One of my favorites is a
rebroadcast from last year. It talks about the traits that we gather from sewing that are enormously effective self-faith boosts and magnificent brain exercises to promote great brain health. Gee, having fun creating while exercising my brain to have long brain health sounds like a winner to me.
Enjoy!
For almost 50 years, I've adored miniature schnauzers. Their feisty, peppy nature just suits me perfectly. Being a terrier, if I hear a bump in the night and the dog is silent, it's just another noise, and I'll figure out what it was
tomorrow.
This is Bruno, aka the Brunolator (especially when brave mailmen, Amazon drivers, and FedEx delivery people dare to step on the front steps of Bruno's home!) But for me, he has that darling little smile.
With all of my little schnauzers,
I have trained them one way. I call it the bribery for good behavior method, which is harder on the owner than the dog. I rarely say NO to the dog in training, except in case of him running out to tackle a huge beast of a dog. Most of the time, it's "Good Dog." What makes it so special is that while it appears Bruno is doing nothing while we pass a particularly disagreeable dog, he's actually doing something...he's not escalating nor responding to the bad
behavior of the other dog, so therefore, I gently say to him over and over, "Goooooood doooooog!" And after we've passed the unruly dog, I stop and pet him. This tells Bruno that not escalating around a nasty dog will get him many kudos.
This has gotten so evident that when he was a puppy, and I would put on my socks and shoes to take him for a walk, he would inevitably reach up to grab the sock (what is about puppies and socks anyway?), then would
stand on my shoe while I was trying to slip into it. To stop this, I would stop and become motionless, stare at him, and calmly wait for Bruno to settle down. The minute he pulled back, I was effusive with the "goooooood dooooog" and returned to putting on my sock. When he stayed in place and didn't jump around, it was all "good dog." If he started with the sock again, I would stop, and he would settle down, then "good dog." Every time he did something right or good, he
got kudos - even if it was nothing...it was the nothing I was praising. When he did something wrong, there was no action.
To make this more effective and harder on us, we were only allowed to talk with him and have fun with him for about 20 minutes a day. Don't worry—this didn't last long—only 30 days—but it made the dramatic point that silence was something wrong. Pet the dog, and he knows he's doing
well!
This is not the face of a bad dog! 😁
Like my dog, I respond to kudos when I do good, and when I do bad silence is actually worse than a tongue-lashing - I could at least respond to a tongue-lashing! The very same thing can happen with our daily tasks. I derive so much joy out of doing my well-done work, that simply hanging up a latest accomplishment becomes a major high for me.
This gets into something very curious that psychologists are finding out about the
brain. That tasks (obviously we're talking about tasks well-done) can bring about a major reward trigger in the brain and therefore in the body. The brain releases the "feel-good" chemical that can run throughout the body.
But there's something else going on here too. While the brain is releasing that "feel good" chemical, just like my dog, our system (brain and body) search for feeling-good task, which takes the place of any feeling-bad task.
That gets a little complicated so let me put that in more simple terms. The psychologists are saying that this "feel-good" feeling becomes more addictive than an artificial "feel-good" feeling (like addictive substances), and it even supersedes the chemical reaction of doing a task poorly or failing at a task.
Yes, you read that right - psychologists say that our system is so set up for the kudos for doing good tasks, that when we do something poorly or fail, that
our brains tend to overlook that and go back to the garment hanging up that is a successful task.
So here's how this plays out: You're making a top pattern and playing around with your core pattern. Suddenly you come up on a photo and you like the way the collar folds or the way the color blocking is done or the way it closes a little differently than normal. You work out the problems with it and make it up and it comes out great, fits like a
dream and is flattering on your figure (cause you made it from your core pattern). You hang it up and look at it for a couple of days, and then wear it and get great complements on it, and enjoy the success of your venture into designing for yourself every time you wear it.
So you think, OK, I'll do that again, but you use a bad collar (not poorly executed but bad design), and something's not right, and you can't figure out what it is. You get out the
magnificent piece and the so-so piece and still working through what went wrong. The next day your out in your magnificent piece and enjoying it so much, that you think, gee I should be able to fix that other piece that isn't all that grand. You work through some problems and come up with a solution - or maybe you take the collar off and put a simple band on the collar. Suddenly it works. You've fixed it.
