This happened maybe 20 years ago. Estonia was still much cheaper a very popular destination among the British stag-party goers. British bachelors-to-tie-the-knot-soon and their chums were a real nuisance – they were extremely loud, oftentimes rude and condescending towards local women. After an especially unpleasant encounter at a hotel lobby, I wrote a letter to the Editor of The Guardian. I never got to know if this letter got published but for a while, The Guardian kept me in their expats mailing list. At first, I thought that this was quite funny. And then I simply treated this as a compliment. After all, a renowned British newspaper had passed me for a native speaker.
Photo by Sirle Sööt
Venturing into new territory in writing
I turned 50 in August 2024 and decided that it was time to do something with my ever-growing collection of poems. It just keeps mushrooming, and I have been very timid about it until now. Unlike articles, interviews and opinion articles that I have written during many years, and which have been published both in English and Estonian, poetry is very intimate. It is like walking naked down a crowded street with all faces turned in my direction. Or so I thought and was afraid of the limelight. Fortunately nowadays publishing has become so much easier and more egalitarian. And perhaps I have matured: after several second opinions and encouraging words from my friends, acquaintances and more importantly writers, who are native speakers of English, and write poetry, I felt that it was not that scary anymore to share my inner world with other people. And in a language that came to me when I was a teenager, not when I was born.
Writing poems is part of my daily life
I am an avid consumer of poetry in multiple languages. Yet, strangely enough, since studying English at the Tallinn University and at the University College of London, I have mainly been writing poems in English and have done this for over 30 years. It is as if suddenly a magic switch is turned on in my head. This can happen any time: when I wake up in the morning and see the sun peering through the blinds, or when I commute to the office, or after an interesting encounter with someone, or after a visit to an exhibition, or after reading a good book or while watching a small fluttering leaf spiral down from an aspen on my way to a training class.
Poetry is about integrity but never objective
I wrote on the back cover of my book: “Poems are like paintings but instead of a paintbrush, they are drawn by words. And the impressions and emotions that they create depend on the reader as much as they depend on the author.” Poetry is not an objective phenomenon like science and facts and should not be treated like one. And yet, through the subjectivity of selected rhymes and words that interact with each other and give birth to new meanings, paradoxically, there appears more clarity and, if we are lucky, also more objectivity. Or truthfulness.
I would also like to mention one more thing about my relationship with writing. In my opinion, one cannot fake poems. What matters is whether the intentions of the author are sincere. If the writing lacks integrity, it will lack one important ingredient, and thus the result of the creation process (a poem) is less appealing, less wholesome. Integrity is like the invisible glue that binds the words and compositions together.
Diana Yanson – a multitalented artist who illustrated and designed the book
This book would have never been published without my multitalented friend, Diana Yanson. I am deeply grateful for all her support and help. Diana’s works illustrating the book are minimalistic one-line drawings – simple but complex, sensual, emotional and with an unimaginable depth. They go soul-deep, manifest lightness and ease, and show how vulnerable and fragile we are.
I would like to stress that this is a very feminine book. And when I say feminine, I do not mean the clichés and patriarchal interpretations of what being a woman should look and feel like. We are not talking about eternally smiling half-naked sexy housemaids with big tits and swollen lips. This is a book by two mature women celebrating femininity. Nothing more. Nothing less.
What am I writing about? Mainly and selfishly about myself and my observations of life. I am both inspired and tormented by our contradictory human nature. And yet, I am an eternal optimist hidden in the shadow of a pessimist:
Good things come when you slow down There will be fewer questions – answers come before There will be less craving and yearning for something more Just good things in the now They only happen when you slow down
Content is more important than formbut they both matter
I want my meanings to be coherent, my prose to be effortless instead of climbing up a steep hill, I want my words to flow easily, my sentences to make sense, not to test the limits of comprehension with incongruent structures and expressions that sound sophisticated on the outside but when you really pause to think what the hell they are supposed to mean, they render more form than content, although they can be very provocative or sound really beautiful at times.
An incomplete list of people who I am immensely grateful for:
I would like to thank you all who have in one or another way, either directly or indirectly, made this book possible:
Olari, my dear husband and life partner, for putting up with my antics
Erik and Henri, our dear boys, who have told me that they got the “writing gene” from me (obviously)
Karita, my dear friend who is always there when I need you
Kevin Frato, American author living in Sweden, for widening my horizons in creative writing
Nancy Coolidge for taking the time to read my poems and giving encouraging feedback
Jack Barnard, poet and writer living in LA who said a few years ago that “over the years of your writing, what I was most impressed with was the development of your consciousness”
Doris Kareva, Estonian poet and writer who said that my book was a good example of creative writing in a foreign language and that she had never encountered such consistency in clarifying when or why the author had written the respective poem (she meant that there is a short sentence under each poem explaining how it came about)
Toomas Tuulse, my friend, composer and poet who has enthused me, allowed me to translate his poems from Swedish to Estonian, and been kind and supportive in every possible way
All my friends and acquaintances who have been my fellow-travellers and inspired me in one or another way on this journey called life
Thank you – I am nothing without you!
When gods play dice Everything is at their mercy A leaf is just a leaf Feels cosy when nestled among its brothers and sisters But when autumn comes When the smell of post-blossoming hangover lingers in the nostrils and a bitter taste of decay vexes the tastebuds, Anything can happen.
I was inspired by a colleague, a really nice and humble guy the other day. We had a deep conversation and he got me thinking about deeper layers in life. I am not a philosopher, sometimes this kind of thoughts occur after a yoga class or a meditation… or after an inspiring discussion with someone who has so much interesting to say…
In every era and every part of the world there are people who adjust well to given circumstances: they find a way to play along with any regime, regardless of its moral compass, they collaborate with the ones in power or take power, their principle is to survive and make the best of the time and place they happen to be in. Such people were also prevalent in all occupied territories of the Soviet Union – there were many local collaborators who turned into living tools used by the communist party because the benefits outweighed the risks. Just threaten one’s existence and most of us stop resisting, lay down our arms and turn a blind eye on oppression and mobbing. Especially when this is a gradual piece-by-piece process offered with a high dose of propaganda, brainwash and psychological terror. Like a slowly cooked frog which does not even notice being boiled.
