.
“When you listen to a piece of music that really moves you up,” he said with a laugh, “you just dumped a bunch of dopamine into your ventral striatum…wow!”
Immediately after his comment, I cackled along with Colbert and the studio audience because I knew he was being funny but in all honesty, had no clue what he’d just said. I had to Google “ventral striatum,” probably along with a large percentage of viewers, to discover that his referenced part of the body is a region deep in the brain that plays roles in mood, addiction, and learning.
The good doc gave us viewers a window into how the brain works. Now we know.
If you are not suffering from debilitating physical, mental, or emotional conditions, the following exercise may spark you out of the winter doldrums long enough for azalea season to arrive. Those vivid-hued beauties will likely bring you back to your Lowcountry senses.
Taking the use of music to create endorphins a step further, Dr. Collins went on to explain that music therapy, in combination with neuroscience, is being explored as a way to manage chronic pain and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) without taking a pill. Imagine easing these crippling conditions through sound.
Now we’ve come full circle back to the seasonal blues. If they happen to be visiting your house at present, rest assured they’ll be on their way before too long. Know you’re in good company. The fact that a whole genre of music is dedicated to the blues should give you a measure of solace. A couple of quotes will get the idea across well.
From the late Peter Toth, former bass guitarist and keyboardist for the Monkees, “The blues (i.e. the music version) brings you back into the fold. The blues isn’t about the blues (the melancholy variety). It’s about we’ve all had the blues, and we are all in this together.”
And from beloved author and writing workshop guru Natalie Goldberg: “Stress is an ignorant state. It thinks everything is an emergency.”
Rev up those endorphins, and rock on through the winter. Spring will come. It always does.