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Authors Posts by Leah Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

It wasn’t easy getting to The Big Easy last Thursday. On our way to my youngest grandson’s graduation from college, we were leaving from JFK in the afternoon, and there were delays all along the way. Even after we finally got to the departure gate and onto the plane, we were held on the tarmac for almost two hours, taxiing from runway to runway, until the pilot was given the signal to take off. 

A consolation was the relatively smooth three-hour flight. The ride to the hotel, in the dark, took about half an hour and was made pleasant by an interesting driver. Originally from the Ukraine, he filled us in on his immigration tribulations and his family’s situation back home. Although hungry when we arrived, we were more exhausted and fell right into bed.

We were well rewarded the next morning. One by one, with lots of hugging, the family connected with us at the Bearcat Cafe, one of the best breakfast restaurants I have ever had the pleasure of eating in. 

Now, New Orleans does have a fine reputation for eateries, so perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. The clever pairings of offerings, the way the dishes were prepared and the joyful manner of the wait staff in serving us were unparalleled. So if you find yourself in NOLA, you know where to go to start your day in fine style.

We returned to the hotel and changed for the first of the two graduation ceremonies. Did I mention the heat? Yes, we knew it would be hot in Louisiana, and it didn’t disappoint. It was both oppressively hot and humid for me. I should explain that I am generally more comfortable in the cold, so I hastened from one air conditioned location to the next, where it was often too cold for some. But those were the extremes of the city.

The ceremonies were in Caesars Superdome, which was both huge and cool. We took our seats high above and far from the stage, and watched the graduates file in like ants below, wearing their black robes and caps, as jazz music played. Each student’s name was called, and he or she in turn walked across the stage to shake the hand of the patient college official. We waited with interest to hear how our name would inevitably be mangled, a common consequence at all family graduations. Surprisingly, it was not. All the visitors did their best to utter loud, congratulatory cheers for their graduating loved ones, and we made sufficient noise to be heard by our grandson as he accepted his diploma.

The second ceremony, for the entire university, was not until the following night, and so we had time to explore the city. Several of us had been there before, so we passed up Bourbon Street, although I made sure to enjoy a beignet at the branch of Cafe du Monde on the Riverwalk. Instead, we went to The Fly along the bank of the Mississippi River, sat in a small gazebo, and watched the muddy waters rush by. 

The River was almost two miles across at that point, and several tankers and tug boats traveled stately past in either direction. It occurred to me that I had never seen the Mississippi before, and since I had just recently finished reading “James,” a highly decorated novel that is a take off on “Huckleberry Finn,” the scene was populated by Mark Twain’s characters in my imagination. Additionally, several residents were cooking crawfish nearby in a big kettle, and the smells were delightful. They offered us a taste, in that polite Southern fashion; the crustacean was too spicy for me.

Also spicing up the trip was the news of 10 escaped prisoners, five of whom have now been recaptured. One was found in a fancy hotel, clearly a man of good taste.

We did drive through the Garden District, impressed by the historic homes, and we  viewed the house in which our grandson lived near the campus. We left the city and its bananas foster reluctantly, for there was much more to see.

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William H. Luers. Photo from Bakers Institute

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

The worlds of art and politics might seem quite separate, but here is a life that bridges them both. Two lives, in fact.

In one of those chance happenings that amounts to little more than a footnote but turns the tide of history, William Luers became the new ambassador to Czechoslovakia in 1983. It was a time of tumult in the Soviet-bloc country, as the unlikely  poet-playwright, Vaclav Havel, was leading a peaceful uprising to oust the Communist state. Havel was in and out of prison and appeared to be a long-shot among other dissidents to triumph against the Soviets. Nonetheless Luers recognized the potential of the cultural leader and contributed to his very survival and political successes that resulted in the independence of Czechoslovakia in 1989 and the subsequent creation of the Czech Republic.

In betting on Havel, Luers was in fact recognizing the pairing of politics and art that informed his own life.