Living in autocratic societies is harsh for the ones who want to retain personal integrity and oppose the main theme. Unless those smart and bold individuals learn to cooperate with the likeminded and organise themselves into a united front, the chances that this oppressive bubble that they are forced to live in will burst, are slim. Although, the likelihood does exist, even in Putin-led Russia.
Evolution has shaped us into adaptable beings. We often marvel this skill but quoting Shakespeare in the famous Hamlet monologue “aye, there’s the rub”: with such beneficial evolutional trait we can easily transform into members of a dysfunctional society where there is no rule of law, no regard of individual rights and freedoms, the purpose to exist is to grab, consume, concentrate more power into the hands of a few or just survive. When nonchalance towards humanistic values is displayed openly by the ruling minority, most people simply follow the lead. They adapt. Like in the Soviet Union before it collapsed, like in China, Cuba, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, Iran as we speak. And the list of despotic countries where lives do not matter as much as ideologies, goes on and on and unfortunately it seems to grow longer, not shorter. Dictatorships are invariably led by men. Women are in the backseat, willingly or unwillingly, depending on how long they have been subjected to male dominance and brainwash. And as a rule, culture eats democracy and diversity for breakfast.
It is striking that the majority, living in a country where only a few profit and control the rest, allow the cannibalisation of their lives and let a small group of hypocrites deliver hollow promises about the heydays that will never come. And invariably the ones in power manipulate with a narrative about common enemies that will bring death or decadence (like evil aliens in science fiction stories willing to destroy Earth, this arguably being their ultimate purpose so “we must attack and kill them first”). The behaviour of those power-hungry people is similar everywhere – they are excellent liars and manipulators: they often resort to the means and aims similar to religious fanatism and apply those ideological techniques equally well both in sectarian and secular context. Again, recalling the ills of the Soviet Union where I was born and raised – communism was treated like a religion, a monotheism with one God, the supreme head of the Communist Party, and worshiping this holy being is still the case in all the communist countries which are not yet extinct. Kim Jong-un, Xi Jinping, etc, etc.
Why is it possible to control and lure masses so easily and deploy them for purposes which do not benefit them?
I tend to agree with thinkers who proclaim that even though humankind has made huge technological progress, our spiritual progress has not advanced with a similar speed (or not at all) since we became homo sapiens. When some exceptional people have reached a higher level of enlightenment in the past, they have encouraged their fellow beings to THINK, to THINK more, not less. Naturally, they have a wider array of messages and often, such people get misunderstood and misinterpreted, become martyrs, get executed, and/or are turned into legends and feed human imagination for many generations to come. Regardless of the era, it always seems to be difficult for a barbarian to understand that one does not need to beat up, murder or assault another person in order to be respected.
Another negative effect of being too flexible is that we end up preoccupied with trivia, easily side-tracked, easily distracted (social media, fake news, rumour mills) at times when we should dig deeper, ask why-oh-why-oh-why and look in the mirror. We are often so scared of answers that we sell our souls willingly to the Devil in order not to know. Diving spiritually, not physically into unknown waters seems to freak many people, including myself, out so we prefer the easy, adaptive way.
Judging by what are measured as the signs of progress in our societies across the world, we seem to be extremely preoccupied with numbers: GDP growth, consumer sentiment, manufacturing, stock market indexes, material wellbeing, interest rates, currencies, prices. Less about corruption and very little about spiritual maturity, the condition and strength of our minds. We seem to disproportionally prioritize material wellbeing compared to tracking our spiritual progress. And yet we know that feelings such as love, happiness, empathy cannot be bought for money. How do we measure whether someone is an idiot, a genius or just simple-minded? How to we assess the level of wickedness or the impact of misdeeds? Regardless of what the Catholic church claimed, it has never been possible to be pardoned for one’s sins by buying an indulgence. And we sin oh so willingly.
Mark Carney who has served as the Governor of Bank of Canada and Bank of England said a few years ago that we are not able to measure the value of Amazon rainforest and put a price tag on it, but we can measure the company called Amazon. Maybe the world would be more sustainable if we could do both. Or if we would stop adding up numbers which do not add up.
Yes, we adapt so well and become particles of dust in a universe where we could have made a positive difference. But no life can be repeated – what was wasted, was wasted without a second chance.
Quoting Desmond Morris, an author of an intriguing book “The Naked Ape” which encourages human beings to come to terms with their biological origin: “/../ we are, despite all our great technological advances, still very much a simple biological phenomenon.”
And history does repeat itself, we have been here before – at the crossroads where humankind had the opportunity to start moving in the right direction. Yet initially we have always chosen the simpler but wrong way. We keep rediscovering with a surprise and a shock that adaptation is like a double-edged sword – it cuts both ways. And at times like this it seems that the blessing of being adaptive is outweighed with its curse. I hope that I am wrong…
Well balanced feet support us with stabilizing both the body and the mind. Rigid feet which lack tone and elasticity require a bigger effort to keep physical and mental balance. With this blogpost I would like to explore the importance of this distal region of the body, our feet.
