Dancing For Joy While Driving a Car

I suppose this blog ought to come with a severe health warning! Nevertheless, I share it with you from a position of love and exhilaration.

There have been (many) times in my life when my joy simply bubbled over; it effervesced, like sparkling wine overflowing the bottle when shaken.

Sometimes the thrill has overtaken me while driving the car.

I danced. Carefully, of course, with sufficient attention on the road and other traffic—but I danced at the wheel. Peripheral vision comes to the rescue; peripheral vision is how you drive home safely, without even noticing the stop lights or other vehicles. How you can’t even remember the turns you made because they are on automatic.

It can be enhanced by good “caffeine music”.

I rarely do it with a passenger but one Swedish girlfriend went home with a tale and, apparently, told all her friends. She wasn’t scared she told me, but everything about common sense and social training cried out for her against what should be a crazy thing to do.

Yet she saw the delight! Continue reading

Change Your Playlist, Change Your Life

Playlist is a neologism (new word) from the era of mp3 electronic music players. It refers to a sequence of tracks selected from amongst available music, that are grouped together as a listener choice. This is not the same as an album, where the associated tracks are chosen by the music publisher or the artist concerned.

Thus a personal playlist can include Beatles, along with Beethoven, if desired. There are no restrictions. Imagination and taste is the only guide.

Now a new book has pointed out that by choosing your playlist tracks carefully, your music can have an enormous benefit on your moods, efficiency and energy.

The book is called Your Playlist Can Change Your Life by Galina Mindlin, MD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, and founder of Brain Music Therapy; Don DuRousseau, founder of Human Bionics; and Joseph Cardillo, a top-selling author in holistic psychology and mind-body medicine.

The authors argue that music’s benefits hold for everyone and that if we queue up our tunes with care they’ll lift our mood, reduce anxiety, raise motivation, help us work out better and even fight off depression and insomnia.

Like sex, drugs or really good food, music causes the brain to release dopamine, a brain feel-good chemical. Choose your tracks carefully and you really can control your mood. Continue reading