Your brain on creativity

I have blogged this before that during chemo a friend told me I needed a hobby and I took up knitting and crocheting. That was the fall of 2007. I have since made scarves for almost everyone I know and even ventured into craft shows where I sell my wares at the holiday season. I have become a yarn junkie and am a member of SABLE (Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy).

I have come to like knitting and crocheting a lot. I like to learn new techniques and create different items. I might even make a hat this year.When I feel like crap and not into doing much of anything, I sit and knit and it relaxes me.

Now I have proof on its benefits. Yes there are health benefits to knitting and other crafts. I'm not sure why it took so long for people to figure things out.

"Crafting can help those who suffer from anxiety, depression or chronic pain, experts say. It may also ease stress, increase happiness and protect the brain from damage caused by aging."

Basically when you are stressed, your brain is in the fight or flight mode. It doesn't distinguish between kinds of stress -  another chemo infusion or another PET scan or, to quote the article, a bear attack. But the brain can only process so much information so when you knit/craft, your brain focuses on the repetitive activity and your body relaxes. Here's the fancy stuff:

"Our nervous system is only capable of processing a certain amount of information at a time, he explains. That's why you can't listen and understand two people who are talking to you at once. So when someone starts creating, his existence outside that activity becomes "temporarily suspended."...

...The effects of flow are similar to those of meditation, says occupational therapist Victoria Schindler. Science has shown meditation can, among other things, reduce stress and fight inflammation.

Our bodies are in a constant state of stress because our brain can't tell the difference between an upcoming meeting with the boss and an upcoming bear attack, Schindler says. The repetitive motions of knitting, for example, activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which quiets that "fight or flight" response."

So I am happy to keep on knitting and selling my wares. And now I know that  its helping me in more ways than I expected.

Health care reform and employee benefits

Here in the precocious state of Massachusetts which adopted health care reform in 2006, we already have six years of change. Are we better off? On some levels yes. The rate of insured here is around 96% if I can recall the latest statistic with my tiny chemo brain. But the problem of medical debt still exists at comparable rates to before 2006. But the good news in that is that the rates did not increase as I believe they have in the rest of the country.

So while we have progress here, we still need more. It would also be nice for the rest of the country to experience the key benefit we have had for decades - the pre-existing condition clause. That is been on the books here for a couple of decades. I would be interested to see the rates of medical debt nationally after a few years with the pre-existing condition clause in effect.

On the other side of the coin is that employers nationally are asking employees to pick up more and more of the cost of benefits that were once free to employees. On this I am a bit torn. While it is nice that employers provide benefits I do not believe that they are required to offer them all free. Free is a great price but its all part of package deal if you think about it.

Your salary plus benefits is your compensation package and employers are feeling the pinch. They want to keep employees happy and offer benefits and salary increases and then the insurance companies raise their rates by 10% each year, how are they supposed to afford all that?

There is always a hidden price. Somewhere that 'free' is being paid for. And if you want your health insurance to cover EVERYTHING think again. My health insurance does not cover chemotherapy wigs, which I found out to my dismay. But a way of reducing costs for insurance companies is to cut coverage for rarely needed benefits. I would prefer to pay for a wig and not pay $20,000 for each chemo round. Its a carefully balanced system and we can't always get what we want. Sometimes we just get what we need.

Equality and preventative care

So the benefits from the new health care act are starting to kick in. Starting today, insurance companies need to provide women with contraceptives, breast-feeding supplies and screenings for gestational diabetes, sexually transmitted infections and domestic violence, as well as routine check-ups for breast and pelvic exams, Pap tests and prenatal care. Well many insurance companies will. Some are still grandfathered in but as their plans are forced to change in the future they will lose their grandfather status.

If you read this article over on CNN.com and the comments that follow, its interesting how many men are against this because they feel its not fair. (Allow me to be a bit sexist on this.) Oh, the poor things, they have nothing to do with making babies, sexually transmitted diseases, and domestic violence. They are claiming its unequal. Well pooh to them. They get their Viagra paid for.

And to those who say free means everyone else pays for it the point of preventative care as these mostly are is to catch things early before they are discovered too late and the treatment costs are exorbitant and often result in death. That's a really big expense.