Are you consciously aware of how you stand or walk? Do you pay attention to how you engage your toes, the balls of your feet and heels when you shift weight from one foot to the other and move? For many people walking is like breathing – an autonomous activity, it just happens, they never spend a thought on it. Unlike me. At least not after I turned 20 something and had to pay my first visit to an orthopaedic physician after several months of knee pain. The doctor glanced at my bare feet and then asked me to show him my shoes which I had left outside his room. When I stood in front of him again holding my impressive 10cm heeled boots, his message was short and simple: “You can throw these shoes away when you get home. Or even better, go and buy new ones immediately,” he added. “Why?” I protested, painfully aware of my modest personal financial situation and unwanted new expenses. “You have flat feet and maximum heel length of the shoes that your feet can handle without pain and discomfort is up to 5 centimetres. Everything higher will just make it worse,” he added. (For hypermobility and its effects, including lax connective tissue in feet, read my other blogpost on this topic)
Fast forward 25+ years and yes, high heeled shoes have not been my regular footwear since then. I buy only anatomically comfortable shoes which have good cushioning and low heels. And in addition to ordinary training – yoga, running, dancing, gym and what not, I have spent countless hours on special exercises for my feet to make sure that the arches would not collapse. And mind you, I do not have flat feet anymore. This requires daily routines for toe raises, extensions and curls in various ways, ankle rotations, balancing on one foot, picking up objects from the ground with toes, stretching Archilles tendon, walking on tiptoe, using elastic bands and balls in different sizes and with or without spikes to strengthen my feet and keep them toned.
As soon as I get lazy, my feet will tell me: “Kairi, you have been slacking again. If you do not get your act together in a couple of days, your knees will start hurting. You will start putting your body weight mainly on your heels. And when you do not distribute your body weight evenly over the entire sole of the foot, we (my feet) will start overpronating. And when you do not exercise your arches properly, the pronation will only get worse. And then this will aggravate the inward rotation of your legs as the main leg bone tibia will turn inward. After this, your knees will also rotate inward, your pelvis will tilt more forward which compromises your overall balance and increases the effort you need for postural control. After a while you will discover that you need to use more muscle power to keep yourself upright and stand with ease. Are you really sure that you want to scrap your daily exercise routine?”
About a quarter of all your bones in the body reside in feet (the other quarter is in hands). In addition to 26 bones, each foot, including the ankle, has 33 joints, 30 something muscles and over 100 ligaments. In comparison, the hip joint has only 3 bones and 4 main ligaments although it is much bigger in size and serves a somewhat different function. Our feet are a complicated orchestra – you are the conductor over one hundred musicians and they all need to play at your command and preferably the same tune. The conductor needs to know how capable the orchestra is (the condition of the feet) and ensure that the musicians get to rehearse regularly (exercise). This orchestra needs constant stimulation (walking barefoot, movement). Otherwise, it will not be able to perform the most intricate symphonies as some musicians get out of practice.
Yes, feet are amazing. Intricate, delicate structures, and yet extremely strong, able to carry much heavier stuff than just one’s body mass. During an active day while roaming in the nature or in a city, not just sitting in the (home) office, our feet will take an accumulative force of a couple of hundred tons. When we walk, each foot will take on average 1.5 times our body weight and up to 5 times while running. The heavier the body, the more wear and tear this means for one’s joints.
One simple way to know more about one’s feet is to try to stand. Close your eyes and become aware of the feet. Pay attention to which part of each foot takes most of the body weight – is it front or back or in the middle? Is it outer edge or inner edge of the feet? Sometimes just one look at old stockings or your favourite well-worn shoes can give a good insight into how feet are used. People with flat feet (ie low or non-existent arches) usually wear down the heels of their socks – after a while the heel will look like a thin spider web. And the more unaligned and out-of-shape feet are, the more difficult it is for them to absorb shock.
Excessive pronation or supination in feet manifests in shoes where the heel part is more worn down from the inner (pronation) or outer edge (supination) of the heel. This happens due to the arch of the foot collapsing extensively during running or walking when the foot hits the ground and if there is a tendency for overpronation (ie putting more weight on the inner edge of feet). For the ones who have very little movement in the arch, this may lead to supination (ie using outer edges of the feet to take the weight and absorb shock).
This is how pronation and supination change the balance and force distribution in the body – it is not just the matter of feet – everything is affected
I have noticed that quite many people use their toes as a stress ball. Without being aware of this, they subconsciously cramp all five toes together when they are overstimulated physically or mentally. Have you seen how some people press their lips together when they lift weights in a gym or do last push-ups of a series, the body already struggling with excess lactic acid, the face red from the effort and lack of oxygen, the muscles screaming “stop, stop, STOP!”? Quite many of those heavy-duty exercisers are not aware that at the same time as their face turns into a wrinkled red grape, their toes kind of do the same. It takes a lot of coaxing to bring back space between the toes once it has disappeared. Yet, this space is very much needed – being able to stand with the toes spread out gives more stability and a better balance as there is a bigger area to stand and balance on.
Feet are the foundation of the body and when this foundation starts to crumble, cracks also start appearing elsewhere. Sometimes it even hard to detect problems back to one’s feet as they manifest in another region in the body. In yoga there is a pose called Tadasana, Mountain Pose which essentially means active standing with engaged feet, somewhat flattened spinal curves (by engaging the core muscles) with arms relaxed beside the torso, palms facing inward, shoulders rounded back and a slight engagement of stomach muscles (which supports flattening the spinal curves, especially in the lumbar spine). The body weight should be distributed evenly across the foot and before standing still, one is encouraged to sway side to side and forward and back on the feet and lift the heels and toes to become aware of one’s balance centre and how the feet are engaged. Mountain Pose is best done with feet hip distance apart, not big toes touching as the first option is anatomically much more comfortable and natural for the body, especially for women whose hips are bigger (proportionally and in relation to their own body) than men’s. Anyway, there is a reason why standing and not doing much else is not that simple and why this pose is called a mountain pose. Stability starts in the feet and only when feet are strong can they form a base that one can lean on without swaying and shifting and wobbling too much. A mountain which is an inverted pyramid can be easily toppled by forces of nature or collapse on itself.
Cracks appear when foundation is not stable – both in houses but also in people although they may not be as visible.
Spring is in the air and soon it is possible to walk barefoot on green grass. This is an opportunity not to be missed – feet love being detached from their protective wrappings from time to time and getting challenged on uneven surfaces. They do not want to be caged all the time. Otherwise they do not get sufficient stimulation. Always buy good quality and suitable in size and shape training shoes – this purchase is not a matter of fashion but function. Everyone’s feet are unique so you cannot refer to your friends or a family member in what is best for you – you have to use yourself as a reference point. In any case, give your feet the love, care and attention that they deserve, do not underestimate this intricate area which is expected to serve and carry the rest of you throughout your lifetime. For some people this can be a real life-changer.
