Health and wellbeing

Living simply is about living naturally — living in harmony with nature, protecting nature, remembering we’re part of nature. And so, as we struggle to stay healthy during the winter, it’s helpful to see how natural approaches can help.
Let me mention a a few natural remedies — beyond washing our hands and covering our mouths.
Let’s start with water. Use salt water in a netti pot to irrigate your nasal membranes and use salt water to gargle. Every night. Next, keep your self hydrated! Drink lots of water and humidify your air. We always have a humidifier running, and of course you can simmer water on the stove. Keep your heat low to avoid drying out! (And save energy for Nature’s sake.)
Next, stay home when you’re sick! I shouldn’t have to say this, but we need to keep saying it until it becomes a cultural mandate. You’d think that employers would see that liberal sick leave policies would boost productivity with fewer absentees and healthier workers. Unfortunately we’re one of the few countries that doesn’t have a national policy giving people sick leave.
The sick leave issue illustrates a major problem: many of the health issues require more than individual behavior change. They demand enlightened national policies. ( See http://www.timeday.org) For instance, getting enough sleep is crucial to your health, but our long work hours make that difficult. And naps! There’s lots of research showing that naps are good for you, but who can take a nap at work? But do what you can. Maybe at lunch hour go out to your car and put the seat back for a few minutes.
Health requires even deeper changes, though. These are explored in a new book by Don Beuttner called Thrive, (author of The Blue Zones). Buettner did a study for National Geographic on the secrets of people around the world who live long lives. He explores four categories: move naturally, eat wisely, right attitude, and connect.
Move naturally. For me, there’s nothing like walking! There are so many benefits — it’s good exercise, good for the planet (you’ll drive less); it costs nothing, and it can build community as you chat with friends and neighbors. And maybe most important of all, it gives us time to reflect, to make conscious choices instead of being manipulated by social pressure or marketing.
Eat wisely. This is huge! (Pardon the pun — a third of American adults are considered obese.) There are really five words that are important here: Eat more fruits and vegetables! (A juicer makes a nice Christmas gift. Juicing is an easy way to consume more fruits and vegetables.) Another idea I’ve heard a lot about lately is the “80% rule:” Quit eating before you’re full. This is practiced by most of the long lived populations.
Again, eating wisely is not just about individual choice. Corporations add chemicals to our food; are cruel to the animals they raise for food, and genetically modify our plants — among other abuses. We need national policies to protect us, but in the mean time, go to our wonderful farmers markets and eat organic!
Of course we must move away from highly processed food and cook more for ourselves. Obviously time for healthy eating is also linked to the issue of work hours: Long work days makes cooking dinner more difficult. Still, you can bring out the old crock pot and cook up something on the weekend to eat during the week!
Connect and Right Attitude: There is one thing that is more important than anything else — building social ties. So get together with friends for an evening of conversation and laughter, giving you both a right attitude and connection! Of course the biggest predictor for the health of a nation is the wealth gap, and our health continues to decline as our gap widens. Here’s where you need to get politically involved. .
Natural health is really an exciting topic. Educate yourself on approaches to natural medicine like homeopathy, osteopathy, or acupuncture. Seattle is lucky to have Bastyr University, a school that not only trains practitioners, but has a clinic and pharmacy. There’s a great supply of both products and information at the Puget Consumer Coop. Finally, subscribe to magazines like YES that will help you continue to explore how we can build a culture that cares about the health and well being of both people and the planet.
Cecile Andrews is the author of Less is More, Slow is Beautiful, and Circle of Simplicity

