How Do You Lift Your Spirits?

Elizabeth Alexander

PhD, inaugural poet, essayist, and Yale professor

"It always works to take a walk when I am blue. Letting pace and breath govern the fretful body calms the mind and rinses it of worry—the endorphins take the edge off anxiety. There is no walk that has not left me better able to face even the gravest of woes. And to be a small creature among trees, sidewalks, trucks, oceans, mountains—wherever the walk takes place—puts problems in proper perspective."