A good illustration of how excessive pronation and supination can affect the health of feet (and I am not encouraging to buy the products, just using this to illustrate how shoes can make a difference or make matters worse:
What do those sophisticated words – diastasis recti – mean? Well, I forgot them the other day when I was speaking to another yoga teacher as I do not use it in my everyday vocabulary. But I recalled this diagnosis on my way home from the yoga studio. Diastasis means a separation and recti refer to the abdominal muscles that support our torso to keep us in the upright position. Diastasis recti is in simpler words a separation of abdominal muscles. Below is an illustration of a diastasis recti compared to the normal abdominal wall.
Why bother? For some and depending on how serious the condition is, diastasis recti can cause lower back discomfort or even pain, it can also, combined with weak pelvic floor muscles, lead to urinary or bowel problems and postural issues. Sometimes women who have given birth multiple times complain, when their kids get older, that every time they laugh or sneeze, they almost wet their pants. This could be caused by diastasis recti issues which have not been addressed due to being unaware that one has this condition.
We often talk about equality between men and women nowadays but diastasis recti clearly discriminates men in terms of that pregnancy and postpartum effects are invariably experienced by women. And even among women it discriminates some women as it mainly occurs in those women who have been pregnant and given birth, especially if multiple times. When the baby bump starts to bulge out from the body, the abdominal muscles start sliding like doors opening sideways to give space to the growing foetus. This separation of abdominal muscles, mainly referring to sixpack or rectus abdominis, is also a quite common postpartum condition. But the nature is cunning and after the baby is delivered, the abdominal muscles start to slide back to close the gap. This healing process takes usually about 5-8 weeks. This is the reason why experts advise women to be careful with heavy duty exercising of abdominal muscles postpartum, especially during the first weeks after giving birth. If the mother is too harsh on herself, this counteracts the healing process and the abdominal muscles are not able to move properly back towards the midline.
Sometimes, due to various reasons – multiple pregnancies, too heavy exercising as mentioned above or too little exercising and a weak core to begin with, the sixpack will not slide back to where it is supposed to and leaves a rift or a gap around the navel area in the midline of the body. This is not a completely empty space of course, it is occupied by connective tissue which is called the linea alba, located between the abdominals. A bigger gap means that there is more of this tissue and that the abdominal muscles are a bit too far from each other. This makes it more challenging for the muscles to support the body with an important task: to keep the core toned and the body upright.
To check for diastasis recti you need to do the following:
Lie on your back, knees bent and feet on the mat
Lift your head off the floor, support the back of the neck with one hand
Feel that your abdominal muscles are engaged
Feel along pressing the fingers gently above and below the belly button with the other hand
Start this examination by pressing with your fingertips on the midline
Press your fingers first on the midline towards the ribcage from above the navel and then repeat towards the public bone below the navel
If your fingers can easily press down and you feel a gap without any tension or pushback, this may signal that you have some form of diastasis recti. But only if the gap is more than 2 cm wide (three fingers)
If you can place three fingers horizontally to the gap, this may indeed mean that distance of the abdominals is a bit too wide. This does not necessarily mean that you became a mother recently – I have met many women who are unaware that they have this condition for years or who suspect that they may have it but have not bothered to get it officially confirmed. Always best do consult an expert, not just oneself. Knowing is the first step towards fixing or alleviating problems that this separation may cause. They can really improve the quality of life in situations where the lower back hurts, one is not fully in control of one’s bladder or feels generally weak and untoned in the abdominal area. Or has dreamed for a long time to get read of her belly pooch and has tried and tried but without success.
In yoga there are a number of poses which can aggravate this condition:
If it is serious parting, one should be careful with backbends in general, definitely no wheel (Urdhva Dhanurasana) and no camel (Ustrasana) pose. There should be another awareness in engaging abdominal muscles in general with backbends – careful, conscious and slow – not going to extremes and far from testing the limits of the poses.
Extreme stretches are definitely not good for postpartum mothers. Especially for women who are breastfeeding as they produce a hormone – relaxin – in their body and this makes their connective tissue a bit unstable for much longer time than during the pregnancy and the delivery itself, sometimes the ligaments and connective tissue are “relaxed” for up to two years after giving birth.
Please note that bridge pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana) , even though regarded as a backbend, is very much advised, especially with slow and deliberate movements up and down
Careful with plank pose, always activate stomach muscles, if with a serious condition, avoid this pose altogether
Avoid poses where you lift the head and shoulders off the mat and engage stomach muscles in a less than 90 degree bend between the trunk and legs. Practicing boat pose (Navasana) is not recommended for women with diastasis recti.
Careful with rotations (like Ardha Matsyendrasana, Parivrtta Parsvakonasana). They are extremely useful for the body otherwise but with this condition one should rotate with the principle “less is more”. If the abdominal area is already undertoned, heavy-duty rotations can aggravate the condition.
What are good yoga posesto support the recovery and toning of abdominal area?
Bridge pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana) with a curly movement of the pelvis up and down, best in slow motion, like this one:
Slow pelvic tilt while lying with the back on the mat and knees bent, Engage the muscles while slowly tilting and relax when lowering the pelvis back to the mat
A kneeling pose on all fours with knee and arm extension of opposite sides. First lift them off the floor and extend and then draw the opposite elbow and knee towards each other until they touch and repeat this several times with both sides
Legwork while lying with the back on the mat: tapping the toes of bent legs on the mat, or drawing the knees towards the chest and straightening them legs forward without letting them drop to the floor so the stomach is activly engaged.
With exercising the abdominal wall the only danger is our ego – impatience and the willingness to go too far and too fast. One really needs to treat oneself with a lot of love. This is not about introducing a boring and repetitive routine to one’s practice – we should follow this process how we transform our bodies with supportive exercising with full awareness and notice differences and small gains. For the very ambitious, it is otherwise easy to end up with a toned belly like the one on the photo which displays an unhealthy gap between the abdominal muscles around the belly button.