Luers was born in Springfield, Illinois, and attended high school there, where he played basketball with a distinct advantage. He was exceptionally tall. After majoring in chemistry and math and graduating from Hamilton College in upstate New York, he went on to switch to the humanities and study philosophy at Northwestern University, then joined the Navy. It was 1952 and the United States was at war with Korea. After graduating from officers’ candidate school and being discharged in 1957, he entered the Foreign Service and in 1958 earned a master’s degree in Russian Studies from Columbia University. He spoke fluent Russian, Spanish and Italian, and worked at embassies in Moscow, Rome and other capitals in Europe and Latin America. Before he went to Czechoslovakia, he was ambassador to Venezuela.

His most important post was his last. He protected Havel by inviting dozens of American cultural celebrities to visit Prague, and after meeting the playwright, “then at news conferences outside the reach of the government-controlled Czech news media, recast him in a protective armor of global publicity,” according to The New York Times. By burnishing Havel’s name “as a writer but not as a statesman, which might have increased Havel’s perils,” continued The Times’ reporter Luer saved him.

Some of the celebrity visitors included John Updike, Edward Albee, E.L. Doctorow, Kurt Vonnegut, William Styron, Philippe de Montebello, director of New York’s Metropolitan Museum, theater director Joseph Papp, abstract painter Richard Diebenkorn and Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post. 

Since Luers came from a culturally prominent family, many of these people were his friends and they understood their purpose in visiting. “The underlying message…was that harming Mr. Havel might risk incalculable international consequences for the Czech government,” according to The Times. In fact, Luers used the arts to promote, protect and ultimately elect Vaclav Havel as leader of the Czech Republic. 

After 29 years in the Foreign Service, during which time he became an aide to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (and in 1974 personally delivered President Nixon’s resignation letter over the Watergate scandal to him), Luers went on to be president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 13 years. Like Havel, the arc of his life spanned politics and art.

William Luers died this past Saturday, May 10, in his home in Washington Depot, Connecticut, at the age of 95. His greatest satisfaction was the success of Vaclav Havel, according to The Times. “The Communist system was deeply flawed. It underestimated cultural leaders’ influence on the people.” 

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METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

Tuesday was National Teacher Appreciation Day, which reminded me of Miss Rigney, who changed my life. 

Miss Rigney was my sixth grade teacher in the perfectly ordinary elementary school I attended. Housed in a cement building, in the midst of a residential area, it served the neighborhood according to the rules for education in mid-century New York City, with two classrooms and two teachers for each grade. I was assigned to 6A. Next door was 6B.

Soon after entering sixth grade, we became aware of the goal for the coming year. We needed to pass the Hunter Test for the honor of the school and our own benefit.

The Hunter Test, we discovered, was a one day affair that, if successfully navigated, would win us admission to Hunter College High School where classes started with seventh grade and ended with graduation from high school. Open to students from each sixth grade in all five boroughs, a handful of us would be eligible, after scoring well on a standardized test in fifth grade, to travel to the school on the appointed day to take the test.

I liked the sound of that because it was the closest junior high school to where I lived. I sympathized with those students who would have to ride from Brooklyn, Queens and even Staten Island.

There were several special schools throughout the city whose admission was via a challenging test: Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science and Brooklyn Tech were three. They were also public schools and were run by the Board of Education with the idea of giving some students a head start. 

But Hunter was different. It was initially started in 1869 as a model school in which to train teachers who were matriculating in Hunter College and was administrated by the Board of Higher Education. Its 1200 students in six grades “represent the top one-quarter of one percent of the City” based on the test scores, according to the school. It was composed of all girls for its first 105 years. The student-teacher ratio was 13:1, and its faculty for the most part had advanced degrees.

“Aim of the entire course through which the Normal students pass is not so much to burden the mind with facts as it is to develop intellectual power, cultivate judgment, and enable the graduates to take trained ability into the world with them,” wrote Harper’s Magazine in 1878.

Now we kids didn’t know any of this. I just wanted the shortest commute, and it was impressed on us that Hunter was a good place to be. So we prepared for the test, which was months away, with the coaching of our teachers, four girls from 6B and two from 6A. 

Only Miss Rigney, a trim, freckle-faced redhead with a gentle manner, who seemed old to me, but was maybe 28, stayed after school twice a week and drilled Carol and me with a workbook. When we didn’t do the homework she then gave us, both arithmetic and English, she was uncharacteristically stern with us. It was clear that this was a challenge she wanted us to surmount.

On the day the results of the Test were sent to the school, the principal called the six of us down to her office, along with the teachers, and with a great deal of excitement, opened the envelope and read the results out loud. Carol and I had been admitted; no one had from the other class.

