[pkell]

It always annoys me to distraction when I am told to improve my attitude and my physical condition will improve. Obviously when we are in a happy state of mind we feel better but is that the same thing? Are we in fact better or only paying less attention?

Well I have done a 180 on this. Christmas was a hectic pressure cooker. There are 19 of us now in our immediate family, including eight children under 12. The racket was horrendous, the mess overwhelming and my 91 year old mother decided someone had stolen her coat while she was at my house. Nevertheless, it was a good time and I was functioning quite well considering. When under any kind of tension, good or bad, my meds are eaten up like Altoids. but all things considered, we fed dinner to 19 and survived.

The day after Christmas an old friend came to visit. I had not seen this person in many years but believed our friendship was well enough cemented many years ago allay any worries.

The reunion of this friend and several others was such a joyful experience that for four days it didn't matter if meds were taken on time or almost not at all. I was up late hooting with the owls an up early soaring with the eagles. I was on my feet, full of energy, happy, thoroughly enjoying myself. Our houseguest left this morning early and I have barely been able to move since then. All my muscles are stiff, I have Frankenstein feet and can hardly type. Attitude? Does this explain the placebo effect?

[Conductor71]

Originally Posted by pkell

It always annoys me to distraction when I am told to improve my attitude and my physical condition will improve. Obviously when we are in a happy state of mind we feel better but is that the same thing? Are we in fact better or only paying less attention?

Well I have done a 180 on this. Christmas was a hectic pressure cooker. There are 19 of us now in our immediate family, including eight children under 12. The racket was horrendous, the mess overwhelming and my 91 year old mother decided someone had stolen her coat while she was at my house. Nevertheless, it was a good time and I was functioning quite well considering. When under any kind of tension, good or bad, my meds are eaten up like Altoids. but all things considered, we fed dinner to 19 and survived.

The day after Christmas an old friend came to visit. I had not seen this person in many years but believed our friendship was well enough cemented many years ago allay any worries.

The reunion of this friend and several others was such a joyful experience that for four days it didn't matter if meds were taken on time or almost not at all. I was up late hooting with the owls an up early soaring with the eagles. I was on my feet, full of energy, happy, thoroughly enjoying myself. Our houseguest left this morning early and I have barely been able to move since then. All my muscles are stiff, I have Frankenstein feet and can hardly type. Attitude? Does this explain the placebo effect?

Laughing at the Altoids analogy- I know what you mean

Thanks for sharing this; it's an important question and really does highlight how the concept of 'mind over matter' helps. We're so used to noting when stress enters our lives and meds don't work we can easily overlook the good times.

Attitude really is a subjective or elusive quality that's really difficult to quantify because it's based on feeling. With PD, we have a built in yard stick to measure the positive experiences, feelings, and people in our lives. In other words, you (we ) need more of that!!! I love those rare instances when I get lost in the moment with family and friends, or in pursuing a hobby and have to think did I take my meds, when are they due? Such a tremendous feeling...it's when I feel closest to normal.

Resolve to see those friends more often!

Happy New Year,

Laura

[pkell]

My husband and I just bought a sailboat and one of the deciding factors was the day we went to see it the owner took us out sailing and I had left all meds in the car. They were due when we left and we stayed out four hours. When we docked I jumped over the bulkhead and out like there was nothing wrong with me. It was amazing, the tension leaked out and I was powerless to stop it and the better for being powerless.

I am beginning to think we should all give up meds and take up Tai Chi (sp?)or meditation or dancing or sailing. They seem to have the same effect without the sides.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if it were discovered that training new neural pathways was the key to our recovery and not holes in our heads and toxic medication.

On that HAPPY NEW YEAR

[lindylanka]

Hi Pam,
I guess what you are talking about is the same as many of us experience when we are really absorbed in something we enjoy - and the neural pathways are different, we are EXPERIENCING time differently.....and I think yes, this is a good thing to harness, some would call it postive thinking or energy or some such, but what we are actually doing is bypassing the damage. It is probably this ability that throws studies of whack when they are failed because of so-called placebo effect, and yet - they must know this, that is and always has been an observable part of PD, the cup we catch, the sprint across a road, the sudden ability to do things that mostly we cannot do, and cannot overcome AT WILL. It is this that they should be studying and harnessing, because they are always trying to treat us with blunt instruments, and I think part of what we suffer from is finely tuned brains, in which specific pathways have become damaged. In other words it is time they started to really look at us, not shunt us through the clinics, and even the trials, as medical specimens, but look at us as complete human beings..... I am going to join a conductive education programme her this year, I have been waiting till I feel I need it, it is all about making new pathways, quite tough training I think, the kind they do at the Peto institute for people with cerebral palsy, and they have a programme here that I can join, just 20 minutes away!

