Sunday, May 9, 2010 A Mother's Love  There are mothers who will spend today missing sons and daughters fighting overseas. There are women who have lost children in those wars, for whom Mother's Day will never be the same. And then there is Eva Briseno. Joesph Briseno Jr., Eva's 27-year-old son, is one of the most severely wounded soldiers ever to survive. A bullet to the back of his head in Baghdad marketplace in 2003 left him paralyzed, brain-damaged and blind, but awake and aware of his condition. Instead of putting Jay in a nursing home, Eva, a small, doe-eyed woman of 100 pounds, spends her days brushing his teeth, suctioning fluid from his lungs, and turning him every other hour to prevent bedsores. What keeps her going? Love and hope for a cure. "I do believe in miracles," Eva says. And Jay's father has a plan: forming his own home health care agency to supply nurses for Jay and other wounded veterans. Read More >>
back to top  Saturday, May 8, 2010 Join the Laughter Club  In one of the world's most challenging economies, two women are setting up laughter clubs to help people cope with the strains of daily life. Last year, a unity government halted the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy - which left the Zimbabwe dollar almost worthless - by allowing the use of foreign currency. How does one respond to such hardship? "You've got to laugh more," says one man at a recent workshop, "especially in our situation in Zimbabwe." Encouraging people to make funny faces and lie on the floor and kick their legs in the air, workshop leaders Shilpa Shah and Celina Stockhill teach the emotional, physical, and mental benefits of laughter. "We release stress by laughing, we activate our lymphatic system and it's a very strong cardio workout," Stockhill explains. "So it's peace to the world, laughter to Zimbabwe, so let's share the happiness and spread the happy-demic," Shah says with a smile. Read More >>
back to top Friday, May 7, 2010 'Green' Exercise Boosts Mental Health  Ever feel happier when you enter a park or nature setting? Just five minutes of exercise in a 'green space' such as a park can boost mental health, researchers say. In the latest analysis, UK researchers looked at evidence from 1,250 people in 10 studies and found fast improvements in mood and self-esteem. Study leader Jules Pretty of Essex University suggests, "Employers, for example, could encourage staff in stressful workplaces to take a short walk at lunchtime in the nearest park to improve mental health." Paul Farmer, chief executive of mental health charity Mind, also points out that green exercise could can provide low-cost and drug-free therapy to improve mental well-being. "We would like to see all doctors considering exercise as a treatment where appropriate." Read More >>
back to top Thursday, May 6, 2010 Grannies for Social Change  On May 7th and 8th, five hundred grandmothers from across sub-Saharan Africa will gather in Swaziland. The purpose? To raise awareness of the AIDS epidemic sweeping their continent. Currently, these grandmothers are caring for scores of grandchildren who have been orphaned by AIDS. At this first International Grandmother's Gathering in Africa, they hope to take steps towards creating a hopeful future for their families. Read More >>
back to top Wednesday, May 5, 2010 20 Ways to Travel  Imagine a hostel in which revelers tip-toe silently through the dorms, cups of tea appear beside your bed while you're in the shower, and your bill has already been paid when you go to check out! A figment of my imagination? Not necessarily. Inspired by Danny Wallace's book "Random Acts of Kindness: 365 Ways to Make the World a Nicer Place," Natasha Young offers 20 tips to change the world as you travel. Simple acts, like offering to watch a stranger's bags while she buys her bus ticket, or brewing up a cuppa joe for the hostel reception staff, can add an extra spark to your day and the world around you. Read More >>
back to top Tuesday, May 4, 2010 Meet the Neighbors  In an age of discount air travel, cheap long distance, and the internet, when we can create community anywhere, why is it that we often don't know the people who live next door? From porch parties in Columbus, Ohio, to community gardening projects in Albany, NY, people across the U.S. are finding creative ways to break down our physical and mental barriers of isolation. Dennis Maxwell of Oregon gives each new neighbor a homemade neighborhood map, complete with family names, children, pets, and telephone numbers. "Now we exchange child care, take care of mail and newspapers, and water plants during vacations," Maxwell says. In the U.S. today, more than 30 million people live alone. By not knowing our neighbors, we lose a crucial safety net for our material and psychological well-being. As a woman from Jackson, Mississippi wrote: "If we all cared about our neighbors, we could change the world one street at a time." Read More >>