There was screaming and moaning. Miss Rigney smiled, quietly congratulated the two of us and returned to her classroom. I was happy because I thought I should be. I knew my parents would be pleased, but I had no understanding of what had just happened.

I had no idea that my life would be unalterably changed — that I would be attending what was thought to be one of the finest high school in the country, ranked number one by The Wall Street Journal, one of only 225 pupils, with some of the most accomplished teachers for whom teaching was an art, that I would mingle with far more sophisticated students, and because of them, freely explore the City. 

I had a remarkable high school education. When I landed in college, I was immediately offered second year standing because of my AP classes. Miss Rigney knew. 

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Metro Photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

Happy May 1st! 

Just saying that puts a smile on my face. Why? Because May carries the promise of sunny days, blue skies, brilliantly colored flowers on bushes and trees along with baby green leaves, and birdsong everywhere. I know I can just walk out of my house in my indoor clothing and find the perfect temperature outdoors. I won’t need boots or a parka or even a heavy sweater, just maybe a light rain jacket. The world, my world, for this month, is a perfectly furnished place.

That is not to say that the many troubles in current events don’t cause concern. They surely do. But Nature can help offset some of the anxiety with her splendid technicolor show and demonstration of hope and rebirth.

Another positive beacon is a guy named Roger Rosenblatt. He wrote a column for The New York Times on April 13th headlined, “10 Tips for Being Happily 85 Years Old (Like Me).” I’ll share some of them with you, regardless of your age, because they are applicable to all, but first you must shut off the news—whether on radio or television or your cellphone. Let’s just focus on happiness.

The first of his points is probably the best: Nobody’s thinking about you.

“Nobody ever will. Not your teacher, not your minister, not your colleagues, not your shrink, not a soul. It can be a bummer of a thought. But it’s also liberating. That time you fell on your butt in public? That dumb comment you made at dinner last week? That brilliant book you wrote? No one is thinking about it. Others are thinking about themselves. Just like you.” (Of course, that statement doesn’t apply to parents, who regularly think about children.)

A few of his other heartfelt recommendations include get a dog, don’t hear the cheers (about how wonderful you are, just live the life you’re living), know that everyone’s in pain (of some sort) so be kind, look for the exceptional qualities in others, join a group with mutual interests so you stay social, and just live with your regrets (a part of every life). He also advises starting and ending each day by listening to Louis Armstrong—or your equivalent pick-me-upper.

(Just for those reading this who ARE 85 or thereabouts, he does advise making young friends because they are enthusiastic and don’t know when you are telling them lies, and urges that you try to see fewer than 5 doctors because it takes so much time and is depressing if they are your only social life.)

I can also share some upcoming events that make me happy to anticipate. 

Most immediately, my youngest grandson is graduating from college this month. Not only is this a lovely achievement for him, it provides us, the family on both sides of the parents, a chance to get together and catch up with everyone’s lives.

Another joyful occurrence will be a visit from my California cousin, who is coming east in June to celebrate his 65th birthday. I love celebrating birthdays and I also love having visitors. The latter seem to like coming out to stay at our house.

You may not think so, but another singular event next month to which I look forward will be the arrival (finally!) of the plumber to repair an incessant bathroom leak.

Then there are the birthdays of two sons in July, which they will spend here among the whole crew, who will arrive with their bathing suits, and their return in August for another round of birthday observances.

In September I look forward to the resumption of perfect weather and rest.

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Pixabay photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

Words pour out of our mouths like different kinds of liquids.

Sometimes, those words can offer necessary relief from white hot anger, agony or discomfort, serving as a cooling salve, bringing a smile to our miserable faces and turning, as the cliche would suggest, a frown upside down.

Other times, the words people choose to share can exacerbate an already inflamed state, serving as lighter fluid, threatening to turn us from a mild shade of pink into a deep red.

Words can also become an avalanche, forcing us to look elsewhere as a nonstop collection of words, phrase or ideas threatens to bury us beneath their verbal weight. Desperate to get away, we might hope the speaker gets distracted by a flying turtle.

A diatribe, lesson or self-aggrandizing soliloquy can be exhausting and irritating.

But, it’s not just the words and their effect that are so familiar in conversations.

