Sunday, May 16, 2010 The Mother's Cure  It's a situation every mother has been through: Your child is stressed out or upset, but she's at school or summer camp--too far away to give her a hug. That doesn't mean she can't be comforted, though. According to a new study, talking on the phone with Mom is nearly as good as getting a hug for helping stressed kids calm down. At least for young girls, talking on the phone with their mothers reduces a key stress hormone and oxytocin, a feel-good brain chemical that is believed to play a central role in forming bonds, the study found. "The idea was that picking up the phone and calling someone would be like giving them a hug," Pollak says. Now, it looks like that may actually be true--at least if your mother is on the other end of the line. Read More >>
back to top  Saturday, May 15, 2010 Monks Bolster Earthquake Relief  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. Read More >>
back to top Friday, May 14, 2010 The Little Things  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 housemate 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. Read More >>
back to top Thursday, May 13, 2010 8 Ways to Sleep Better  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. Read More >>
back to top Wednesday, May 12, 2010 The Hardest Work You Will Ever Do  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. Read More >>
back to top Tuesday, May 11, 2010 An Artist's Life  "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 begins 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." Read More >>
back to top Monday, May 10, 2010 How Do You Want to be Remembered?  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. Read More >>
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Last month, ash clouds spewed out of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano, causing air traffic in Europe to come to a sudden halt. With high hotel costs and expensive airport food, many stranded passengers found themselves tired, hungry, out of money, and making beds out of airport terminal chairs. In response, humanitarian relief organization United Sikhs arrived at London's Heathrow airport and began dolling out hot meals and drinks, free of charge. As part of an ongoing United Sikhs project called "Feed the Hungry," volunteers brought hot, homemade meals and drinks to the tired travelers. The kindness was contagious, as one grateful passenger jumped to help serve the food. "It mattered not that the stranded travelers...could have bought cold sandwiches available at high prices in an outlet. We needed to provide solace through hot food," said volunteer Jaswinder Kaur, who had been stranded at Frankfurt airport just two days earlier. [ 
Dawn Frierdich stood at the counter. Surrounded by the rich aroma of freshly baked breads, pastries, and cookies, she finally settled on three loaves of bread and an iced tea. But when it came time to pay, her cashier, Mike Miller, redirected her to the donation jar on the counter. This week, Panera Bread Company, a national bakery and restaurant chain, launched its new nonprofit store in Clayton, Missouri with the same menu as its 1,400 other locations. But the prices are a little different- there aren't any. Customers are told to donate what they want for a meal, whether it's the suggested price, a penny, or $100. This new store is the first of what Panera hopes to be many around the nation. And based on the success of similar experiments, their prospects are high. Salt Lake City's One World Everybody Eats restaurant has been running on the honor system since 2003. "It somehow stays in balance," says One World restaurant founder Denise Cerreta, "I think people are ultimately good. They want to contribute." [ 
"I'm always a happy person," says Nina Nielsen, 24, roaming a bustling street with her mother and friends in Denmark's capital of Copenhagen. In more than one study (including a 2009 report from Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development), residents of Denmark have been designated the happiest people in the world. What's their secret? A well-balanced lifestyle. A positive outlook, dedication to exercise (55% of Copenhagen residents ride bikes to work or school), government-funded health care and higher education, close family ties and a love of socializing. Though there is crime, and income tax can take away half of one's paycheck, the overall morale is high. "We are happy," says Jette, a mid-aged mother and energetic dental assistant who hosts tourists in her spare time. Her daughter Cecille chimes in, "We get money for going to school when we turn 18." [ 
We all know there's no "I" in team. But a new study suggests that having too much "I" in marriage might be a problem as well. In a study that examined over 150 middle-aged and older married couples as they discussed a recent conflict, UC Berkeley researchers found that couples who used words like "we," "our," and "us" displayed high levels of positive emotional behavior and low levels of physiological stress. On the other hand, spouses who used "me/you" language experienced high levels of negative emotional behaviors and said they were more dissatisfied with their marriages. "It appears that pronouns," the authors conclude, "a seemingly innocuous part of everyday speech, provide an important window into the inner workings of intimate relationships." [ 
"That's public space. Nobody can us it." That was one Portland city official's response when Mark Lakeman and his neighbors first began building unauthorized gathering places in their neighborhood in 1996. To Lakeman, an urban designer, this seemed like a a fundamental misunderstanding of public space. Together with his neighbors, he formed the City Repair Project, a volunteer-run nonprofit that set out to change the way Portlanders think about the places where people come together. Starting by redesigning their own intersection, the group went on to organize neighbors, build benches, and paint streets throughout the city. Now, neighborhoods around the country are trying out City Repair's methods, and the city of Portland even passed an ordinance allowing neighborhoods to build gathering places in street intersections! [ 
When his brother died in Indiana in 2008, the Dalai Lama didn't make it to his funeral. When you believe in reincarnation, and that this life is just a doorway to the next, there's no great importance to funerals, his followers explained. Yet, two years later, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate finds himself standing at his brother's Indiana culture center, sharing insights on inner peace and happiness, the commonalities among world religions, and the importance of an unbiased press. One notable point rests in his view of Buddhism's role in the West: "Buddhist religion belongs to the East. The West, Judeo-Christian background you have your own rich tradition. There is no need for a new tradition. But Buddhist science, Buddhist philosophy is universal. So in the west...that is, I think, very useful to learn." [ 