And as always, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
More info:
Check out the below link where you can take a look at some good exercises with photo illustrations:
Everything is connected: You and me Heaven and earth Rain and draught Trees, birds and insects Water, air and rocks A panting panther chasing after an antelope to feed her cubs An airplane taking holidaymakers to their dream destination A landowner igniting fire in the next deforested piece of Amazon A cat hunting a numbat in the bushes near the Great Ocean Road The flap of the wings of a swan flying south for the winter A dried-up pond in the countryside where wild animals used to come to clench their thirst An underpaid worker in Bangladesh sewing clothes to wealthy consumers abroad A dam that broke after a torrent A cute baby smiling at her mother A hungry polar bear storming a village in Svalbard A busy bee pollenating a cornfield A rich Arabian sheikh buying another luxury house in London A high homeless roaming in the streets of Stockholm in search for a shelter and next dose A motivational speech by a paralympic gold medalist without limbs A doctor who needs to break the news to a terminally ill patient A sunblessed butterfly feeding on blossoming honeysuckle An ambitious musician playing her violin until the strings snap A self-driving car on its way to deliver another take-away A frightened fox wandering in Central Park A sinner begging for forgiveness in Notre Dame Cathedral A lover squeezing gently the hand of the beloved A formal kiss at a wedding of two strangers who were arranged to be married by their parents before they were even born A long and winding road leading to a dead-end A rocket shooting past space debris in the thermosphere to fly to the Moon A lonely pilgrim on his way back home You and me Like a vast and invisible spiderweb holding the universe together Me and you Like indiscernible pulsations of billions of hearts in a constant flow of chain reactions Everything is connected
I just love this article – it sheds some light on the most essential thing that we as human beings and social animals have in common – how to create and maintain relationships with people who we are willing to connect with. There are things which you will learn that will take you by surprise, I promise!
This article was published in New Scientist on 3 March 2021
By Robin Dunbar
Evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar has found that our friendships are governed by secret rules, based on everything from your sex to your sleep schedule. Our unique social fingerprints help determine who we are drawn to, which friendships last and why some friends are ultimately replaceable.
FACEBOOK users used to have a lot more friends. The social networking site pursues a commercial strategy of trying to persuade people to “friend” as many others as possible. However, sometime around 2007, users began to question who all these people they had befriended were. Then, someone pointed out that we can only manage around 150 relationships at any time. A flurry of “friend” culling followed and, since then, the number 150 has been known as “Dunbar’s number”. Thank you Facebook!
Modern technology may have brought me notoriety, but Dunbar’s number is rooted in evolutionary biology. Although humans are a highly social species, juggling relationships isn’t easy and, like other primates, the size of our social network is constrained by brain size. Two decades ago, my research revealed that this means we cannot meaningfully engage with more than about 150 others. No matter how gregarious you are, that is your limit. In this, we are all alike. However, more recent research on friendship has uncovered some fascinating individual differences.
My colleagues and I have made eye-opening discoveries about how much time people spend cultivating various members of their social networks, how friendships form and dissolve and what we are looking for in our friends. What has really surprised us is that each person has a unique “social fingerprint” – an idiosyncratic way in which they allocate their social effort. This pattern is quite impervious to who is in your friendship circle at any given time. It does, however, reveal quite a lot about your own identity – and could even be influencing how well you are coping with social restrictions during the covid-19 pandemic.
Layers of intimacy
The typical social circle of 150 people is made up of a series of layers, each containing a well-defined number of people and associated with specific frequencies of contact, levels of emotional closeness and willingness to provide help (see “The structure of friendship”). In fact, our social world consists of two quite distinct sets of people: friends and family. What’s more, we tend to give preference to the latter. With our social networks limited to around 150 relationships, we first slot in family members and then set about filling any spare places with unrelated friends. As a result, people who come from large families tend to have fewer friends.
Some years ago, I examined evidence from various cultures and economies to try to find out how much time we actually spend on social interactions with our friends and family. I found around half a dozen studies where researchers had recorded the amount of time in the day that people devoted to different activities, including things like sleeping, cooking, relaxing and interacting socially. This gave me a diverse selection of societies: Maasai pastoralists in East Africa, Nepalese hill farmers, New Guinea horticulturalists, agricultural tribes in sub-Saharan Africa, !Kung San hunter–gatherers from southern Africa and housewives in Dundee, UK. My analysis revealed that people spent around 20 per cent of their time, on average, on social interactions. That’s about 3.5 hours a day talking, eating and sitting with people in a social context.
“We all spend about 20 per cent of our time, on average, on social interactions”
This may seem like a lot, but distributed evenly among your 150 friends and family, it works out at just 1 minute and 45 seconds per person per day. Of course, that isn’t what we do. Around 40 per cent of this social time is devoted to the five people in our innermost social circle, the support clique, with another 20 per cent given to the 10 additional people in the next layer, the sympathy group. That’s about 17.5 minutes and 4.5 minutes per person, respectively. The remaining 135 people in the two outer rings of our social circles get an average of just 37 seconds a day each.
These interactions are often not face to face, of course. Throughout most of human evolution, people lived in the same village as their friends and family, but today our social circles are far more geographically dispersed. In social networks, there is a very strong effect called the 30-minute rule that dictates how long you are willing to travel to go to see someone. It doesn’t matter much whether this is on foot, by bicycle or by car: it’s the psychological significance of the time it takes you that counts. Surprisingly, though, research reveals that we are also more likely to phone or text friends if they live nearby. For example, one study found that the frequency of phone contact between friends declined gradually the further apart they lived, with a sharp drop-off at about 160 kilometres.
