Winter Depression And Game Of Thrones
Without Prejudice
"Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent ", so said William Shakespeare in the play, Richard The Third, all the way back in 1592. My family history goes back to around then in Birmingham, U.K.
I should be hard wired genetically to Northern Winters being born in Edinburgh.
Scotland having two Seasons, June and Winter.
But by the time I was two my parents had emigrated to Australia and winters became balmy in Adelaide, not the Game Of Thrones Winter that occurs in Northern Europe.
I now reside in Melbourne, well known for it's bitter, cold Winters and like a bear I will be hibernating.
Foxtel helps with Winter Depression, (WD),
Movies and favourite shows helping with WD as does reading novels for some reason.
Escaping into fantasy instead of grim reality soothing the " savage breast "
Music helps too,
"Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent ", so said William Shakespeare in the play, Richard The Third, all the way back in 1592. My family history goes back to around then in Birmingham, U.K.
I should be hard wired genetically to Northern Winters being born in Edinburgh.
Scotland having two Seasons, June and Winter.
But by the time I was two my parents had emigrated to Australia and winters became balmy in Adelaide, not the Game Of Thrones Winter that occurs in Northern Europe.
I now reside in Melbourne, well known for it's bitter, cold Winters and like a bear I will be hibernating.
Foxtel helps with Winter Depression, (WD),
Movies and favourite shows helping with WD as does reading novels for some reason.
Escaping into fantasy instead of grim reality soothing the " savage breast "
Music helps too,
“Music has Charms to soothe a savage Breast”
a familiar phrase which dates back to 1697 as part of a play entitled The mourning bride by the poet William Congreve. Less familiar are the lines which follow: “To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak. I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd, And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd."
The initial phrases of this poem may be interesting to think about in terms of music’s application in medicine. Music’s influence in medicine is relative to our understanding of how music can affect a person’s “living soul,” which may be an active and conscious process.
Music’s impact also often takes on a more passive, but equally potent role, as sound and resonance can effect the movement of “inanimate objects.” If we think about the roots of entrainment, and the reports of the late 17th century’s Dutch scientist Christian Huygens, we realize that rhythm as an energetic force and its capacity to have mutual influence on motion is vast and on-going.
Huygen’s discovery that pendulums swinging at different rates eventually shift to swing in synchrony provides the basis for primary energy concepts in physics and illustrates a complex process in our understanding of how we set out to apply and adapt sound and music to various systems of the body.
Our understanding and application of Congreve’s revelation that in music, especially in rhythmic elements, “things inanimate have moved” is critical. Huygen and Congreve both lived in the 1600s; a poet and scientist recognizing phenomena, not unlike the perspectives we take on today as we view music’s capacity to effect physiological and psychological aspects of function.
The immediate influence of music’s effect on the body may be most readily recognized in the
management of pain. Pain being the grey days and lack of light in Winter. The winter depression thrives on dull days.
The brain and body want to " switch off " , rest, store carbs and when the better weather returns " Wake Up" with almost an intense euphoria that can last a week.