No, you see, it’s the facial expressions. Many people have a remarkable ability to run the gamut of human emotions and thoughts without saying a word. A tightening of the skin around their eyes, a slight narrowing of the lids, a crooked smile, or a baring of teeth, which is probably the least subtle of the facial reactions, can reveal something about our inner state or disclose how we’re feeling about the world around us or, more precisely, the person in front of us.

To varying degrees, actors and actresses have mastered the art of using their often photogenic, compelling, or sympathetic faces to tell stories and, perhaps, to reveal the inner conflict we know they are feeling when, say, their sister asks them to be a bridesmaid when she’s planning to marry a person the actress has loved for years. Yes, that was a mildly amusing movie and yes, you probably know it.

The rest of us mere facial mortals, however, may not be as capable of altering our features to reflect the wide range of emotions we might reveal in response to the way we feel behind the masks we try to wear.

When I lived in Manhattan, I thoroughly enjoyed people watching. It’s a form of endless entertainment. Leaning on the railing at Rockefeller Center in mid December years ago, I watched an elderly couple gliding around the rink together, holding hands and glancing contentedly at each other, clearly enjoying the moment. With gloved fingers interlaced, they synchronized their legs as well as any pairs figure skaters might.

While I imagined that they had been together for decades and that they might have gone to an ice skating rink on an early date, they also could have been together for a couple of months or, perhaps, gotten married a year earlier.

Either way, their faces, which I can still picture decades later, revealed a keen and profound satisfaction.

Some people undoubtedly have mastered the art of the poker face, appearing interested or attentive when they are thinking about where to eat dinner later that night, what laundry they need to take to the dry cleaner, or when to sell a stock that’s been teetering with all the others amidst concerns about corporate profits and a potential slowdown in the economy.

Others, however, can reveal the equivalent of an SOS call, with a slight turn of their neck, widening eyes, and a faint but noticeable grimace around their pained mouths.

When we get to know family or friends well, we can read their expressions or hear the flat tone in their voices, knowing that the word “interesting,” or “you don’t say,” really means, “please stop talking. I’ll pay you to stop talking. In fact, here is a set of fake plastic ears that look like mine. Chew on them and, when you’re done, please recycle what’s left over.”

Sometimes, when I know someone well enough, I’ll watch their faces as they listen to a perspective that irritates them, a joke they don’t find remotely amusing, or a comment they don’t appreciate and I’ll recognize the unspoken but deeply held thoughts etched in their faces.

With all the finely tuned muscles in our faces and our ability to raise or lower our eyebrows, we can send signals that the attentive listener or others can read like a subtle or, perhaps more obvious, signal.

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A statue of Balto in Central Park. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Roman Eugeniusz

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

While most of us know “of the famous ride of Paul Revere,” quoting Longfellow, there is another ride that happened 100 years ago that we can commemorate. It has to do with one of my favorite dogs. His name was Balto, an Alaskan husky and sled dog born in Nome, and he led a team of sled dogs, driven by Gunnar Kaasen and carrying vital diphtheria antitoxin through fierce Alaskan storms across the wilderness and into history. 

The serum was desperately needed to combat an outbreak of the disease. Planes such as they were in 1925, were grounded by the intense weather. The only hope for rescue was with the perilous trip by sled. Kaasen insisted that Balto was the true hero. A movie, a nationwide tour on the vaudeville circuit and a bronze statue in Central Park resulted.

Now I visited Central Park most Sundays, when the weather permitted, throughout my elementary school years, with my dad and younger sister. It was my dad’s way of giving my mother a few hours off and of having some time with us since he worked six days a week, left early in the morning, and only returned for a late dinner. He would cook us breakfast, and then we would walk through the Park, taking a different route each time until my mother would join us in the late afternoon with a picnic supper. 

Most often, he made sure our meanderings took us past the statue of Balto. I would climb up on the rock on which he stood, then sit astride his back, and listen as my dad read the words on the plaque adorning the site “dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the winter of 1925: endurance, fidelity, intelligence” Visuals of the trip would run through my mind as I sat there, courtesy of Jack London, whose books I read. I loved Balto.

But there is quite a back story.