Subconsciously, we seem to be aware that failure to contact someone will weaken a relationship, so we make up for it. Analysing mobile phone records, Kunal Bhattacharya and Asim Ghosh at Aalto University, Finland, found a correlation between the length of the gap since the last call and the duration of the next call – for special friends, but not for weaker friendships. Indeed, humans aren’t alone in making such subconscious calculations. I saw something similar in gelada baboons I was studying in Ethiopia. As their infants grew, mothers were forced to spend more time feeding, leaving less time to groom their main social partners – their best friends forever (BFFs). Instead, they relied on the friends to do all the work to keep the relationship going. However, once the infant had started to wean, they paid back the debt, devoting much more time to grooming the BFFs than the BFFs groomed them.
Oiling your contacts
Such behaviours matter because friendships are fragile. Unlike family bonds, they depend on you investing enough time and effort in each other to keep the relationship well oiled and functional (see “Six rules for keeping your pals”). If you see someone less often, whether deliberately or by force of circumstance, that relationship will weaken. Bob Kraut at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania calculated that a friendship of high strength will decline to no more than a mere acquaintanceship in just three years. To be fair, there are a few friendships that stand the test of time and absence: usually no more than three or four, and they tend to be people we were particularly close to in early adult life. However, until the internet, social media and mobile phones became widely available a mere decade ago, friendships would have died naturally if someone moved away.
Is that changing? To take a closer look, Sam Roberts at the University of Chester, UK, and I studied a group of 30 students – half of them female, half male – to find out how moving away from home affected their social networks. We picked them up in their final term at school and monitored them through the following 18 months to the end of their first year at university. The deal was that we gave them a free mobile phone subscription in return for being able to download their monthly bills so we could see who they phoned and texted. They also had to fill in a questionnaire at the beginning, middle and end of the study telling us who everyone in their network was, how emotionally close they felt to each person, when they had last contacted them and how, and what they had done with them when they met face to face.
“Our study had revealed that people have a unique social fingerprint”
We collected huge quantities of information. (We were particularly impressed by three of the students who sent an average of 100 texts a day – and kept this up for the entire duration of the study.) Luckily, I was collaborating at the time with some physicists on a project about online networks and persuaded a couple of them to help with the complicated task of analysing the data. We were amazed by what we found.’
We could see the layers of the students’ social circles very nicely. What we hadn’t expected, however, was the fine detail in how individuals allocated their social effort. Each showed a distinct pattern in the frequency with which they called friends. One might call their best friend 30 times a month and their second best friend 10 times, while another would call their two top friends 20 times each, for example. But that wasn’t the most surprising thing. There was an average of around 40 per cent turnover in network membership over the 18 months – which is fairly normal for young adults – yet, when we looked at the patterns of contact before and after a change in friendship, they were almost identical. It seems that when we replace someone in our social network, we slot the new friend into exactly the same position the old one previously occupied in terms of the frequency with which we contact them. Our study had revealed that people have a characteristic social fingerprint.
How often you contact each of your friends probably reflects aspects of your personality, such as extraversion, neuroticism and conscientiousness. Our analysis revealed another factor influencing your social fingerprint: whether you are male or female. Over the course of the study, some friendships held up better than others, and we wondered why. The answer tended to differ between the sexes. For the girls as a whole, the activity most effective in preserving a pre-university friendship was talking together, whether in person or by phone. For the boys, talking had absolutely no effect on how likely a friendship was to survive. What made the difference was doing stuff together more often than they had before – going to the pub, playing sports, climbing mountains or whatever. Such activities also had a positive effect on the girls’ friendships, but it was nowhere near as great.
Calling patterns
This could have implications for how well our friendships are bearing up during the pandemic, while face-to-face meetings are restricted. It might also help explain a difference we found in the amount of time girls and boys spent on the phone. Of course, there were big individual variations, but for girls, calls averaged 150 seconds in the morning, rising to 500 seconds by the end of the day. Boys’ calls, by contrast, averaged just 100 seconds throughout the day.
Further analysis, led by Talayeh Aledavood at Aalto University, revealed another aspect of our identity with an influence on our social fingerprint. When we looked at the times at which our students were calling and texting, they found clear differences. Some were most active on their phones during the day and others used them mostly at night. We also found that those who were early birds, or larks, at the start of the study were still larks 18 months later, and the night owls at the start were still owls at the end – despite the turnover in their friends. That may not be so surprising, but being a lark or an owl turns out to have big implications for your social network.
Aledavood discovered this when she and her colleagues analysed a similar data set of 1000 Danish university students. Being a much larger group, it allowed them to look at the relative frequencies of communication of larks and owls in more detail. Some 20 per cent of the students were committed larks, the same proportion were committed owls and the rest were neither one nor the other. Larks showed no particular preference for having larks as friends, but owls favoured associating with owls, strongly reinforcing research showing that what we most want in a friend is someone just like us (see “Seven pillars of friendship”). Owls also had larger social networks than larks, at least in terms of the number of people they phoned frequently – 35 rather than 28. However, they spent less time on the phone to each friend – 94 seconds compared with 112 seconds, on average, for larks – so their networks weren’t as well integrated and reinforced. Again, restrictions to our social lives caused by covid-19 may be proving more disruptive to some friendships than others.
I hadn’t anticipated quite how much we would learn from scrutinising the mobile phone bills of students. I was surprised to find that everyone appears to have their own unique social fingerprint, and intrigued to discover that aspects of an individual’s social style influence their friendship choices. What was most unexpected, however, is the durability of a person’s social fingerprint in the face of change. It is as though exactly who our friends are doesn’t really matter, as long as we have friends. Of course, we opt for people who are as congenial as possible, but, provided these boxes are ticked, more or less anyone will do. That may sound opportunistic or even callous, but it makes sense. Friendship isn’t just for fun; it has huge benefits for our mental and physical well-being. In a changing world, our approach to making and maintaining friends needs to be both flexible and stable so that we can optimise those benefits.
