Post Proms Blues

[Brassbandmaestro]

Does anyone here feel a vacuum in their lives once a proms season comes to a close?

I have some music to write!!

[Al R Gando]

Does anyone here feel a vacuum in their lives

I know, six weeks and no housework done at all

Shocking, really.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Does anyone here feel a vacuum in their lives once a proms season comes to a close?

Generally, yes, but less so this year. I'm look foward to going to concerts where the audiences are polite and don't applaud between planets - I mean movements.

[Brassbandmaestro]

Oh, that was truly awful!(re the clapping in betwen movts). My wife and i abhore such behaviour! Spoils the atmosphere at the end of each movt to!

[Ferretfancy]

I've just spent 31 amazing evenings in the company of some of the nicest music lovers that I know. I do get to meet a few of them at other events, but many of them become short term buddies as it were, as the summer term ends!
When ( hopefully ) I walk up the Albert Hall steps next July i expect that the gang will be there in the queue, almost as if we've never been away.
No time to mope though, I'm off on a long trip in just over a week from now. It's been a good if not outstanding season to look back on.

[salymap]

i haven't been to the proms or London for well over ten years because of various health problems. However I miss them still when they end each year because I still look forward to a few outstanding performances.
This year has seemed rather flat and bitty to me though I was glad they managed a complete Ma vlast at last

Good luck to Ferret, who has been attending the proms for quite a time I believe. Won't ask him his first prom year. Mine was 1948.

[BudgieJane]

Does anyone here feel a vacuum in their lives once a proms season comes to a close?

Definitely, and I feel as though there is something I should be doing that I've forgotten about. I get quite depressed about it, showing all the signs of withdrawal.

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm seeing the shrink next week, and I'll talk to her about it.

I've just spent 31 amazing evenings in the company of some of the nicest music lovers that I know. I do get to meet a few of them at other events, but many of them become short term buddies as it were, as the summer term ends!
When ( hopefully ) I walk up the Albert Hall steps next July I expect that the gang will be there in the queue, almost as if we've never been away.

That is so true (but 45 in my case). So much wine is drunk, so much food is eaten, and so much cards is played with people we only see during those mad two months. The first thing we say to each other on greeting Prommers we haven't seen since the previous season is "Happy New Year!", which echoes the "Auld Lang Syne" we sing at the end of the Last Night.

[Petrushka]

Does anyone here feel a vacuum in their lives once a proms season comes to a close?

I suffer from severe withdrawal symptoms and have done for the 34 seasons I've been privileged to attend. I could do with seeing a shrink about it as well.

Never mind, though, I have 60 unplayed CD's to catch up on as well as many recordings of the season to hear again.

[Ferretfancy]

salymap

You've pipped me to the post ! My first year was 1948. Having said that, there's at least one Proms regular in the Arena who went to his first Prom at Queens Hall.
I can't speak of detailed memories, but I do remember Basil Cameron conducting Sibelius, Moiseiwitsch in Grieg and Rachmaninov, and numerous appearances by Ida Haendel.
There were also wonderful moments with Barbirolli, notably a performance of La Mer which I listened to right on the rail, something I prefer not to do nowadays.
I do hope that your tinnitus did not plague your listening too much this year.
Bws.
Ferret

[cavatina]

Definitely, and I feel as though there is something I should be doing that I've forgotten about. I get quite depressed about it, showing all the signs of withdrawal.

As I mentioned in another thread, I'm seeing the shrink next week, and I'll talk to her about it.

Actually, you're feeling the symptoms of withdrawal because it IS withdrawal. Every night you leave the hall on a high, you've just disrupted your dopamine and adrenaline levels. It might leave you feeling euphoric, but it's massively taxing on your nervous system: research shows listening to music spikes dopamine levels on a par with cocaine. Given that the study was conducted in a sterile research lab using recordings, can you imagine what kind of spike we're getting from a live orchestra on the front row?

Quote from the research:

"If music-induced emotional states can lead to dopamine release, as our findings indicate, it may begin to explain why musical experiences are so valued. These results further speak to why music can be effectively used in rituals, marketing or film to manipulate hedonistic states. Our findings provide neurochemical evidence that intense emotional responses to music involve ancient reward circuitry and serve as a starting point for more detailed investigations of the biological substrates that underlie abstract forms of pleasure."