For starters, Balto was an underdog in a literal sense. He was owned by Leonhard Seppala, a native Norwegian, sled dog breeder, musher and competitive racer, and was named after an Arctic explorer. Balto had a black fur coat, a small, stocky build with two white stocking front feet and was considered “second rate” as a racer by Seppala, who had him neutered at six months and used him to haul freight for short runs and help pull railcars with miners over a disused railroad track. Gunnar Kaasen, another native Norwegian and a close family friend of Seppala, with 21 years of dog sledding experience who worked for the breeder, came to know Balto and believed Seppala had misjudged the dog because of his short stature.

Early in 1925, doctors realized a deadly diphtheria epidemic could affect the  people of Nome, Alaska, and putting the city under quarantine, transmitted with Morse code that the town desperately needed more serum, whose supply was almost depleted. Mushers were summoned to relay the precious cargo. Radio, a recent invention, picked up the story, as well as newspapers, and followed the more than 20 mushers as they took turns through storms and strong winds. Kaasen was appointed to drive a team of Seppala’s dogs, and although Seppala wanted a dog named Fox to lead the team, Kaasen picked Balto. They left the town of Bluff with the antitoxin at 10 p.m.

Shortly after they started, a blizzard caused them to become confused and lost. Kaasen yelled, “Go home, Balto,” and the dog, used to hauling heavy loads, navigated his team through the wild winds. At one point, Balto unexpectedly stopped before some ice on the Topkok River that broke in front of him, thereby saving Kaasen’s life and that of the entire team, according to the musher. The package was delivered in time, and the residents were saved.

There is more to the story. Especially as money entered the picture, lies and deception, jealousy and hatred all became part of the human saga. But Balto will always remain my 100-year-old dog. 

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Pixabay photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

The bright yellow forsythias and the pink azaleas, along with the dramatic magnolias and the delicate cherry blossoms contradict the miserable March weather we have been enduring. 

But, you can’t fool Nature with adverse temperatures. She has her own calendar. Further proof of the season may be taken from the runny noses and watery eyes of the allergy sufferers, and the appearance of the tiny ants around the kitchen sink. And if you are among the lucky ones, you know what that means: call the sprinkler guys and the pool crew to get on their schedules, check who will be available to mow the lawn this year, and have the air conditioners tuned up and filters changed.

Yup. It’s spring.

If you have a boat, even a small one, it’s time to remove the shrink wrap, polish the teak and the hardware, check the engine, and if it is a sailboat, carefully look over the sails and count the life jackets. Maybe there is a new person who has joined the family.

If you have a garden, this is planting and seeding time. Get out the mulch and start spreading. Straighten the hose lines. Perennials are up, annuals are going in. Take a good look around the neighborhood. There seems to be a riot of daffodils throughout the yards and villages this year. And the fruit trees are bursting with color. Maybe it’s the contrast with the grey and the rain that’s been surrounding us.

There are chores we no longer need to do. I don’t know how many of you remember, but we used to have the snow tires removed and the regular tires put back in their place. We would ask that the winter oil in the car be emptied and replaced with the summer oil at the gas station. We still need to give the car a thorough cleaning, however, and put the snow brush back into the trunk. The shovels and walkway salt go into the garage and, if we have one, the snow blower is returned to the far corner.

Inside the house, we need to put the heavy winter coats in the back of the closet, take off the long underwear if we wear that armor against the cold, put away the turtlenecks and shake out our lighter shirts, blouses and pants to prepare them for the warmer temperatures. Might as well look at the bathing suits, too. Maybe we need a new one this year.

Those who go on trips in the summer may well be studying locations and fares around this time, if they haven’t already. I’m not part of that exodus, however. Where can you go to enjoy the season better than right here on the shores of Long Island? Others agree. They are my warm weather relatives and friends, and I welcome their company. We should start to get the guest room ready.

Amid all that activity and bustle, we must be sure to stop every now and then to enjoy the birdsong coming from the many bushes. And if we look hard enough, we can see birds’ nests in the branches of the trees and under the edges of porch roofs.

On a final note, spring is also the time when the world’s major holidays are observed: Ramadan, Passover and Easter.  The holidays all include prayers for peace. Would that we could all celebrate the holidays concurrently in a world filled with only peace: no more warfare, no more hatred, no more violence.

Since we are all people praying for the same blessing, why has it been so impossible to achieve? Will it ever happen? May we someday truly turn our swords into plowshares?

