The Joy of Anxiety (?)

There is little pleasure and no joy in living in that heightened state of fearful apprehension known as anxiety. Yet we know that the imagination, spurred by fears of what might happens, can thrive on anxiety, which T. S. Eliot called the handmaiden of creativity.

This is the basis for an odd little essay by Katie Roiphe, "The Joy of Stress," which tends to equate stress with anxiety and which shows little inside understanding of the subject. No surprise: the author, with a Ph.D. in English, has a reputation as noted feminist and like many younger academics today, seems to have avoided conventional literary scholarship for cultural studies and journalism.

As such she can pontificate about anxiety as if she knows something about it.  Roiphe seems to associate anxiety with the high generated by an extra shot of caffeine.  Her suggestions:  calmness is not as attractive (exciting) as anxiety, which gives a crisp focus to our days. The result is a kind of perversely pleasurable sensation. In fact, "if you are safe and secure, you are bored. If you feel comfortable, you lack desire."

She intends to raise provocative questions but ends up making empty statements, even for a journalist tackling a topic in the social sciences that it too much for her.  For example, "some. . .widespread anxiety may be clinical. But much of it is surely a cast of mind, an atmosphere, a style."

Oh? It's something we can adopt or drop at will?  And if we want to live on the edge and be creative, we might consider maintaining the vitality of anxiety?

Perhaps there are times when people thrive on being anxious and enjoy the rush, but, for me, there is little joy in living on a high wire.

Music is Useless??

I found on the Internet a statement by the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker that astounded me: music "as far as biological cause and effect are concerned is useless."  I don't know the context of his argument, but I suspect many experts will sharply disagree.

Everything in my experience and reading shows that, as Shakespeare said, "music hath charms to soothe the savage breast" (or beast; we' not sure).

Just yesterday, feeling wound up, I listened to K.D. Lang and Tony Bennett in a wonderful duet of the old pop song, "Because of You."  It is done with the slowness of a classical adagio (think Barber, Mahler, Beethoven...) or the piano nocturnes of Chopin or Satie.  The effect was, of course, calming.
I have no doubt that a loud march or bit of heavy metal would have the opposite effect if I wanted to increase my productivity.

I did a quick check on Google to see if I was going crazy or if Pinker could be right. An article in the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing concludes that music therapy reduces pain and anxiety in patients recovering from heart surgery.  A non-scholarly article listed a whole list of physiological benefits of music, from decreasing blood pressure, improving sleep, reducing headaches, helping memory and brain functions, boosting immunity, etc.

The psychological effects of music, like those of meditation and prayer, have been shown to increase inner peace, reduce stress, anxiety and depression, among others. What type of music is involved in such studies?

Not only Mozart but many other forms of music, including chant.  It seems to me the slower and softer the better because relaxation as well as meditation involves reducing the fast pace of daily life. The Slow Movement that began with food in Italy now includes many other aspect of practical wisdom, based on the fact that the fundamental human restlessness and the speed of our lives causes stress that harms body and mind.

As I write this, I have a quiet string quartet by Mozart playing. A day without music would be a day without light or air; all are essential for life in our anxious age. I cannot argue on a scientific basis with Pinker's quoted statement, but I know that my experience with music "soothing the savage breast" is universal.