The Art of Taking It Easy. Brian King

      As I mentioned, I am writing this in Colorado. It is early October, and yesterday, without warning, the weather turned from fairly moderate to full-on winter. My friends tell me it just does that here, but it caught us off guard. Sure, we knew winter was coming, but we thought we had a few more weeks before we would be bulking up with layers. So, earlier this evening Sarah and I were out at a shopping center in Denver picking up a few things. This being the period just before Halloween, there was a lot of fun stuff for sale, in addition to the more sensible things we were looking for. The candy, though, we walked by quickly. We are handing out bitcoins to the trick-or-treaters. Let’s see if that joke is still relevant by the time this book is published.26

      I love Halloween. I love dressing up, I love haunted houses, corn mazes, crazy Halloween parties—it really is one of my favorite times of the year. All holidays are great, but I really love the party ones: Halloween, New Year’s, Mardi Gras, Arbor Day . . . (man, them trees sure know how to let loose!). This year is going to be a little different, because this will be my daughter’s first time trick-or-treating, and as you might imagine I am a little excited about it. Anyway, while shopping I saw a few Halloween costumes that would just look adorable on our little girl, but Sarah, being the more sensible of the two of us, kept us focused on our objective and vetoed my costume purchase. I don’t remember what I said, but I was a bit irritated. “You’re hangry,” she said. It was true, I had skipped lunch and as we walked into the store, I was feeling a bit of the old hunger pangs.

      Have you ever been hangry? I imagine it is a common experience, common enough that the word isn’t triggering my spell-check at the moment. We sometimes get a little irritated when we haven’t eaten, or haven’t eaten enough. Hunger is a physical state that can influence our emotions. Hunger and stress are very closely related. I would even suggest that we could think of hunger as a type of stress. From your body’s perspective, hunger certainly threatens its continued existence.

      As with being hangry, one of the reasons that stress has such a huge impact on our lives is that it has a direct influence on our emotional state. You might remember that I quoted William James in the introduction. James is referred to as the father of American psychology, and his work was extensive. To this day, we still teach about and refer to his theories—well, at least I know I do. I talk about him all the time; in fact, I just talked about him earlier today and I am about to do it again. One of his theories I find most helpful is the James-Lange Theory of Emotion.27

      To put it simply, we feel emotions because of our brain’s interpretation of our physiological state. Whenever we encounter a stimulus, like a bear or finding ourselves suddenly sitting in traffic, our body reacts by triggering some familiar physiological changes. Unless you are one of those readers whom I suspect skipped the discussion on the brain, you already have an understanding of the mechanisms behind this, the amygdala and sympathetic nervous system. Our heart rate might increase and we might start to perspire. James then suggested that our brain, receiving feedback from the body, interprets the physiological condition in the context of what is going on at the moment. On some level, the brain is putting the information together that 1) there is a bear charging toward me; and 2) my heart rate is elevated (among other things), therefore I must be afraid. And just like that I am overcome with the emotion of fear.

      Now, let’s consider why we have emotions in the first place. Emotions influence behavior, specifically by helping us react in a manner that is appropriate for the moment. Think about all the diverse behaviors that a human brain is capable of producing. From playing a piano and dribbling a basketball, to computing mathematics and writing a book, each one of us is capable of a tremendous variety of potential behaviors (albeit, not to the same level of proficiency). Not all of those behaviors are appropriate for the situation we find ourselves in. Emotions help restrict our options so we are more likely to choose a behavior that is right for us. For example, imagine again that we are being attacked by a bear. Whenever I visualize this example, I always imagine that the bear is about thirty yards away, running toward me. In that moment, you don’t want to suddenly feel inspired to write a poem (“Ah, the duality of nature, so beautiful and yet so fierce”). No, you don’t want to do that. You also don’t want to see that bear and think, You know that reminds me, my mother-in-law is visiting this weekend. I should really clean the bathroom. You don’t want to entertain thoughts like that. You definitely don’t want to think, You know, with that bear chasing me this would make a really great selfie. It would be the last selfie you ever took. It seems obvious to us, but without the emotion of fear, your brain might just wander into some inappropriate territory like that. You want your brain to be fully focused on surviving that bear encounter.

      Fear is a negative emotion, and given this perspective, we can see how fear is an emotional response to stress. However, it is not our only possible response. The context of the moment also includes our own thoughts, and depending on what we are thinking we may react differently. We could add it all together as I did above and perhaps conclude, I am afraid of that bear. A simple, and probably a common, reaction. We could even go a different direction, wondering, How dare that bear threaten me?! The nerve of this bear, does that bear know who I am? and get mad. Or, we could even think to ourselves, Oh man, why do bears always attack me? That’s three times this week! What is it about me that makes bears want to attack me all the time? and feel saddened by the encounter. The point that