back to top Monday, May 3, 2010 Food for Thought... in a Jar?  When I worked in a busy office, most of my co-workers kept jars of candy on their desks to enjoy and share with others. Constantly battling the "bulge," I hated these temptations, but nevertheless often gave in to them. Finally, I decided to put out a jar of my own "feel good" stuff, with no calories. I bought a beautiful jar and spent one whole weekend at home cutting up colorful strips of paper and writing inspiring quotes on them. I filled the jar with quotes and placed it on my desk for people to help themselves to. It took a while to catch on, but soon, everyone was stopping by for my "food for thought" jar to fill up on something much better than empty calories! Read More >>
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Long after bulldozers have been silenced and rescue workers have retired to their tents, the only sound in earthquake-battered city Jiegu, China, is the barking of dogs that have lost their homes and owners. As the smoke from a thousand campfires filled the air early one morning, solitary figures shuffled through darkness, heading nowhere in particular. Some, like Tsai Ba Mao, 63, went to a tent off the city's main square, where Buddhist monks created a makeshift temple. The Chinese government has undertaken an aggressive relief effort, but just as striking is the highly visible operation of Buddhist monks, thousands of whom traveled far from Tibetan areas of China. They distribute packaged biscuits, tend huge barley vats and dig for bodies. Like their makeshift prayer tent, much of that help has been uncoordinated, and for the moment, tolerated by a government suspicious of grassroots organizing - and organized religion. [ 
In the wake of a hurricane, Beverly Jordan goes door to door, delivering emergency relief. At one dilapidated house, the young owners respond to Jordan's arrival by offering a bag of diapers and five bags of food for her to pass on to others in need. In his senior year of college, Peter Strupp finds himself penniless, seeking refuge in soup kitchens, and unable to afford his rent. The night before he plans to tell his housemates of his departure, one housemates stops him alone in the kitchen and hands him a check for the next month's rent. Before Strupp can respond, his housemate blurts, "Don't pay me back." Acts of kindness and generosity come in different forms, and have many unseen, long-lasting ripples. These encounters with good deeds are gems that color our lifetimes, as well as our legacies. [ 
If sleep has plunged to the bottom of your to-do list, you're not alone. Although the National Sleep Foundation recommends getting seven to nine hours of sleep a night, the average American logs only 6 hours and 40 minutes. But before turning to over-the-counter medications, Karen Asp recommends eight natural remedies that can soothe anxieties and help you get a good night's sleep. She introduces unorthodox remedies like wild lettuce, which is known to calm restlessness and reduce anxiety, or L-theanine, an amino acid that boosts daytime alertness and deeper nighttime sleep, to help in catching those zzz's. Other remedies include melatonin, aromatherapy, yoga or meditation, and valarian. [ 
The day Mary Cook's fiance fell to his death, it started to snow. "It snowed almost every day for the next four months, while I sat on the couch and watched it pile up," she reflects. When friends and community members insisted on helping her, Cook finds herself struck with feelings of guilt, pride, and helplessness. "One morning, I shuffled downstairs and was startled to see a snowplow clearing my driveway and the bent back of a woman shoveling my walk. I dropped to my knees and crawled through the living room and back upstairs so those good Samaritans would not see me. I was mortified. My first thought was: How will I ever repay them?" Through surrendering, to both her grief and the kindness of others, Cook shares how she learned to receive, recover, and give- with grace and humility. [ 
"I walked into this little painting gallery and nobody was there, just a room full of paintings- not paintings that I found very interesting, but I was killing time." So beings an unlikely adventure in which Richard Whittaker learns about a 97-year-old painter still at work and giving watercolor workshops even though he was blind. Literally a few hours after setting foot in Claremont Fine Arts, Whittaker finds himself ringing the doorbell of painter Milford Zornes in order to conduct an interview. Here's one quote from that interview: "In my case, I don't have any religion. I don't trust politics. I don't trust anything, except my painting. It seems like my whole life - the whole outside world is confusion - and the only way I have of bringing order into my life and my thinking is by organizing a picture. I'm well enough acquainted with human nature to realize that even honest people can't always afford to tell the truth. The truth in your painting is the only thing you have." [ 
What is our purpose? Who are we? What constitutes a life worthy of being remembered? From anecdotes of a man helping a stranger in a store to the science-based idea that positive thinking fuels meaningful lives, best-selling author Amy Krouse Rosenthal strings together a memorable answer in this 4-minute thought bubble. [ 
