Create A Schedule Just saying you’re going to go to the gym this week or next week isn’t enough, you need to create a schedule. Not having a schedule is a set up for failure because it leaves room for you to fill in the time with any and everything else that may pop up. Set aside specific days and times to go to the gym and stick to it. Set pop up alerts on your computer at home and work, tell Siri to set an alarm on your phone, whatever you need to do to remind you that you have a date with the gym that you just cannot miss.

Find A Workout Buddy One of the reasons I hate going to the gym is that I hate working out alone. I feel like everyone is staring at me (yes I understand how ridiculous that sounds) and all I want to do is hurry up and get out of there…or not go at all. But with a workout buddy, not only do I have someone to distract me from those imaginary mean eyes, but I also have some one to encourage me and hold me accountable when I start to slack off.

Treat Yourself Sometimes going to the gym regularly can seem like a job with no perks or rewards for effort and dedication, and after awhile you start to wonder what you’re working so hard for. But if you give yourself little rewards fro hitting certain the gym a certain number of times a week or burning a certain number of calories etc, it makes going a little easier because you know there’s a payoff at the end. Treat yourself to a massage for making it to that Zumba class at your gym twice a week for three to a pedicure for making it through that extra set on the weights or maybe to your favorite dessert for not skipping out on the gym for 30 days. Give yourself a little something to aim for…you deserve it!

How do you keep yourself motivated to go to the gym?

If your loved one is struggling with depression, you may feel confused, frustrated and distraught yourself. Maybe you feel like you’re walking on eggshellsbecause you’re afraid of upsetting them even more. Maybe you’re at such a loss that you’ve adopted the silent approach. Or maybe you keep giving your loved one advice, which they just aren’t taking.

Depression is an insidious, isolating disorder, which can sabotage relationships. And this can make not knowing how to help all the more confusing.

But your support is significant. And you can learn the various ways to best support your loved one. Below, Deborah Serani, PsyD, a psychologist who’s struggled with depression herself,sharesninevaluablestrategies.

1. Be there.

According to Serani, thebest thing you can do forsomeone with depression is to be there. “When I was struggling with my own depression, the most healing moments came when someone I loved simply sat with me while I cried, or wordlessly held my hand, or spoke warmly to me with statements like ‘You’re so important to me.’ ‘Tell me what I can do to help you.’ ‘We’re going to find a way to help you to feel better.’”

2. Try a small gesture.

If you’re uncomfortable with emotional expression, you can show support in other ways, said Serani, who’s also author of the excellent book Living with Depression.

She suggested everything from sending a card or a text to cooking a meal to leaving a voicemail. “Thesegestures provide a loving connection [and]they’re also a beacon of light that helps guide your loved one when the darkness lifts.”

3. Don’t judge or criticize.

What you say can have a powerful impact on your loved one. According to Serani, avoid saying statementssuchas: “You just need to see things as half full, not half empty” or “I think this is really all just in your head. If you got up out of bed and moved around, you’d see things better.”

These words imply “that your loved one has a choice in how they feel – and has chosen, by free will,to bedepressed,” Serani said. They’re not only insensitive but can isolate your loved one even more, she added.

4. Avoid the tough-love approach.

Many individuals think that being tough on their loved one will undo their depression or inspire positive behavioral changes, Serani said. For instance, some people might intentionally be impatientwith their loved one, push their boundaries, use silence, be callous or even give an ultimatum (e.g., “You better snap out of it or I’m going to leave”), Serani said. But consider that this isasuseless, hurtful and harmful as ignoring, pushing away or not helping someone who has cancer.

5. Don’t minimize their pain.

Statements such as“You’re just too thin-skinned” or “Why do you let every little thing bother you?” shame a person with depression, Seranisaid. It invalidateswhat they’re experiencing and completelyglosses over the fact that they’re struggling with a difficult disorder– not some weakness or personality flaw.

6. Avoid offering advice.

It probably seems natural to shareadvice with yourloved one. Whenever someone we care about is having a tough time, we yearn to fix their heartache.

