I have a lifelong abhorrence of being late, it's rude, disrespectful, sometimes disastrous, and occasionally expensive if we miss flights or appointments. My whole life as a farmer, a trade which requires constant attention to timeliness, exacerbated this anxiety-inducing fear of missing deadlines, opportunities or weather-windows, and consequently didn't do a lot for my mental health.

One of the interesting discoveries I have made whilst enjoying the luxury of retirement has arisen in my quest to understand, accept and manage my bi-polar-ness.  As for most of my life I've been denying to myself that I have anything wrong it's been a challenge.  I have discovered the existence of an internal speed control mechanism. And gears too, which I'm slowly learning to manage and avoid kangaroo-hops.

Bear with me a little longer with the car analogy - in a vehicle we have all sorts of useful, some might argue essential, controls - brakes, accelerator, gears, steering being amongst the multitude of gadgetry aiding our propulsion to somewhere else.

However our bodies have arguably only two controls, or magical nervous systems, the parasympathetic and sympathetic, that counterbalance each other and regulate our response to stimuli various. A lot of what goes on in those systems we have little ability to control - there are no levers, handles or touchscreens.

If I have any deadlines, appointments or scheduled visits in a day, this has always a strange effect on time in my head, making it spin faster, and hurrying me up, even though this arguably counter-productive. The poor old nervous systems are scrapping away, and this fight often leads to clumsiness, lack of awareness and a total failure to live in the moment.

The discovery, in my case, is to change gears downwards by concentrating on the mundane, washing up, cleaning surfaces, talking to one of our hounds or some activity that I am able to fixate on and thus eradicate other thoughts. Strangely then the day seems to lengthen out, time until the next fixed point seems to be available in abundance and I can potter along in first gear on a light throttle, and yet be quite productive meantime.

Do you have any means of regulating your speed of connection with life itself?

Farmer Charlie Ret’d

A Moodscope member