Yes, my girlfriends, it is the most wonderful time of the
year. What time you ask? It’s Fashion Week season. Yes, my girlfriends every
diva must have her holiday and this one, of course is mine- all 28 days of it.
The week before last of course was NYC fashion week with it’s
allure and its glamour. I sat glued to my computer from the safety of my office
for daily updates of the shows. Between patients I scanned STYLE.COM for
updates. Between samples of antihypertensives I sampled Marc Jacobs and Maria
Cornejo and Proenza Schouler.
However, I must admit that I am more of a fan of European
fashion than of the North American designers. And so I took it into high gear last
week as London Fashion Week began. There I was on call at the hospital writing orders
for everything from Morphine to
Maxeran soothing my soul with live feeds from some of my favourite designers
show. From Mary Katrantzou to Temperley London to Jonathan Saunders I relished
in the magical. There I was among sadness and sickness but somehow the
desolation fell away.
This past weekend I found myself at the National Obesity
Conference in San Antonio Texas. Between talks of Ghrelin and Leptin and Sugar
Sweetened beverage taxes I had one eye on Milan eager to see what my girl
Miuccia Prada would have in store for the coming season.
Let me be clear my sisters- I love my job. I love the daily
grind of it all- the patients and the problems. I do not want my girlfriends to
go away thinking that I only work for shoes. My work is a huge part of my life.
But I have learned over the years that a well balanced life really is the best
way to go.
And so amidst the medicine and the mayhem, the conferences
and the concerns my escape has been the runways the world over. I love the pomp
and the circumstance. Checking the schedules of the various fashion shows and
then following along when a time
change will allow.
The European shows offer a specific time zone challenge. For
example Milan is 8 hours ahead of Vancouver. Imagine my surprise waking up every
morning to the Likes of Fendi and Dolce and Gabbanna being presented at 4 am
the night before and there it is in my inbox just like Christmas morning!
It turns out that my fascination with fashion may actually be
beneficial.
In a paper
published in 2007, researchers at the UK's Brunel University noted that
shopping is associated with increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex, a
part of the brain that has been linked to pleasure and positive thinking. In
fact, levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter released during pleasurable
experiences including sex, can rise sharply even when you're merely window
shopping.
Could it be that my
obsession with STYLE.Com is helping my neurotransmitters. With Paris fashion
week coming this week could my Dopamine levels indeed benefit from another
boost??
In another study,
published in the journal Neuron, researchers at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and
Stanford strapped volunteers to an MRI machine and showed them photos of
products. When shoppers saw something they wanted to buy, a flood of dopamine
to the nucleus accumbens--the brain's reward center--lit up their MRI images
like a dashboard.
And it's not only
about pleasure. Shopping may also help women maintain their mental acuity in
old age, says Guy McKhann, M.D., a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University
and a co-author of Keep Your Brain Young. "People who are doing really
well as they get older tend to be mentally engaged, physically active, and
socially involved," he says. "And women are all of those things when
they shop."
Who new my love of
fashion would help me train for my mature years.
Studies show that
picturing several different outfits engages the brain and the prefrontal cortex
which are all important activities as we age. In fact as we plan out our
outfits in our head functional MRI studies have shown that the prefrontal
cortex of the brain – the area which controls goal oriented behaviour goes into
action.
Could it be that my
medical breaks spent in the land of Lagerfeld indeed were an added work out for
my neurons beyond the medical lessons learned?
On that note, I bid
thanks to the gods of fashion for their dopamine and a glimpse of the Spring
2013 lines. If my sisters will excuse me- I’ve got some neurotransmitters that
need to be let loose- Paris fashion week begins in the morning.