But Serani cautioned that “While it may be true that the depressed person needs guidance,saying thatwill make them feel insulted or even more inadequate and detach further.”

What helps instead, Seranisaid, is to ask, “What can we do to help you feel better?” This gives your love one the opportunity to ask for help. “When a person asks for help they are more inclined to be guided and take direction without feeling insulted,” she said.

7. Avoid making comparisons.

Unless you’ve experienced a depressive episode yourself, saying that you know how a person with depression feels is not helpful, Seranisaid. Whileyour intention is probably to help your loved one feel less alone in their despair, this can cut short your conversation and minimize their experience.

8. Learn as much as you can about depression.

You can avoid the above missteps and misunderstandings simply by educating yourself about depression. Once you can understand depression’s symptoms, course and consequences, you can better support your loved one, Serani said.

For instance, some people assume that if a person with depression has a good day, they’re cured. According to Serani, “Depression is not a static illness.There is an ebb and flow to symptoms that many non-depressed people misunderstand.” As she explained, an adult who’s feeling hopeless may stilllaugh ata joke, and a child who’sin despair may still attend class, get good grades and even seem cheerful.

“The truth is that depressive symptoms are lingering elsewhere, hidden or not easy to see, so it’s important to know that depression has a far and often imperceptible range,” Serani said.

9. Be patient.

Serani believes that patience is a pivotal part of supporting your loved one. “When you’re patient with your loved one, you’re letting them know that it doesn’t matter how long this is going to take, or how involved the treatments are going to be, or the difficultiesthataccompany thepassage from symptom onset to recovery, because you will be there,” she said.

And this patience has a powerful result. “With such patience, comes hope,” she said. And when you have depression, hope can be hard to come by.

Sometimes supporting someone with depression may feel like you’re walking a tight rope. What do I say? What do I not say? What do I do? What do I not do?

But remember that just by being there and asking how you can help can be an incrediblegift.

Need to get up earlierforwork or a workout? To return to your routine after traversing time zones? Or just want to get your day started before the sun comes up?

Below, StephanieSilberman, Ph.D, a clinical psychologist, sleep specialist and author of The Insomnia Workbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Getting the Sleep You Need, provides tips on how to reset your sleep cycle.

1. Make adjustments in increments.

The best way to successfully shift your sleep cycle is to do it gradually, in 15-minute increments, according to Silberman. If you have less time to prepare for your new schedule, try 30 minutes, she said. (But no more than that.)

Give yourself at least three or four nights to get comfortable with the new schedule. If it’s going well, on the fourth or fifth night, shave off another 15 minutes.

Keep in mind that feeling groggy when you get up is normal. As Silberman said, “Most people don’t wake up full of energy.” So expect that you’ll feel sleepy for about 20 to 30 minutes.

2. Be consistent all week.

The key to changing your sleep schedule is consistency. That means sticking to the same sleep and wake time throughout the week, including weekends.

If you want to sleep in on the weekends, Silberman suggested giving yourself an extra hour (two hours max). You may get less sleep on Saturday,but you’ll be back on track for Sunday, she said.

3. Keep your room dark at night and light in the morning.

“Our circadian rhythms are influenced by light and darkness,” Silberman said. Unfortunately, because of daylightsavings, it’s still bright out at 8 p.m., which makes switching into sleep mode tough.

So, at night, close your blinds and curtains, and use a night light for reading. In the morning, “Flip on all the lights to jumpstart your body,” she said.

4. Wear sunglasses.

“Wear sunglasses in the afternoon and early evening to naturally [make yourself more sleepy],” Silberman said. Sunglassestrick your brain into thinking it’s bedtime.

5. Get up if you can’t sleep.

“Don’t lie in bed tossing and turning, especially if you’re wired,” Silberman said. Instead, get up and do something either boring or relaxing, she said. If you can’t stop thinking or worrying about something, get it out of your mind by writing it down, she said.