Six rules for keeping your pals
Friends come and go for all sorts of reasons, but if you want to keep a friendship alive, you must obey these six rules:
1. Stand up for friends in their absence
2. Share important news
3. Provide emotional support when it is needed
4. Trust and confide in one another
5. Volunteer to help when a friend needs you
6. Try to make your friends happy
Seven pillars of friendship
Our friends tend to be surprisingly like us, and there are certain personal characteristics that predict how close a friendship is likely to be:
1. You speak the same language or, better still, dialect
2. You grew up in the same area
3. You have the same educational and career experiences
4. You pursue the same hobbies and interests
5. You see eye to eye on moral, religious and political matters
6. You share a sense of humour
7. You have the same taste in music
This article was originaly published in New Scientist
You and me are travellers On a journey to a place We’ve never been before Some of us find this a pleasant trip Others walk on a long and winding road Some prefer to come back to the places that they have already been to Some prefer to run after a moving train Some tend to complain Even though they sit in the 1st class and did not buy the tickets themselves
Some feel alone and scared Some are happy and contained Sometimes we appreciate the fact that being able to embark on a journey is a gift That experiencing this is a choice we can influence Some people drop out of the 1st class So others can enter Some expect another person to choose their itinerary Or just go with the flow This journey of mine, I think I have tried all different ways to travel And I still do not know where I am going to I have lost some fellow-travellers on the way And made bonds with new ones. I realise that I complain too much: My journey is full of wonders which I often overlook My advice to myself is to carry on But more caringly, more lovingly, more respectfully. And see where this takes me. Not the other way round.
This is a revisit to an important topic – the importance of breath.
Breathing is a sign of being alive. People cannot live, eat, work and function normally and hold breath at the same time. The longest record of holding breath is 22 minutes[1], unachievable to most of us and unnecessary to even try. Mind you, 22 minutes would not be possible on the land, it is only in the water that our bodies launch an extra oxygen conservation mode which prolongs the ability to hold breath.
Breathing is among few functions in the body (in addition to swallowing and to some extent also blinking and bowel movement) which we can control but which is also autonomous and works even when we do not think about it. We do not need to think consciously about inhaling and exhaling – it just happens. And ’just’ is a complete understatement like also the myth about humans using only 10% of the brain’s capacity. Breathing is an intricate orchestration of many muscles in the body, not only the diaphragm – the primary organ of breathing. If breathing were an orchestra, the diaphragm would be the conductor. But what is the conductor without a team of devoted and experienced musicians (read: organs/muscles)?
When we breathe in, we take in oxygen and nourish our blood with it, oxygen is transported to all organs via arteries and later capillaries. After carbon dioxide is dumped into the blood in capillaries, this venous blood is carried back towards our heart and lungs. In the lungs where the venous blood is taken, small air sacs called alveoli, formed of specialised cells, are responsible for exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen.
The interesting thing with our lungs is that they normally function below their capacity – it is only during heavy exercising that we start testing the limits of how much and how quickly our lungs can exchange waste (carbon dioxide) for nourishment (oxygen). So if you do not give your lungs any exercise, they will loose their tone.
It is also important to remember that we have two cavities in the body – the thoracic – where the lungs are; and the abdominal where the stomach is located. Although we are sometimes told to breathe through the stomach in yoga classes, it does not actually happen as it is not possible. The abdominal cavity only changes shape, not volume, when we breathe (and do not eat). Only the thoracic cavity can change both shape and volume while breathing.
Why is this important to know in practicing yoga? Often teachers instruct and talk about breathing with the belly. Belly breathing will help to relax the abdominal muscles (obliques). But practicing too much belly breathing will not help to tone the muscles between the ribs called intercostals which are extremely important in creating more volume for the lungs. And you need to practice yoga safely and engage the uddiyana bandha – the abdominal lock which basically means activating your abdominal muscles around your navel. This will protect you from compensating in asanas like utkatasana (chair) or plank or anything requiring the joint effort of your core muscles. Otherwise you overwork the muscles of your back which end up being tight and discontent after a yoga class.
How and why is breathing important in yoga practice?
By knowing how our breathing system functions, we can use it more efficiently. In yoga, all practice – asanas or physical postures, meditation and other mental practice is always linked to breathing.
Breathing in a controlled way enables to steer other functions in body – heart rate and blood pressure, also the condition of muscles. Breathing is also the gateway to the parasympathetic nervous system – the intricate web of nerves wrapping and penetrating different organs in the body which can signal the body that it is time to relax. Even when the mind does not want to, with the help of breathing it is possible to calm down.
People in stress may find it hard to breathe deeply at first as all muscles around the thoracic cavity have tightened by the production of adrenaline and cortisol, the stress hormones which trigger the flight and fight response of the sympathetic nervous system.
Accessory muscles to breathing in addition to the diaphragm are Quadratus lumborium, Rectus abdominus, Rhomboids, Pectoralis minor, serratus anterior and posterior and sternocleidomastoid together with scalene muscles which lifts and opens the sternum, Lattisimus dorsi and trapezius which open the chest and intercostal muscles which either create more or less space b/w the ribs.
Should any of the above mentioned muscle groups be tight or malfunctioning, this decreases the lung capacity and does not let the respiration be efficient.
Breathing is also related to behavioural patterns and one way to learn about these patterns is to observe one’s breath.
What happens with your body and mind when you breathe slower and deeper?
– It increases oxygen saturation in cells – It engages parasympathetic nerve system – the relaxed state of mind and body – It increases the variability of heart-rate – It increases mental focus – It increases the activity of the brain waves (alpha) which facilitate focus and inner calm
Living a somewhat or an overly stressful life makes the sympathetic nervous system dominate over the parasympathetic. This means that there is very little mental and/or physical balance. By directing some awareness to just breathing slow and deep and prolonging the exhalation can decrease the stress level.
Most importantly, I have realised that it is not the stress trigger that matters but my response to it. Think about your reaction at external stimuli in whatever form it is. And take a few slow and deep breaths.
[1] Fortunately the 22 min record owner Stig Severinsen has PhD in Medicine and lots of experience in swimming and diving so he knew what devils he was taming when he held his breath under water.