So what has happened
here? You've created the nifty top first, and love it and are subconsciously saying, "good dressmaker" or "good sewist" to yourself, which is releasing those magic chemicals into your brain and body. You make the second piece, not so good, but you go out in your first piece and feel like a million bucks and love what you're wearing. The kudos (aka chemicals) are running amok again, and you forget anything about how bad the 2nd piece was, and decide to fix
it. And you fix it because your still high on the 1st piece chemicals. Then you fix the 2nd piece and it's good and really great to wear, and becomes a standard piece. It's something that you will probably get the "chemicals" on when you're wearing for the 5th year!
What psychologists are finding is that those feel-good chemicals are encouraging perseverance. More brain chemistry!
Perseverance
So that brings us to a whole new field of understanding about human nature. What historians, psychologists and old souls have known since the beginning of time is that the person who perseveres is the one who succeeds. These aren't the smartest people. These aren't the quickest people. These aren't the fastest people. These aren't the prettiest
people. These aren't the richest people. These are the people who get up and try again. They are the people that persevere. They are the folks who try and try again.
And before you pshaw this right into the trash can, remember the Battle of Gallopoli?
Well, you have if you know that it was one of the most colossal military failures, with an enormous loss of life and resources. And it was led by Winston Churchill. Yeah, the same guy who saved Western Civilization by not surrendering to Hitler after the sweep through France. How can this be? How can the same guy who was in charge of the most costly failure in British military history be the same guy who saved Western Civilization? Because he had
perseverance.
Think about it. If you keep trying and trying, and meet with at least mediocre success if not outright failure, then your chance of success is much higher.
The challenge in sewing is to make the garment as comfortable, attractive and flattering as possible. That's an enormous task. For one thing you're balancing which one of those (comfort, attractiveness and flattery) is the most important, and which one you
will sacrifice for the other. This takes time, practice and effort to accomplish and it's a fantastic goal when accomplished. The perseverance that you show in accomplishing these goals, can not be discounted or overlooked. And even if you do somewhat overlook it, when you wear the garment that demonstrates the accomplishment of these goals, you know it. You fell good in it and you look good and it's flattering. There's just a little lighter step when this happens -
it's almost like thumbing your nose at the biological clock and saying, "See there, I'm timeless - I'm ageless and I'm not beholding to you the clock!" It's a little folly, but can not say that you don't feel more special in those successful garments.
Problem Solving
The final part of this "chemical and physiological response of the brain" is problem solving. And although problem
solving seems like a practical skill that has nothing to do with brain chemistry, the reverse is actually true:
What this shows is that the problem-solving (like the crossword puzzles on a grander scale), help you not only stay smarter, but a longer and more active life when you're problem-solving on a regular basis. From this article:
Your daily crossword puzzle is doing a lot more for you than helping you killing time on your work commute. It’s actually making you smarter into your golden years. Here are more ways to make the most of your commute.
A large-scale online
trial carried out by experts at the University of Exeter Medical School and Kings College London found that people who engaged with word puzzles such as crosswords regularly had better brain function later in life. The findings were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) 2017 in London.
So what's going on here?
Perseverance Positive Reinforcement Problem Solving
are causing brain chemical reactions in your body that are actually causing you to live longer, healthier and way feistier than your piers. Yeah, we're all going to be under the spell of genetics and our
environment, but even counting those two, the chemistry that's going on in your brain from sewing and the perseverance, positive reinforcement and problem-solving that occurs is making you smarter and more courageous than you ever thought.
Wow! What a combo - creativity release, doing what you love, and making your brain smarter at an older age. Sign me up!
The SewingArtistry Resource Library is designed to contain information to not only make your sewing better, but to aid in you fitting and flattering your shape, size and style. Check it out.
Look for future classes coming in 2024 The Core Pattern Shirt, (one of my favorites for woven core pattern that you can make into a myriad of different
garments), Basic Knit Top (core pattern class for knit basic tops, shells, tees, dresses, and tunics)
