Let’s focus.  I know, multi-tasking is appealing because the duties of life grow heavy.  But I have come to a place and time where l simply feel like I need to simply be.  While I’m being, I call that “focus.” Some people call it “prayer” or “meditation” or “watching basketball.”

Maren Schmidt calls it deep spontaneous concentration. 

Ms. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland. She has over twenty-five years experience working with children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. Contact her at maren@kidstalknews.com or visit www.KidsTalkNews.com

Today, in NWANews, Ms. Schmidt continued her series on childhood-development issues and applied this week’s topic to both adults and kids…kids of all ages, perhaps?    Let’s come to an intense self-generated ability to focus attention, which is the main point of the article.  In part:

My childhood environment made it easy to develop deep self-generated concentration. I was given quiet, uninterrupted time, and the objects in my environment were appropriate. The adults in my environment – my parents and grandparents – created structure by keeping regular meal times, snack times and bed times. This protected my time and attention needed to develop concentration.

Importantly, according to the article, there is a consequence associated with neglecting appropriate concentration.  When these opportunities are not available to a child (and to adults, also) frustration builds. Reactions to not being involved with interesting activities because of environmental and time constraints fall within the spectrum of anger on one end and apathy on the other.

I appreciated reading this article, I am glad I concentrated on reading it.  I even printed it out so l could read it later when l am afk (away from keyboard.)  I hope to put more attention into it and carry out what l learned into my home environment.

Still trying into the hour spring forward? So are environmental researchers! Traditionally, daylight saving has been seen as a positive switch for the environment because of the decreased need for artificial lighting, which, with small appliances, accounts for 25% of United States’. In fact, the installation of daylight savings has always been for energy saving reasons (although not always environmental). According to the California Energy Commission, 1% of California is saved by each day daylight savings. New research that took place in Indiana indicates, however, that energy use increases just after daylight savings. Lara Grant and Matthew Kotchen, researchers at the University of California in Santa Barbara, conclude that electricity consumption increase 1 to 4 percent as a result of Daylight Savings Time.

According to the dates of DST practice prior to 2007, we estimate a cost to Indiana households of $8.6 million per year in increased electricity bills. Estimates of the social costs due to increased pollution emissions range from $1.6 to $5.3 million per year. (Does Daylight Savings Time Save Energy?)

While Americans might be leaving their lights off for longer, they seem to be turning their air conditioning in the Spring and heaters on the Fall. Remember to change your thermostats daily – turn it off when you leave for work and school and lower it when you get into bed.

The world’s most popular blogging anesthesiologist and healthy cat owner Dr. Joseph Stirt of Charlottesville, Virginia, posted the question today: Do you have depression — or Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)?

I’d have to agree that it is an important question and an important distinction. The major point of the entry made at bookofjoe.com is no one with SAD has to wait for spring and summer to feel better. Bright light in the early morning is a powerful, fast and effective treatment for seasonal depression. The effects of light therapy are fast, usually four to seven days, compared with antidepressants, which can take four to six weeks to work. This great news was first published by Dr. Richard A. Friedman on December 18, 2007 in the New York Times article about seasonal depression.

Differential diagnosis and an active, appropriate therapy seem to be the best way to combat the debilitating effects that lack of light can bring… if you can’t take a sunny, tropical vacation, that is.

P.s. I hope that John Denver youtube video also shed some light on the subject!

Fashion Week in New York began with the Earth Pledge Creates Future Fashion Show, which included a hemp-based pant suit by Calvin Klein, a dress made of recycled cashmere by Michael Kors, and a Donatella Verace hemp-silk gown. Earth Pledge, a non-profit organization, which originally began as a United Nations committee and promotes sustainablity, produced the Future Fashion event.

So why is there a need for ‘green’ clothing? PBDE (flame retardants), synthetc dyes and fibers are one concern, due to the pollution caused by textile manufacturing. Even when cotton, wool, silk, or cashmere are used (all essentially natural fibers), they are often gathered using processes that harm the environment along the way, and then have to be transported all over the world for refinement and clothes production, and I’m not the only one who thinks this is a big deal. According to the Organic Trade Association, sales for organic fiber linens and clothing climbed to 203 million in 2006, up nearly 27% from 2005.”

I’ve told ya’ll before to ‘look at the labels’, so here’s a list of what to look for on clothing tags:

• bamboo fibers (aka sasawashi) – bamboo grows back quickly and few additives are needed to make it into yarn and cloth
• modal - made of beech trees’s celluose, often a rougher material and useful for bedding and towels
• ingeo – trademarked process of fermenting corn sugar to create a biopolymer
• tencel – aka lyocell, also from vegetable cellulose; often softer than rayon and used in clothes and blends
• hemp – tried and true, creates a sustainable and durable fiber, has become softer over the years
• soy – cloth from soy is often silky and very durable (triple the strength of wool)
• peace silk - allows the silk to be harvested without any harm to the silk worm
• abaca fiber – made out of the leaves of the abaca plant, which is native to the Phillipines

You can find eco chic clothing at various prices and stores. More traditionally, Patagonia, Nike and Timberland have environmentally friendly clothing in stock, but organic and sustainable clothing can also be found at Edun, Loomstate, Banana Republic, Gap, Old Navy, Wal-Mart, Target, Nordstrom, Levi Strauss & Co, H&M and Barneys New York.

With all of the variety in style and price, you have no excuse! Make your next textile purchase a sustainable one. And for good measure – take the bus or shop with a friend!

…or, says Tal Ben-shahar who teaches the world to focus on the good, “Positive emotions are key elements in the development of a resilient psychological immune system based on optimism and self esteem.”