6. Stop pressing the snooze button.

While it might be rough to get up earlier, snoozing doesn’t help. “In general it won’t be the best quality of sleep,” Silberman said. She said to set your alarm to the time you actually want to wake up.

7. Follow sleep hygiene rules.

If you’re having trouble falling asleep, stop drinking caffeine within 12 hours of your bedtime or exercising within four to five hours, Silberman said. Give yourself an hour to unwind, she said. During that time, don’t do anything stressful or stimulating (such as use electronics).

42% of Americans Will Be Obese By 2030 BY EYUN MAY 9, 2012 | 12:22PM

Changing people’s minds is hard.

We resist having our attitudes adjusted by others, especially when the message isn’t directly relevant to us and we aren’t paying that much attention.

But what if you could get people to change their own minds? People will listen to themselves and will automatically generate arguments that have personal relevance for them.

It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Actually people are being encouraged to persuade themselves all the time. Here are a few examples:

1. When a parent wants to change a child’s behaviour they might ask them why it is wrong, rather than just telling them it is wrong. 2. When we’re encouraged to take part in role-playing exercises, we might espouse attitudes and values we don’t believe in. 3. When we want to change our behaviour, say, to healthier eating, we might try to convince ourselves we don’t like the forbidden foods as much as we do.

So, there are all kinds of situations in which we are arguing with ourselves, whether it’s because we’ve initiated it ourselves, or because we’ve been subtly encouraged to do so by someone else.

Self-persuasion

But does it work? Does self-persuasion make any real difference?

Janis and King (1954) tested this by having some participants give a talk while two others listened. Then they swapped around and one of the passive listeners gave a talk to the other two on a different topic.

What emerged was that, on average, people were more convinced by the talk when they gave it themselves than when they merely heard it passively. This suggests that we really are persuaded more strongly when we make the argument ourselves, even if it isn’t in line with our own viewpoint.

The same trick works with attitudes to smoking. People are more put off smoking when they deliver an anti-smoking message than when they passively receive it (research described in Brinol et al., 2012).

We see the same effect for self-confidence. When people are told to present themselves in a self-confident way to others, they actually feel more self-confident themselves.

The explanation seems to be that we are very good at convincing ourselves because we know just what sorts of arguments will sway us.

So if you want someone to persuade themselves, you can try asking them to put aside their own attitude for a moment and try getting them to generate their own arguments for the point you want to make.

Whatever the cover story, as long as the person is encouraged to generate their own arguments, it has a chance of changing their mind.

Image credit: Gary Knight

42% of Americans Will Be Obese By 2030 BY EYUN MAY 9, 2012 | 12:22PM

Over the next two decades, 32 million more people could join the ranks of the obese. It may be time to trade your stock in companies selling skinny jeans for those providing health care. If recently released projections hold, 32 million more Americans could be obese by 2030, with an added $550 billion in medical expenses. While the rise in obesity has slowed, the new report predicts that over the next 18 years, the obesity rate will reach 42 percent—from the 2010 level of 36 percent—with 11 percent of U.S. adults severely obese. Severe obesity is calculated as a body mass index greater than 40, or more than 100 pounds overweight. Obesity increases the risk of many diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea and cancer. The risk is even higher for severe obesity. Severely obese people “have a much shorter life expectancy and generate greater lifetime medical costs, suggesting that future health care costs may continue to increase even if obesity prevalence levels off,” the AUTHORS WRITE IN THE STUDY, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Previous reports put the increase in obesity at 50 percent. Researchers used additional data to produce what they thought was a more accurate estimate. In addition to standard population factors—such as gender, age, and recent trends—they looked at the prices of healthy and fast food, access to the Internet, and annual household income. Researchers stress that these are projections based upon current data, but the health and economic costs of obesity will continue to increase without “significant intervention.” The tide of obesity could be slowed, the authors suggest, with new drugs and technologies, as well as more recreational facilities, health promotion at work and better urban design.