The New Loneliness

Feeling depressed? A little down? Feel like you need a prescription for an antidepressant? You may actually be lonely. NO, not lonely! Not that! It seems that Americans have difficulty even recognizing loneliness, let alone accepting it as a problem. It’s just not in our world view. We think we’re depressed and that consuming a pill will cure us, but in fact, we may just need more time with people.
Loneliness is increasing. An AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) study found that of people ages 45 and up, 35% are chronically lonely. That’s compared with 20% ten years ago. And surprisingly, it’s people in their 40’s and 50’s who are suffering the most. 43% of adults 45-49 are lonely, 41% or those 50-59; 32% of 60-69, and 25% of those 70 and older. Our number of friends has been on the decline. In 2004 a quarter of the population had no one they could confide in or turn to in a crisis. (In 1985 it was 10%)
But, you might think, so what? There are lots of worse problems —like war and poverty. (Could even they be linked to loneliness? Maybe in a lonely society we lose our ability to care about others, contributing to war and poverty.) But loneliness isn’t just unpleasant — it’s one of the biggest predictors for health, happiness, and longevity. Studies have found that loneliness even increases the chances of things like diabetes and sleep disorders and Alzheimer’s.
Lately there’s been a rise in depression and anxiety in young people, and loneliness may be playing a role. Some think it’s because kids are forced to pay so much attention to achievement and success instead of social ties. In highly competitive places like Palo Alto, California, teen suicides are up. In like manner, some argue that children’s depression is a result of declining free play. Kids don’t get to spend their days riding their bikes around town with their friends or playing hide-and-go-seek as so many of us did.
Part of the cause of our loneliness is that work hours have increased and we’re exhausted. (Probably why the people in their 40s and 50s are the loneliest — with both careers and families they have no time at all.) But ultimately our loneliness comes from a competitive, cutthroat culture. It feels like we just don’t care for each other anymore. There’s been so much ugliness this election — something people care about, as Jon Stewart demonstrated with his Rally for Sanity. And we’re all pitted against each other because there are so few jobs. Unless we begin to have some regulations on corporations things won’t change. We’ve got to put the well being of people and the planet over the chance for a few to make egregious sums of money.
In fact, studies have found that our longevity is linked to wealth inequality, and the gap between the rich and the rest of us just keeps growing. A recent study found that our life expectancy has dropped to 49th, whereas in 1999 we were 24th. (We were number one in the Fifties when our wealth gap was small.) Our greedy culture breeds the loneliness that shortens our lives.
We must find ways to develop a society that encourages social ties! And actually, there is a lot happening. For instance, the “live local “ movement that advocates strong, sustainable neighborhoods. We’re lucky in Seattle because we have been leaders in the sustainable neighborhood movement with dozens of neighborhood organizations like Sustainable Wallingford, Sustainable Ballard, Sustainable Greenwood Phinney. We’re all involved in a network called SCALLOPS: Sustainable Communities All Over Puget Sound (http://scallops.ning.com/). We’re also a part of a related movement —the Transition Town movement, also strong in Seattle ( http://transitionseattle.com/). And of course, check out the activities at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, a leader in neighborhood community.
The great thing about the problem of loneliness is that it’s something you can take action on immediately. It’s hard to change the workplace or get city hall to respond, but you can take a walk in your neighborhood right now! Say hello! Stop and chat! Your spirits will rise immediately! And you’ll be helping to create a new culture in which we learn to care about each other, one in which we understand that “we’re all in this together,” a culture that puts caring first.

happiness

An incredible little video on happiness:

http://www.theworldinstituteofslowness.com/page4/page4.html

substantive conversations

Some new research has found that people who have substantive conversations are happier. It always seems strange to need research for something like this, something that we should know anyway, but it's nice that someone is seeing the significance of conversation with depth. Lately I've been leading group discussions after a film series we've had and when people get in small groups to talk about the films, they love it. You can just feel the energy go up in the room.

We need to find ways to do this more. In response to the new "Coffee Party" I'd like to have a decaf coffee party to bring people together to talk about ways to take back our time and live more slowly. Apparently some people on the right have decided to have a decaf party to make fun of the coffee party, but that doesn't have to stop us. This is something the Take Back Your Time campaign can do for our Oct 24th day of observance.