Enjoy the marvel of the new season in peace.

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The cover of the first issue of The Village Times in 1976 by Pat Windrow

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

Two happy milestones have marked this week. My oldest grandson turned 30, which we celebrated in style, and The Village Times, the flagship of Times Beacon Record News Media, was started exactly 49 years ago.

First the details of the birthday bash.

It happened Sunday afternoon at the ballpark, Citi Field, the home of the Mets, or what we Old Timers used to call Shea Stadium. Now if you knew my grandson at all, you would know he is a fierce and utterly loyal fan of the Mets since his earliest years. You could gather from that bit of information, that he is mighty stubborn about his loyalties. After all, there have been many incentives to switch support to other, more winning teams, right? And who could blame him? But that is not his style. His loyalty is boundless. And of course, the Mets have gradually rewarded him for his patience.

Thus, it was no surprise that he wanted to share his special day with the Mets, and in his honor, they won the game. But I get ahead of myself.

It’s worth relating how beautiful Citi Field is, especially so for me, a die hard Yankee fan who spent many afternoons during my teens in concrete-riven Yankee Stadium. 

Now admittedly, we did have a luxurious situation. The cost of a box at the park was shared. We entered from a designated parking lot, after waiting on a short line, and were guided  past giant pictures of Met greats like Jerry Koosman and Tom Seaver, to a manned elevator that took us swiftly to the fourth floor.

We stepped out into a spacious hallway of patterned marble floors, paneled walls, high ceilings with recessed lighting and multiple wooden doors that led to individual suites. Overstuffed armchairs lined the walls. And you should see the bathrooms.

Staff greeted us all along the way and led us to our room, where more overstuffed seating, fruit and salad awaited us. At the far end was a sliding glass door leading out to cushioned balcony seats that accommodated most of the 18 of us as we watched the game. 

Happily both suite and balcony had heaters, although the weather, while chilly, behaved nicely. The early morning rain had stopped. More ballpark food arrived throughout the afternoon, but it was hard to tear ourselves away from the balcony as the Mets won what turned out to be a pitchers’ duel, 2-1. I can hardly wait to see how we will celebrate his 40th.

As for our newspaper anniversary this past Tuesday, it came and went quietly as we enter our 50th year. We were busy putting out this week’s papers. But we will certainly whoop it up at various community events throughout the year until we reach half a century.

It’s easy to fall back on the well-used cliche, “time flies,” but it is astonishing to me and to those who were involved in the start-up, like our general manager, that we have reached almost five decades of publishing hometown news. So much has happened, so much has changed, but not the mission of the newspaper. 

Our goals have always been steadfast. We strive each week to bring vetted news, information and even some fun to our readers, originally with newsprint, and now with the additional platforms of the 24/7 website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and the weekly podcast, The Pressroom Afterhour,  which is also on Spotify. 

We promise our staffers that, if and when they leave, it will be with more skills than when they arrived because we invest in our people. And the third and last part of our mission is to support and give back to our readers and advertisers in whatever ways we can, starting with working to create a sense of community.

Frankly, we consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have survived almost 50 years, as we see hometown papers fall around us. Last week, while I was attending the New York Press Association Convention in Saratoga Springs, two more papers closed down, leaving their neighborhoods unprotected.

We continue because you support us. Thank you.

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METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

While a little bit of stress in one’s life can be a good thing, enabling high performance, for the most part, stress is a negative I try to reduce for myself as I get older. It took me many years before I even realized what stress was. It didn’t occur to me to think I was stressed the night before a big test or having to give a talk at the front of the class in junior high school. I just knew I first had to spend a long time in the bathroom. 

No one I knew then, teachers, students, or my parents, even used the word “stress.” Today it is frequently discussed, along with how to manage it. Schools of techniques have been developed concerning stress management, such as meditation, deep breathing, and yoga.

What exactly is stress?

Stress is defined by the World Health Organization as “a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation. Stress is a natural human response that prompts us to address challenges and threats in our lives. Everyone experiences stress to some degree. The way we respond to stress, however, makes a big difference to our overall well being.”

Here is what I have found to be stressors in my life and what I have done to mitigate them.

