Upside Down World, DogGod it!

Today's New York Times has two interesting articles, one on top of another.
"Recession Anxiety Seeps Into Everyday Lives" describes the psychological and physiological effect of the negative outlook. "Hubbard has not lost her job, house or savings, and she and her husband have always been conservative with money. But a few months ago, Ms. Hubbard, a graphic designer in Cambridge, Mass., began having panic attacks over the economy, struggling to breathe and seeing vivid visions of “losing everything,” she said. She “could not stop reading every single economic report,” was so “sick to my stomach I lost 12 pounds” and “was unable to function,” said Ms. Hubbard, 52, who began, for the first time, taking psychiatric medication and getting therapy.In Miami, Victoria Villalba, 44, routinely slept eight hours a night until stories of desperate clients flooding the employment service she runs began jolting her awake at 2 a.m. No longer sleepy, she first began to respond to e-mail, but that caused sleeping colleagues’ BlackBerries to wake them, so now she studies business books and meticulously organizes her closets.“I’m embarrassed,” she said. “Normal people aren’t doing this.”With economic damage expected to last months or years, such reactions are becoming common, experts say. Anxiety, depression and stress are troubling people everywhere, many not suffering significant economic losses, but worrying they will or simply reacting to pervasive uncertainty.Some are seeking counseling or medication for the first time. Others are resuming or increasing treatment, or redirecting therapy for other issues onto economic anxiety.“The economy and fear of what’s going to happen is having a huge effect,” said Sarah Bullard Steck, a Washington therapist who also directs the employee assistance program at the Commerce Department. “People are coming in more” with “severe anxiety” or “more marital strife, some domestic violence, some substance abuse.”Alan A. Axelson, a Pittsburgh psychiatrist, said he was seeing first-time patients and infrequent ones experiencing “relapse and needing more therapy and medication” even though, he said, “Pittsburgh’s actually doing pretty good economically.”

"Bonding With Their Downward-Facing Humans" describes Doga. Kristyn Caliendo does forward-bends with a Jack Russell terrier draped around her neck. In Manhattan, Grace Yang strikes a warrior pose while balancing a Shih Tzu on her thigh. And in Seattle, Chantale Stiller-Anderson practices an asana that requires side-stretching across a 52-pound vizsla.Call it a yogic twist: Downward-facing dog is no longer just for humans.Ludicrous? Possibly. Grist for anyone who thinks that dog-owners have taken yoga too far? Perhaps. But nationwide, classes of doga — yoga with dogs, as it is called — are increasing in number and popularity. Since Ms. Caliendo, a certified yoga instructor in Chicago, began to teach doga less than one year ago, her classes have doubled in size.Not everyone in the yoga community is comfortable with this.“Doga runs the risk of trivializing yoga by turning a 2,500-year-old practice into a fad,” said Julie Lawrence, 60, a yoga instructor and studio owner in Portland, Ore. “To live in harmony with all beings, including dogs, is a truly yogic principle. But yoga class may not be the most appropriate way to express this.”