As a child, my elbow could easily swing 180⁰ when resting the palm on a surface with fingers pointing forward. My fingertips are in constant “forward bend” when fingers are straightened. In school my gymnastic teacher was concerned at this range and advised to lock elbows when in plank pose or doing push-ups to ensure that they would not hyperextend and snap when I put my body weight on them. At that time, it seemed fun to bend fingers like no one else could in the class. But over time I have learnt that this condition needs special attention not to turn from a blessing into a curse. If you have inherited hypermobility (very commonly a genetic issue which is passed on from someone in the family), you must live wisely to make your body last for your lifetime.
My hand and elbow overextended, fortunately not as bad as when I was a child.
What is hypermobility?
It is when joints have the flexibility beyond the normal. Circus
artists, who show off by putting legs behind their heads or pulling head
against the calves in a backbend, are hypermobile. It can sometimes be hard to distinguish
when hypermobility is a medical problem which requires a diagnose (usually called
Ehlers-Danlos syndrome in this case) and when it is just somebody who is a little
bendy and can live with this without any problems.
Loose joints are more common among women than men. In general, bendy people have either loose joints inherited from somebody in the family or have worked hard to reduce one primary function of the joint – to offer stability, not only mobility. As far as hypermobility does not cause any pain, it is fine. But what was fun when young will gradually build tensions and imbalances later. Additionally, hypermobility slowly starts to wear down the joints if not addressed properly.
What is causing hypermobility?
I did not know this for a long time that hypermobility is a problem with connective tissue, not bones. Even though it may manifest only in certain joints – in my case fingers, hands, elbows, shoulders, it means that connective tissue and ligaments elsewhere is also affected. The whole body is affected. Hypermobility is mainly due to two proteins which are the building blocks of connective tissue. Collagen is present in the bones, ligaments and skin whereas elastin in ligaments, arteries, also skin. Children have more collagen and elastin in their ligaments and more collagen in their bones which makes them more supple. Same with hypermobile people.
Hypermobility may mean that these proteins are either in
abundance or malfunctioning or both. When we age, there is less collagen (and
elastin) in the body and people become less elastic. On the outside this can
manifest in more and deeper wrinkles and less toned skin. On the inside it is
brittle bones and less flexibility in connective tissue. Even bendy people lose
elasticity over time. And usually have hard time to come to terms with it.
What are the effects of hypermobility?
Hypermobility affects muscle tone – if a person is not a sporty type, the muscles are too relaxed and over-flexible joints run the risk of dislocation. Sometimes hypermobility can cause skeletal problems which affect posture or cause scoliosis. Looking for a simple example of the importance of addressing hypermobility, I found an analogy with building a house – when the carcass is made out of a soft wood or other lax material, this may affect the whole house in the long-term – cracks and imbalances will appear because the structures are not as stable (remember the story of the Three Little Pigs and their houses – only the one made of stone survived the Big Bad Wolf’s blowing attack). Same with hypermobility.
How to deal with hypermobility?
Rule number one is that the area which is hypermobile, needs
strength and balance, not more flexibility. Focus on strength. Do not go to the
extremes with excessively bendy joints. Lock them in positions where they are
not overextended. Stretch those joints with care. Pay more attention to the
areas which do not seem to stretch equally well. Be very aware of your
compensation patterns. Ask a personal trainer or somebody knowledgeable to
check how you move. Stretch from time to time and check in the mirror – you may
be surprised at what you see. And do not show off your overextended joints in
extreme positions – this will backfire.
Remember, when a joint is too flexible, something else is bound to get tight and overwork to keep stability in a loose joint. Some muscles will compensate for unreliable ligaments. You need to keep them toned with workouts which support this important mission.
Rule number two is exactly this – to work with the core muscles in the back, stomach and hip joint and ensure that they are strong. Yin yoga is not good for hypermobile people. Extensive stretching is not good for those people regardless of a physical exercise. They should combine yoga with core training and suck, perhaps even visit the gym from time to time. If all goes well, the body will be able to handle this instability without tightness and pain. But for quite many hypermobility means a few sore areas and some tight muscles even though they do not want to admit it. I have come to terms with this topic only recently and wish I had done it earlier. But better late than never.
I had the most inspiring yogamassage training for advanced stretches in the end of May. Very few other massage styles can meet up to this genial way of warming up the muscle and connective tissue and combining stretching and breathing. I know that it is effective from my personal experience but also from working with clients with various health issues. I know that yogamassage is powerful because you can get an overdose of it if. You can be administrated too many strong stretches at the same treatment session which can trigger an emotional or physical outburst. What exactly it is like depends from client to client. All I am saying is that it is a powerful tool which has to be applied carefully. This is why, during the training, we try it all first on ourselves. And even though this is a technique which mainly works with the physical body, you immediately experience the miraculous connection of body and mind. Because when you stretch the body, the mind will also get s stretch.
During the training and after many stretches for opening the chest area, I got a sudden urge to express myself. In words. And I wrote a poem which, as it seems, is a reminder to keep my inner child. I devote this to all children who have never grown up. If you are one of them, you know what I mean😉
I sometimes miss being a child looking at the day without planning ahead looking at people without questioning their motives looking at situations without an insight – I’ve seen it before Experiencing a feeling and remembering that I have felt this before but with an intensity unmeasurable to the present one
I sometimes miss being a child knowing that all my life is ahead of me that I can start over as many times as I like knowing that I can make mistakes and they are not called a failure knowing that there is so much to learn that I would never be able to fill my cup until it’s full
I sometimes miss being a child crying because it hurts being sad without knowing why being bored and yet not distracted being happy without any reason, without asking why
I sometimes miss being a child looking at the sky and imagining that clouds are like white pillows that you can jump on looking at somebody’s home and wondering what it is like from inside looking at a road and wondering where it leads to and feeling the urge to discover what’s there
I sometimes miss being a child although I know there’s no way back The good things I can bear with me the bad things I might just as well throw away or ignore like a child who is able to see the bright side in every moment in every person before growing up