Glad your holidays went well, and that you had such a good time with friends....

Lindy

[reverett123]

Emotions, both good and bad, work through various routes, but particularly via the endocrine system. The various glands of that system communicate by pumping specific chemicals into the bloodstream. As a result, our emotions and moods produce their individual signature cocktails. Since the bloodstream reaches each and every cell, every one of our cells is monitoring our mood in real time. So put on that happy face!

[jeanb]

My doctor -mds- has told me that her patients with positive atitudes do better - in her opinion!

[pkell]

I'm not familiar with the Peto Institute, but they sound like my kind of people. We have so much unused brain space and if we can do this lovely bypassing by accident surely with all that extra space there is some way to use it to do it on purpose.

I have seen documentaries about children with catastrophic brain problems where they remove an entire hemisphere when they are very young and the children are able to adapt and live at least relatively normal lives. I know it doesn't work as well in adults but I wonder if that is because we become simply averse to change as we age more than we become incapable of it.

Obviously, you can tell that I am not a scientist, but maybe our vision is foreshortened by scientists to whom we have given all the power to determine the bounderies of the studies. Maybe what we need is a good dose of ignorance to begin to study another method of overcoming brain issues.

Naive? Probably, but what's the downside? And wouldn't it be ironic?!?

[indigogo]

I am a total believer that good attitude helps and is extremely important, BUT -

To be able to manufacture that good attitude at will is almost impossible if you are struggling with depression or anxiety that is not addressed head on - whether by life style changes, talk or drug therapy, but first by recognizing that there is a reason you are despairing and need to take action. That very recognition and action can be enough to get those mood enhancing chemicals pumping so that you can take another step towards regaining a positive attitude.

I think I was lucky enough to be born with an underlying resiliency that has unconsciously gotten me through my darkest times; a "good' attitude that doesn't say "be happy" but does say "it's time to get help if I want to be happy again." I have reached a point where I know that my happiness is entirely in my hands - that I own my attitude. But it took a lot of work to get here, it wasn't an easy road. Don't give up!

(whoops! finger slipped and posted before I had the whole title: attitude - don't give up! (not sure what an "attitude - don" is ...... maybe "don a good attitude"? or maybe the Godfather of all attitudes?!)

[pkell]

Carey,
I quite agree. I had a friend many years ago who was in her late 80s and more fun than the proverbial barrel of monkeys. Her life had been filled with horrendous losses, husband, sisters and children to terrible tragedies. I asked her once how she could be happy in the face of such pain and she said that happiness is not something that happens to you or something someone gives you but a decision you make every morning when you get up. Some days it's yes some days it's no, but it is your decision.

It took me many years to understand what she meant and many more to begin to practice it. It is liberating when finally understood.

[jeanb]

I was in the hospital with my mother on December 25th. My aunt (mother's sister) had been brought there by ambulance. As my aunt lay there unconscious with life support mechanisms keeping her alive, I thought what a pity she had made the choices she had in life. Her last 30 years she had lied to us, manipulated everyone, been sarcastic, been mean and hurtful and thoughtless to her family. Every once in a while when she needed help with something - she would act nicely - for a day or so, and then revert to her usual behavior. That told me she knew what she was doing and had made conscious decisions to act the way she did.

As we waited for the Doctor in ICU, I was thinking what a pity it was that she had taken the path she had. We tried to act with with love and affection, but she had turned us aside at every effort.

It was ultimately my decision to take her off life support. And as I waited for that, I wondered what I could say to her in her last moments. It finally came to me to bring up the distant past: she had read me many stories when I was a child, and shared many books with me. So I talked about that during those last moments.

There's a lesson there for me that I am still thinking about.