Mental Health in a time of pandemic: Part II

As a continuation of my last blog post on dealing with Covid19, here is the second part of the University of Illinois-Chicago's recommendations.

Stay Active

Another thing we know from research is that physical activity releases chemicals in your brain that improve your mood. Staying active can also help you feel healthy and accomplished, and it is another way to help bring structure to your day.

-          Schedule a time of day, a duration, and physical space for your workout that has a high likelihood of happening. For example, if you’re not a morning person, it wouldn’t be wise to go for a 6am 2-hour workout. Similarly, if you typically eat at 6pm, a 6:30 workout also wouldn’t be the best idea. Shoot for a time when you have a break in your schedule, a duration that fits your pre-COVID behaviors, and a space that is conducive to working out.

-          Try one of the dozens of free workout apps or websites! This is a link to 50 (five-zero) of the best free, at-home workout sites/videos/routines. There is every type of workout you could ask for, from yoga to high intensity interval training (HIIT), to Pilates.  https://makeyourbodywork.com/how-to-exercise-at-home/

-          Instead of viewing this as a time where you are unable to be as active as you would like (i.e., go to the gym, commute to work, take walks), use this as a time to explore fitness genres you may never have tried before. Perhaps you have always gravitated toward weightlifting – give kickboxing a try. Maybe you have been a core power person – see what a HIIT workout feels like. This could easily be turned into a specific goal on your daily to-do list.

-          GO OUTSIDE. Quarantined and/or sheltered in place does not mean you can’t still walk/run/bike outside (just maintain 6 feet of distance from your neighbors). People need fresh air, and nothing makes you want to be back at home more than a little Chicago weather fatigue. Luckily it’s not too cold at this point to enjoy being outside, so take a walk on your lunch break, walk the stairs of your local park, take an animal for an extra long walk, or take a nice jog outside.

Mental Heath in a time of pandemic: Part One

Amidst the reality of living in a pandemic, people need to take care of their mental health as well. Dr. Sister (psychology department chair for a small prestigious university) sent me the best advice I have seen.

These ideas are from the University of Illinois-Chicago Office of Applied Psychological Services.

The impact that COVID-19 is having on our health, finances, and daily life is enormous. We are currently experiencing an unprecedented pandemic that requires serious action and has led to a remarkable disruption to global society. Given all of these changes and general uncertainty, it is normal for people to feel anxious and overwhelmed with how to cope with these rapid changes, especially social isolation. Combining research, clinical work, and currently available resources, there are a number of things within our control that can help decrease anxiety and help us stay sane in a time of chaos. In short, I recommend that we stay structured, stay active, stay curious, stay connected, and stay grounded. We will get through this!

Stay Structured

We know from research that maintaining a daily schedule with clear, attainable goals helps people’s mood in general. It can be difficult to maintain the level of productivity that you had previously outside of the home, but you can still do things to help create structure.

-          Designate a work space in your living area. This can be as small as one side of the couch, and as large as a specific room. Make sure you are set up comfortably, and that work is easy to do in that space (e.g., there is an outlet, back support).

-          Maintain a daily calendar/planner with specific activities. Structure is effectively created when we have a specific, measurable, achievable goal for each hour of the “work day.” Part of a typical schedule is lunch and time for breaks, so be sure to schedule those things in to make sure productivity is maintained and there is some normalcy.

-          For those who are not currently working because your industry is not operational, use this time to beef up skills with webinars, polish resumes, or engage in chores that have been pushed to the side. Here is a link to 24 FREE online classes offer by Ivy League universities that can help anyone increase their knowledge & marketability https://www.themuse.com/advice/24-free-online-ivy-league-courses-you-can-sign-up-for-today-regardless-of-your-gpa.

-          Take stock of your accomplishments at the end of each day. Note the progress you’ve made and internalize the goals you have accomplished. No goal is too small to praise! This will also help you transition into relaxation time, which you have earned!

-          Continue to maintain good sleep hygiene. Separating your place of work and place of sleep are key (i.e., don’t do work in your bed). Maintain your typical wake & sleep routines to keep your sleep cycle on target. Try to continue going to bed around the same time and waking up around the same time to keep your typical rhythm. This will also help when you (eventually) transition back to typical work days.

Good Ol' Dracula

This year marks the 8th anniversary of the first printing of my first book, Dracula's Secret! As a result, I'm revisiting some early blog posts about my process.

Even the most cursory look at the secondary and tertiary sources on Vlad Dracula shows a stunning (or tedious, depending on your personality) number of resources on how bloodthirsty and cruel this particular historical figure was.

To find out where they got their information, I did what every self-respecting historian does. I checked their bibliographies for their primary sources. This is what I found.

Vlad Dracul II lived from 1431-1476.

No sources survive from Vlad himself (despite it being commonly reported that he was highly educated and literate). This includes any of his legislative acts.

No sources survive from his brothers, father, wives, other relatives, or even friends.

The only primary source that is contemporary to Vlad's life is in the Monastery of St. Gall, in Switzerland. It was written by an unknown author in 1462. The manuscript gives a number of anecdotes about Vlad (thirty-two, according to the translation I read). The translator claims that six of those thirty-two stories are confirmed by other sources, but does not name those sources.

The stories discussing Vlad's crimes against humanity were not verified by other contemporary sources.

