Perry Mason's Ridiculous Advice

My husband and I love the old Perry Mason show, which was broadcast for 9 seasons beginning in 1957. We both have fond memories of watching it back then with our parents. It was the highlight of Sunday evenings, even though we probably didn’t get much of it as we were quite young.
 
But we do like to watch it now.  We started when the pandemic hit in 2020, and by now we’ve watched most episodes at least twice.  We love to pay attention to the musical scores, the character development, how Perry treated his clients (and his assistant, Della!), how the actors (Raymond Burr, Barbara Hale, and many others)  changed, and much more.
 
We’ve noticed something that Perry says to his clients frequently.   He is a criminal defense attorney, and there is a murder in every episode, so somewhere in the first half of most episodes, he encounters the person who will ultimately be charged with murder but hasn’t yet been arrested or tried.
 
He shares a piece of advice frequently with people who are about to be arrested for murder and they know it.  “Go home and get some sleep,”  he’ll say. Or “Calm down and get some rest.”
 
That is ridiculous advice for someone waiting for the police to decide that she/he is the most likely murder suspect.  As was noted in a meme I saw recently, “Never in the history of calm down has anyone calmed down by being told to calm down.”
 
I was reminded of the ridiculousness of this last summer when I read a  magazine for cancer survivors. (I’m one of those survivors!). It had an article with advice for newly diagnosed cancer patients.  I can’t remember the exact words, but the idea was that it can be stressful to get a cancer diagnosis (no kidding!), and it’s good to be able to calm our nervous system and reduce our anxiety.  “Calm down and get some rest.” 
 
Ok, sure, but much easier said than done.  Yes of course, reducing our stress is a great idea.   But if you’ve ever tried to calm yourself down by telling yourself to calm down, you know that it rarely works.   That strategy may  not even be possible when you’re new at it, or when you’re in the turbulence of a life-threatening illness or other situation that makes you feel unsafe, threatened, angry, or anxious.
 
But it is possible to develop skills that, when practiced regularly in a non-crisis situation, can be summoned when needed.  Here are a couple of possibilities from the yoga world:

1. Rebounding.  Stand up, move your body, jump around, swing from side to side.  If you are feeling a stress response, then the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline are no doubt surging through your body.  These larger movements can “offload” some of the stress and bring your body and mind into greater balance.
2. Humming Breath: Close your eyes if that’s comfortable, or soften your gaze.  Gently close your lips (if that’s comfortable) – you’ll be breathing through your nose.  Take a breath in, as long and slow as feels comfortable, and on your exhale, make a humming noise. (You’ll sound like a bee.) Repeat several times.
3. Constructive Rest:  Lie on your back with feet on the floor and knees bent.  Begin to let go of tension that you might find in your body.  Feel where your body is connected to the ground.  Breathe slowly and smoothly, to the extent that feels comfortable for you.   Stay there as long as you like.

 
 
All of these strategies (and many more) are intended to calm our Stress Response  (“fight or flight”) and activate our  Relaxation Response (“rest and digest”).
 
So there are things you can DO that help achieve the state of relaxation.  Perry wasn’t wrong; he just didn’t know that we can’t relax simply by telling our bodies to relax.  We need to develop the practices that will help us get to that state. 
 
By the time you’re being arrested for murder, it’s probably too late to start that practice.