And here's a quote on how this kind of addiction works:

Other drugs, such as cocaine, can cause the nerve cells to release abnormally large amounts of natural neurotransmitters (mainly dopamine) or to prevent the normal recycling of these brain chemicals, which is needed to shut off the signaling between neurons. The result is a brain awash in dopamine, a neurotransmitter present in brain regions that control movement, emotion, motivation, and feelings of pleasure. The overstimulation of this reward system, which normally responds to natural behaviors linked to survival (eating, spending time with loved ones, etc.), produces euphoric effects in response to psychoactive drugs. This reaction sets in motion a reinforcing pattern that “teaches” people to repeat the rewarding behavior of abusing drugs.

As a person continues to abuse drugs, the brain adapts to the overwhelming surges in dopamine by producing less dopamine or by reducing the number of dopamine receptors in the reward circuit. The result is a lessening of dopamine’s impact on the reward circuit, which reduces the abuser’s ability to enjoy the drugs, as well as the events in life that previously brought pleasure. This decrease compels the addicted person to keep abusing drugs in an attempt to bring the dopamine function back to normal, except now larger amounts of the drug are required to achieve the same dopamine high—an effect known as tolerance.

In my case, not only have I reveled in eighty-two concerts (!) of the greatest music ever written by the best artists in the world--over sixty days without a break-- I've denied myself nothing: I've been enjoying rare wines, all the food from Partridges I could possibly want and decadent desserts of my own creation; endless nights of ecstatic poetry with an overheated imagination run riot...cerebral excess at its finest.

However, I've been very mindful of not going completely off the rails by making sure I get plenty of exercise and popping vitamins like they were candy. Despite taking massive daily doses of a vitamin B-complex, toward the end, I was still noticing the tell-tale signs of stress-related B12 depletion: a twitchy eyelid and cracked corners of the mouth. Agh! I was so amped on adrenaline, my adrenal glands were using up the B vitamins faster than I could put them in. Thanks to more vitamin therapy in the last two days, my symptoms are completely gone and I'm still feeling positive. There's so much to do here, and I was lucky enough to get enough creative inspiration to keep me productive the rest of the year.

Now I'm concentrating on getting my whole system back into balance by detoxing with a good dose of clean living: no alcohol or sugar, daily exercise, and a stiff round of vitamin therapy. Ask your doctor about supplements, but here's a passage from a journal article:

Nutrients commonly used in current treatment programs include niacin/niacinamide; B Complex vitamins especially B1, B5 and B6; antioxidants such as vitamin C and vitamin E; calcium and magnesium. Each of these facilitate a large number of metabolic processes and their deficiencies can be associated with mental disturbances. Some programs support nervous system restoration by including amino acids as neurotransmitter precursors and essential fatty acids.

You can get almost everything you need at Boots...in addition to their comprehensive multivitamin, their "immune defense" and "rehydration treatment" mineral sachets are particularly convenient. And niacin in particular kills adrenaline and is useful for treating depression and anxiety:

Niacin is known as a natural tranquilizer. In a study on rats, niacin had similar effects to valium on the turnover of serotonin, noradrenalin, dopamine, and GABA in the areas of the brain that are thought to be affected by anxiety—without being addictive. Some experts go so far as to call niacin "Nature's Valium." Niacin also helps decrease excess lactic acid levels and episodes of low blood sugar/hypoglycemia (from adrenal fatigue).

The textbook description of anxiety neurosis exactly matches the symptoms of vitamin B3 (niacin) deficiency: hyperactivity, depression, fatigue, apprehension, headache, and insomnia. It has been shown in animals to work in the brain in ways similar to drugs such as benzodiazepines (Valium-type drugs) that are used to treat anxiety. One study found that niacinamide (not niacin) could help people get through withdrawal from benzodiazepines, which is a common problem. A reasonable amount of niacinamide to take for anxiety, according to some doctors, is up to 100mg four times per day.

Niacinamide locks onto the same receptor sites in the brain as do tranquilizers such as Valium, and is a natural tranquilizer. The manufacturer of valium is also the worlds largest manufacturer of niacinamide.
[Nature 278: pp.563-5,1979]

Just had another 200mg this morning, and am feeling quite well. I have a friend taking care of my cat-- and it was nice to see she'd stocked my pantry with lots of organic health food and two fresh bottles of liquid chlorophyll and flax seed oil waiting for me in my cupboard. One extreme to the other, perhaps, but it's so nice to be home.

Let me know how it goes for you and if any of this helps...hang in there!