alleviating the blues & the blahs

[moi...@tektronix.uucp]

This has been a year of beginnings and endings for me; I managed the
stress of those changes fairly well until September, when I finally
had time to get off the ride and really let the feelings flow. I
spent much of that month hibernating, assimilating, integrating and
generally not enjoying a lot of what I was feeling.

One of things that changed it for me was exercise (aack! not THAT!).
I am not now, nor have I ever been, anything remotely close to even a
reasonable facsimile of a jock (jockette?). And I do enjoy a hike
or a game of racquetball now and then. But one of the things that was
kinda getting me down was the 50 extra pounds that seem to have come
with the changes, and I was fairly clear that I wasn't willing to diet,
but I did choose to commit to a regular aerobic exercise program.

What I have found is that by exercising a minimum of 25 minutes a day,
5-6 times per week, I feel much more stable, much more able to roll
with the punches, and I am not as much at the effect of my hormones
at any time during the cycle. (and exercise is great for cramps).

This was particularly emphasized yesterday when I found out that something I
had assumed was taken care of, was not. There was no one to get angry
with except USNail, so I just took it with me to the health club, and
transformed all the emotion, all the anxiety, to a real positive
energy. I was so jazzed by the time I left, I felt like I could
have danced all night. I marveled at the transformation.

I recall reading somewhere (Somewhere: the world's biggest book :-)
that endorphins are released when a person 1) exercises, 2) eats, or
3)has an orgasm. That these endorphins produce 'natural highs'.
(That's probably why food works so well as a tranquilizer...but I
digress). It does seem to explain the stabilizing influence of
exercise in my life.

Moira Mallison
tektronix!moiram

[Barry Gold]

I read awhile back in an article on menopausal hot flushes that obese
overweight women get fewer/milder hot flushes becasue fat manufactures
endocrine hormones and therefore obese women didn't have the abrupt fall off
of feminine hormones at menopause that non-obese women did. I think that
perhaps shedding weight due to exercise might also mean reducing one's
general endocrine level. I once had a brand of birth control pill that gave
me the weeps. I told the gynecologist I was accustomed to getting annoyed
come my period, NOT to getting miserable, and persuaded him to change me to
a new prescription, which brought back my familiar mood cycle. Presumably
this was also due to level of endocrine.

--Lee Gold