Not quite a native Ripley Countian - she attended only her last year of high school in Doniphan though she taught in the R-1 system for 32 years - Teresa (Pearson) Lee delights in surprising readers and herself with anecdotal observations of life in general. Maybe you can blame her St.Louis roots for a quirky humor and some slightly-askewed opinions, but never doubt she writes from the heart.

Zoning Out

Posted Friday, January 27, 2023, at 9:24 AM

Who among us is not aware of zones? Many (well, those older than Gen Z’ers) might have first noticed them as they studied to acquire a driver’s license after that milestone 16th birthday. Speed zones are stressed. Work zones and school zones slow us down, too, we hope.

We deal with time zones during travel, television viewing and when daylight saving changes occur. Climate zones are getting tons of attention these days since weather patterns are shifting. Real estate agents become familiar with land use zones: commercial, agricultural, industrial and residential.

Then there are friend zones, attributed to writers of a character in the 1990’s sit-com Friends. That zone is not so funny to the one sent there, but one can’t always win in the game of love.

The zone most curious to me is the comfort zone. The phrase was coined later - by whom the jury is still out on - but the general consensus is that the concept of this state of being was introduced in a psychological experiment by Robert Yerkes and John Dodson way back in 1908.

Yerkes and Dodson proposed that a steady performance was the result of being in a state of relative comfort. But, to add the ‘wow’ factor and push performance limits, we know we need some stress to leave the comfort zone and enter the place where creators and inventors go.

Is that being IN the zone? When one is concentrating so much on a task to be oblivious to distractions around them? (Like a 10 year-old playing Mario on the Nintendo and not hearing Mom?!)

The knack to creating just enough anxiety to enhance performance rather than too much, which stymies it, can be tricky to acquire. Overloading - whatever the source - can create the need to zone OUT, to numb the senses to distractions. AHA! The real knack would be appearing to be in the zone while zoning out.

Deadlines and word counts can push me just over the edge of acceptable stress, thus lowering productivity. It's time to zone out. “The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross” will get me there.

For the Jan. 18, 2023 issue of the PN