The Russian and German documents that discuss Vlad's preference for disemboweling animals, etc., etc., etc., date from 1490 at the earliest.

The woodcut portraits of Vlad date from 1488 and 1491. The famous oil portrait comes from the second half of the 17th century. Which, I might point out, is nearly 200 years after Vlad died.

Many scholars make much of the oral transmissions of the folk tales of Romania. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any analysis of these stories by anthropologists or historians that would confirm the accuracy. Folk tales often are multipurpose stories - they could be cautionary tales or money makers to fleece the unsuspecting. I've not seen any studies done of where the folktales agree with the primary sources.

For example, contemplate the relationship people in the United States have with George Washington. The old cherry tree tale has been discredited, but how many of us still remember it and tell it?

What all this boils down to is very simple:

We don't know that much about this historical figure.


So as a result, I felt like I could play with this person, bring my own interpretation to the story of Dracula. After all, my outrageous ideas seem to fit right in with the rest. :)

I'm sure that I've missed a lot of information on the historical Dracula. I look forward to hearing from others who want to share their research with me.

Poetry break.

I have been feeling despair over the currently political environment. Who better to describe despair than Russian poet Anna Akhmatova.

Last Toast by Anna Akhmatova

Translated from the Russian by Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky

---

I drink to our ruined house
To the evil of my life
To our loneliness together
And I drink to you—
To the lying lips that have betrayed us,
To the dead-cold eyes,
To the fact that the world is brutal and coarse
To the fact that God did not save us.

Don't Surf in Sewage.

Hello, wonderful people!
 

Over the past month, the Romance Writers of America national organization has been imploding under the weight of hidden (and not so hidden) racism. I'm appalled on so many levels, I can't even. How could so many feminists screw up so many things? How could we betray our authors of color?

I needed a way to explain how this could happen. And it came to me.

In the 1950s and 1960s in California, businesses poured their waste into the ocean. The surfers said the waste was warm, so they would surf there instead of the colder but cleaner water. Their comfort was more important than their health.

Living in the patriarchy is like swimming in a wide river being filled with fecal matter all the time. Instead of actual feces, though, the disgusting elements include ideas of who is more important, whose experiences matter more, and the concept that “I got mine and I don’t care about you.”

The center of the river, where these ideas are the thickest, is deep, fast, and warm. The people there move quickly through society due to the current pushing them. They like being there because they are warm and ahead of everyone else. However, they are neck deep in raw sewage. The illnesses manifest as defensiveness, nasty jokes, cruel behavior to others, and refusal to contemplate anything beyond the status quo.

Some people there never notice, simply enjoying the delights of moving faster and having accumulated more than everyone else. To them, their behavior is normal. Occasionally, a friend points out that they are moving through a foul brew of disease. That perhaps, these behaviors and attitudes hurt other people.

This is what story-tellers know as the Call to Adventure.  People dig in their toes, at first, not wanting to leave the familiar warmth. But one cannot un-learn what one has learned. They take a step sidewise, toward the cleaner, colder water toward the shores. On those shores, people are playing Frisbee, having a picnic, laughing, dancing, and having more fun than everyone else.

It is difficult to move out of the river.  The cold is unsettling and frightening. There is always further to go.

But their health improves with every sideways step. Things smell better. The people there are ever so much nicer. And the view? Amazing.

Sometimes, the river takes a sudden drop or turn. People who thought they were out of the river discover that they have fallen back in. These slips are painful and embarrassing. All a person can do is stand up, apologize, and work their slow way back towards the shore.

You get to take the time to heal from the river’s poison. You get to scrub yourself off and learn new ways of moving, learning, and playing. The only thing you don’t get to do is stop trying.

My darlings, let's help each other clean up the sewage.  Let's share our best practices for combating racism and sexism. Let's help each other out.

Much love,
Linda

Jayne Ann Krentz is the writer we all want to be.

Jayne Ann Krentz is one of the coolest people in the whole publishing industry. First of all, there is her sheer love of writing - the woman has written more than 120 books, with 32 placing on the NYT Bestseller List!

Then there is her sheer determination - she's had to reinvent her career several times over her career, ending up with writing under three nom de plumes (Amanda Quick, Jayne Castle, Jayne Ann Krentz) to showcase her different writing interests (historical novels, futuristic/fantasy, and contemporary).

There is her intelligence - as a former librarian myself, I am always in awe of her excellent research. Her non-fiction book, Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women, has become the basis of intellectual discussion on the romance genre. She's generous to both readers and writers.

But most of all, she writes fiction that changes your life. I will always, always be grateful for this passage in Lost and Found. The heroine, Cady, spent the night at Mack's (the hero) house. His daughter catches them over breakfast. She's not too thrilled with the scenario.

Garbriella raised on shoulder in a jerky little shrug. "You think you're special"

"Uh-huh."

Gabriella spun around. "Why?"

Cady went back to the counter to get the English muffins. "Probably because I don't suffer from low self-esteem." (emphasis mine)

The first time I read that, I stood up involuntarily. I had never seen a heroine declare that she was special. I had never thought what it could be like to live with real self-esteem and not the crippling self-doubt I carried.

Heroes show you how to be what you want to be. By reading her books, I learned what it was like to have confidence.

And it feels amazing.