One of the most obvious and perhaps the simplest to reduce is time pressure. Being late in my early years—for an appointment or with a delivery of a product or service —might have set me up, I am sure, for a possible ulcer later in life. While sometimes being late cannot be helped, we are lucky enough to live in an age where we can reach out and tell the person who is waiting for us that we are running behind, and when they can expect to see us. That takes away a great deal of stress. Three cheers for cell phones.

I used to be chronically late until I realized what a disservice that was for the person I was meeting, and also to myself, by adding so much pressure to what should be a matter of fact occurrence. Now, I take pleasure in being early, creating a situation in which I can settle in comfortably, study the menu if it is a restaurant, or get rid of some of my emails while I wait. 

Also, I hate to disappoint. As a result, I have learned not to promise or commit until I am absolutely sure I can deliver on my word. And if there is a delay in getting a job done, the sooner I tell the recipient of difficulties, the easier it is to deal positively with expectations.

That goes for declarations. For example, if I insist I will never do such-and-such, and then I wind up having to break my word, it pains everyone. Better just to do without, again, setting up false expectations. 

Then there are the situations where, if I cannot change what is happening, I can change the way I think about the event. 

Example: having a driver abruptly cut me off as I m driving. That could be a stressful moment, but I prefer to consider that the driver might be in some dire need to get somewhere. 

Or, if someone begins to yell at me for some perceived slight, or something we have written in the newspaper, I have to think that person might be having problems at home or some health issue. Which is not to say, I don’t sweep my conscience to determine if I am to blame. Sometimes I am at fault, although I would like to think of myself as Mary Poppins, “practically perfect in every way.” 

Kidding! 

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METRO photo

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

Getting enough sleep is one of the tenets of staying healthy and aging well. But what to do when you get into bed and can’t fall asleep? The Science Times section of The New York Times this past Tuesday offered an interesting solution from Emergency Physician, Joe Whittington.

“Now I Lay Me Down to Play,” written by Christina Caron, explains the doctor’s technique. It’s called cognitive shuffling, and it is designed to calm a busy brain sufficiently to allow sleep. While he had tried deep breathing, meditation and melatonin, to no avail, the following strategy works for him. Incidentally, he has 750,000 followers on Instagram.

“Cognitive shuffling,” according to the Times, “is a mental exercise that involves focusing your mind on words that have no association with one another, as a way of signaling to your brain that it’s time to fall asleep. The task is meant to be engaging enough to distract you from the thoughts that may be impeding sleep, but not so interesting that your brain perks up.” 

So how do you do cognitive shuffling?

Take a random word, any word, like “adobe.” Then think of all the words that you can, beginning with that same first letter, like apple, arrow, across, attire. Visualize each word, then move on to the next. When you no longer can think of any more words beginning with “a” go on to the next letter, “d” and do the same thing: dog, depart, done, dope, detritus, and so forth. Again, visualize each word before moving on.

Luc P. Beaudoin, a cognitive scientist at Simon Fraser University in Canada, developed the cognitive shuffling strategy, and he suggests that as people drift off to sleep their minds have distant thoughts or vivid images. This technique is intended to mimic that process.

“These images don’t create a clear story line and may help your brain to disengage from problem solving or worry loops,” said Dr. Beaudoin, who conducted a study in 2016 using various sleep inducing techniques. He himself suffered from insomnia. The study was then discussed at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies conference in Denver, written up in Forbes magazine, then circulated widely online.

It can’t hurt to try cognitive shuffling.

I can tell you what I do to fall asleep. First, with full disclosure, I confess not to often having a problem falling asleep. In fact, I’m like a teapot. Just tip me over and pour me out. Usually, all I need is to get horizontal on a mattress and doze off. However, lately I have been waking up around 4 a.m., feeling rested and not able to resume sleeping. But I know if I get up and start my day at that hour, I will pay for the remaining lack of sleep in the late afternoon. I’m an 8 1/2 hour a night sleeper. So here’s what I do after 20 minutes of tossing and turning. 

I get out of bed, put on a lamp that offers dim light and read until my eyes get tired. I am selective in my reading choice: not a page turner. Then I shut off the light, get back into bed and usually fall right back to sleep.

It’s not a researched and tested technique but for me, it works. I enjoy sleeping and require the restorative effects in order to enjoy my waking hours. Hope these strategies work for you.

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