“Attaining lasting happiness requires that we enjoy the journey on our way toward a destination we deem valuable. Happiness, therefore, is not about making it to the peak of the mountain, nor is it about climbing aimlessly around the mountain: happiness is the experience of climbing toward the peak”

Tal Ben-Shahar is an author and lecturer at Harvard University. He taught the most popular course at Harvard on “Positive Psychology” and the university’s third most popular course on “The Psychology of Leadership”—with a total of more than 1,400 students.

Ben-Shahar consults and lectures around the world to executives in multi-national corporations, the general public, and at-risk populations.

Six tips to help YOU get happy:
Advice from Tal Ben-Shahar.

1. Give yourself permission to be human. When we accept emotions — such as fear, sadness, or anxiety — as natural, we are more likely to overcome them. Rejecting our emotions, positive or negative, leads to frustration and unhappiness.

2. Happiness lies at the intersection between pleasure and meaning. Whether at work or at home, the goal is to engage in activities that are both personally significant and enjoyable. When this is not feasible, make sure you have happiness boosters, moments throughout the week that provide you with both pleasure and meaning.

3. Keep in mind that happiness is mostly dependent on our state of mind, not on our status or the state of our bank account. Barring extreme circumstances, our level of well being is determined by what we choose to focus on (the full or the empty part of the glass) and by our interpretation of external events. For example, do we view failure as catastrophic, or do we see it as a learning opportunity?

4. Simplify! We are, generally, too busy, trying to squeeze in more and more activities into less and less time. Quantity influences quality, and we compromise on our happiness by trying to do too much.

5. Remember the mind-body connection. What we do — or don’t do — with our bodies influences our mind. Regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits lead to both physical and mental health.

6. Express gratitude, whenever possible. We too often take our lives for granted. Learn to appreciate and savor the wonderful things in life, from people to food, from nature to a smile.

Faith the Dog was found in the backyard of a flea market area on January 21, 2003.  She was born with severe birth defects in front legs, making her unable to walk on either of them.  Neighbors took her in and taught her to walk and run on just two legs.  Her feat is so inpsiring, that she and her human family have been all over the world, on the internet, and on TV.  You can see her on Oprah, read about her in Animal Wellness Magazine, read books by her owner (Faith Alone: Stories of an Amazing Dog and With a Little Faith) and even meet her in “person.”

 The American Institue of Architects’ (AIA) Committee on the Environment holds a contest for the year’s Top Ten Green Projects.  You can see details of the last several years winners at their website.  This picture above is of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Global Ecology Center
(Global Ecology Research Center), a winner for the 2007 competition.  Some of its environmental aspects included reductions in carbon emissions during the building process and the with the materials used, as well as a focus in water use efficiency, and innovative ventilation and lighting systems throughout the building. If you or a freind have a green project you’d like to enter, there’s still time!  The deadline is February 14th.

I pity those who “hate” reading. I really do. Life is absolutely nothing without the gift of literature. And, like I said before, books are a gateway drug to knowledge. When one is engaged in a book, (that means reading) one may feel inthe book. What I mean is, actually thinking through the characters eyes and sparking one’s imagination.

So who needs TV? Ok, there is the Lord of the Rings Trilogy that started out as books, evolved into classics, and then they filled up the big screen. Cinema and TV are totally different. Ok, then there is Masterpiece Theater and anything else by station WGBH. These are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Remember when the internet first was getting popular, some urban legend got started that it was going to replace all books and any or all printed material? Actually, the opposite is true, that people just would rather find what they need online, then PRINT IT OUT to read, AFK (away from keyboard.) Result: there are more books than ever. P.s. Don’t forget the books about how to use the information technology effectively!

What are you reading? I’m working on the Bartemaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud for my fiction selections, and for non-fiction I am getting a jump start on spring by reading a library copy of The Victory Garden Landscape Guide.

Finally, speaking of library, let’s go!

In a recent study, scientist Jiango “Jack” Liu found a correlation between increased divorce rates and energy consumption.  As he was studying a panda population in a specific region in China, he noticed that while the region’s human population didn’t change, there was an increasein the number of households.  He found that divorced people are leading ‘resource inefficient lifestyles.’  The idea is that when a couple splits, they stop sharing their energy consumption.  Instead of heating one house, they heat two.  Instead of cooking a lot of pasta in one pot on one burner, they cook a small amount on two different stoves. 

Liu worked with Michigan State University and found the the folllowing findings:

“In the United States in 2005, 38.5 million rooms would have been unnecessary (along with heating and lighting costs) if divorced households combined to become the same size as married households.Also in the United States in 2005, divorced households used 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 billion gallons of water that could have been saved if the divorced households had remained the same size as married households. ”

So what should you do if you are divorced and want to have a smaller eco footprint? Consider moving in with a friend.  Actually, make that another divorced friend.  You could also consider living in a coop, getting remarried, or living in an apartment.  Apartments insulate one another and tend not to use up as much land. 

Listen to “Divorce, An Environmental Hazard?” at NPR.com.

There is no such thing as stress. Was that a stressful statement? No; because stress does not exist. But millions of people suffer from it. How can so many people suffer over something that isn’t real?

To tell you the truth, I have absolutely no idea. But, I don’t suffer from stress. Why? Because I really don’t believe in it. Its neither healthy nor helpful nor does it get things done.

Think about it. When you’re stressed, what happens? Let me answer that for you…nothing. Nothing happens. And that’s why the whole world is stressed out. Its a never ending circle of hate. You’re stressed because nothings getting done and nothings getting done because you’re stressed. That is how our economy works. Doesn’t that just suck?

Well, it doesn’t have to. Because this whole circle could be stopped by one person. You. All you have to do is relax. Sit down, take a deep breath, step out from the stress and welcome in a new sense perspective. Hey, if I did it, then you probably can too.