stress | Brain leaks and musings by "Mr. Boomsma," educator and author

I seem to recall describing Road Trip 2024 as a low-stress effort. Since the theory of relativity has also been mentioned, I should perhaps note that stress has value. In simplest terms, stress can increase performance and alertness. For more than a few hours yesterday (day one), I was very alert and performed well.

Nearly 400 miles of mostly Interstate Highway driving can become boring. It can also be exciting. I have never been a fan of I-495 in Massachusetts. There are simply too many cars (and trucks), and one accepts the idea that Interstate Highway is not synonymous with high-speed travel. In fact, one has an opportunity to consider how unskilled many drivers are when it comes to limited-access highway driving. The concepts of yielding when entering and choosing lanes based on speed seem to escape many.

As luck would have it, we ended up traveling through Hartford, Connecticut, during the beginning of evening rush hour. There isn’t a word to describe it. “Organized chaos” doesn’t do it justice.”

We noted the fact that the roadsides leaving the city are replete with huge billboards, most advertising personal injury attorneys. There might be a connection between those signs and the way traffic moves. In addition to the lack of yielding and unskilled lane changes, we also experienced drag racing. If several cars leave more than a car length between them, you get treated to watching other cars weave through the traffic at double the average rate of speed by taking advantage of those openings. And motorcycles! A car length is not required.

We took some relief in the fact that we weren’t traveling in a small vehicle, although we experienced a shot of adrenalin when a larger truck towing a trailer decided to move left, the trailer missing the front of our neighbor’s car by literally inches. This happened during a few moments of relatively high-speed travel. Seconds later, when our rate of travel dropped to almost zero, we noticed our neighbor hung back and left several car lengths between her and the truck/trailer. I suspect she was relieved when someone filled it.

We survived unscathed.

Maybe. Some research has suggested that stress actually encourages the growth of neurons and stem cells, improving memory.¹ Maybe we were scathed, but in a positive way.

We’ve traveled this route before. When we leave here, we often stay off the highway for a few dozen miles, poking along at a more leisurely pace until we cross the Hudson River.

This trip is about finding balance. So is life.

The Surprising Benefits of Stress by Peter Jaret, UC Berkley ↩︎

Feeling stressed? Grab your crayons!

I’ve often used crayons… myself, with adults, and as a way to occupy children who are visiting. So I wasn’t surprised when I learned recently that the New Canaan, CT Library has colored pencils and coloring sheets for adults to “check out” and use to relieve stress and even help with writer’s block. What a great idea!

Of course it’s not just crayons and coloring. Art therapy is accepted method of reducing stress and increasing creativity. The experts tell us that activities like coloring help us by serving as a distraction–even if only for a few minutes. Even coloring a picture means thinking about color choice and concentrating on “staying inside the lines.” When we become completely engaged in an activity we achieve a state of “flow” that can be almost meditative. Consider the “runner’s high” as another form of this.

Personally, I think coloring is even more fun if you can do it with a kid. When my nieces and nephews were younger, holiday visits often meant finding a quiet corner and engaging in coloring marathons. At the time, I thought we were playing, In retrospect, we may have been practicing a little stress management. Holidays with the family aren’t always easy.

But coloring can be useful with adults. When I was doing lots of organization design and development programs, I would often have the conference room table set up with boxes of crayons and art paper. The president and vice president would arrive and, while waiting for our session to begin, many would open the crayons and smell them, smiling with evoked childhood memories. The activity itself might be “draw a picture of how you see this organization…” It always took a while to get them started–unfortunately our childhood art skills and courage get surpressed as we “grow up.” But there were always some great and often revealing results.

I was a little disappointed recently when a friend who is very artistically talented said that she’d never call herself an artist because that is not a career choice she’ll be making. We are all artists, really. Art is about many things such as creativity and expression. We can see and use art in different ways. We don’t have to make a living with art, but art can help us make a life.

So I salute the Canaan Library for the reminder. Drawing and coloring are good. In fact, I think I’ll start keeping a box of crayons on my desk.

Brain leaks and musings by "Mr. Boomsma," educator and author

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Walter Boomsma (“Mr. Boomsma”) writes on a wide array of topics including personal development, teaching and learning. Course information is also available here!