The "Wayne is Great" Folder

My friend Wayne in Canada, (not to be confused with our mutual friend Wayne of the same clan in Ireland), was asked to do a short article for a McGill University publication.  He ran it by the other Wayne and myself, did some serious editing and came out with a good piece.  He said when it gets published he was putting it in his "Wayne is Great" folder.

What a brilliant idea.  I had never heard of it before.  Every one of us needs to keep an "I am Great" folder and add things we have accomplished that we can be proud of. All of us at times fail and we can get down on ourselves.  Our friends and family reassure us we are not hopeless failures (well, my friends anyhow; my family not so much - just kidding) but if we have a "I am Great" folder, we can look back and reassure ourselves that we CAN DO!!

And ask your family and friends or co-workers to suggest stuff to put in it.  We don't always remember what we have accomplished, being focused on the tasks remaining.  If it is written, put a copy in the folder; if it is something you have built, put a picture in along with details.  Figure out some way that is meaningful to you.

I know some of the things that are going in my "Al is Great" folder.  From times long past, it is likely to be just a list of things that I will add to as I remember.  For more recent accomplishments, it will be documents and pictures.

Anger, Depression and Cholesterol - Learning new things

"Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more, forever." Chief Joseph.

I started writing a blog post in my head a few weeks ago.  Like Chief Joseph, I am tired of fighting.  It seems that all my life, I have been angry about something at someone or in most cases a great many someones.  I do not suffer fools gladly.  I hate injustice, corruption, unbridled greed and people who claim to speak for God.  In no particular order. And it/they are everywhere.

Being filled with anger, hatred and frustration, speaking and striking blindly in all directions, (or so it seems to me) is exhausting.  I hate it.  I wish I could stop.  I wish I could be like some I know who stick their head firmly up their rear, hearing, seeing speaking no evil, only reading and quoting nauseatingly sweet syrupy platitudes and pretending the world is all sunshine and roses.

Constant anger and a low boiling point are signs of depression.  Many years ago, (but not soon enough, ask my kids) I went on the little white pills.  They didn't do anything for me but I found that other people didn't act like complete assholes when I was taking the pills but started again as soon as I stopped. They do keep my temperament much more on an even keel even at a low dose.

This was as far as I got in my composing.  Then this past week, I read an article in The Globalist, a weekly freebie of international news and views that comes in my Inbox every Friday.  A strange place to learn something about one's health.

The article Limbaugh, Lipitor and the Incivility of American Political Life speculates on a connection between the "increasing incivility" in America and the $30 billion per year consumption of cholesterol lowering statin drugs. 

The article says statins can reduce fatal heart attacks in patients with increased risk factors — such as diabetes, very high cholesterol, or prior heart attack — and that these drugs can be life-saving for some patients. . .  According to Dr. John Abramson, a professor at the Harvard Medical School and author of Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine, "These drugs have been on the market for 21 years... and yet there is still not a single study that documents a health benefit to women of any age, or men over 65 who don't already have heart disease or diabetes." . . . Yet the immense yearly expenditures on marketing statins has assured that over the past decade most of the medically insured, over-50 population of the United States has been prescribed statins.

The fly in the ointment as usual is the side effects Overlooked in the developed world's rush to medicate cholesterol to lower and lower levels have been profound questions about the relationship between cholesterol and cognitive function, mood and behavior. The pre-statin scientific literature provided numerous hints of a link between low (or lowered) cholesterol and violent death, as well as aggression. Reducing cholesterol reduces levels of serotonin, a critical brain neurotransmitter, and low brain serotonin is well known to be linked to violence, impaired impulse control and aggression in both humans and animals. 

Eureka (Yeah?  Well you don't smell so good yourself...but I digress).  For years I have been feeling smug when I go for a physical.  I might be 50 kg overweight but my heart rate is low 60 to 70, blood pressure low-normal (boosted by coffee and insufferable politicians) AND my cholesterol levels off the scale on the LOW side. 

So finding a possible reason for this behaviour of mine has made me feel immensely better.  Now I wonder if they have a drug to increase cholesterol or do I just keep taking serotonin boosters?