Digging through the demographic data in the latest job numbers, one of the clear winners of the last few months has been black women. Since December, they’ve knocked more than 3 percentage points off their unemployment rate, from 13.9 percent to 10.8 percent. That’s the biggest drop over the last five months for any single demographic group broken out by race, sex, and age by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Education, health care, and retail appear to be factors. All three sectors were among those that posted the largest job gains last month.

Unemployment among black men dropped from 15.7 percent in December to 13.6 percent in April. For white women, the rate has essentially remained unchanged at 6.8 percent, which is the same rate as white men. Total white unemployment remains well below total black unemployment, though the gap has narrowed over the past year. In April 2011, white unemployment was exactly half that of black unemployment, 8.1 percent compared with 16.2 percent. Now the difference is 6.8 percent compared with 13 percent.

Falling unemployment among black women is not a function of people dropping out of the workforce. The employment participation rate of black women has steadily increased over the last few months, from 53.5 percent in December, to 56.1 percent in April. Employment participation has actually fallen among white women, down nearly a full percentage point since April 2011, from 55.6 percent to 54.8 percent.

Employment participation remains low for the total population, about 58 percent. That’s down from the most recent high of 64 percent back in 2000, and basically where it was back in the early 1980s. Back then, the dip was a sudden fall followed by a fairly quick recovery. Today, participation has flattened over the past few years, after plummeting from 62 percent beginning in summer 2008.

Men who ran one to 2.5 hours a week lived longer than non-runners. If you are a runner, you already know the physical and mental benefits of hitting the pavement. If you tend to avoid the track, it’s time to reconsider. You could significantly lengthen your life with as little as one hour of jogging a week. In a recent study, European researchers sought to answer the question, “Is jogging good for you health?” The results show that regular jogging increased the life expectancy of men by 6.2 years, and women by 5.6 years.

The research, presented at the EuroPRevent2012 meeting, was part of the larger Copenhagen City Heart Study. To determine whether jogging is healthy, researchers surveyed 1,116 male joggers and 762 female joggers between 1976 and 2003. They asked the study participants how many hours a week they ran, as well as their pace—slow, average, or fast. After following the runners for a maximum of 35 years, it turns out that one to 2.5 hours of running at a “slow or average” pace, over two to three sessions, had the most benefits. By using the subjective pace definition, it can easily be fitted to individuals. “You should aim to feel a little breathless, but not very breathless,” Peter Schnohr, the chief cardiologist of the Copenhagen City Heart Study, told EUREKALERT. The study also showed that the risk of death was greater for people who ran less than one hour a week, as well as those putting in heavy miles or running at faster paces. As with drinking alcohol, moderate running has the most benefits.

Here are six questions about some of the findings that may intrigue you and test your knowledge. The good news? You can’t fail a positivepsychologyquiz! Usethisasa guideto learn more about the developing field.Or,ifyou got them all right, you know how good it is to be kind — so get out there and help someone!

1. True or false? Negative thoughts are more powerful than positive thoughts.

A: True

Barbara Fredrickson’s (2009) work on positivity created a way of measuring internal dynamics by using a Losada ratio, a measure of positive to negative thoughts. She found a ratio of 3 to 1 seems to be a tipping point of sorts for positivity. In other words, we need three positive thoughts to counteract the effect of one negativethought.

This is the equivalent of the discovery that we have good and bad cholesterol, HDL and LDL, and that the ratio between the two determines cardiovascular health. We need more positive than negativethoughtsin thesameway we need more HDL, the good cholesterol, than LDL. You can assess your current ratio at her website.

2. What percentage of our happiness can we actually change?

1. About 40 percent

2. About 50 percent

3. About 10 percent

4. About 60 percent

A: No. 1

Leading researcher Sonya Lyubomirsky has been able to determine that about 40 percent of our capability for happiness is underdeveloped and within our power and ability to change. About10percentcan be attributed to life circumstances and 50 percent of our happiness is set.

Lyubomirsky developed an assessment of personal happiness through a brief 4-item scale called The SubjectiveHappinessScale. It assigns you to an activity that helps to bring a little more joy into your life.

3. True or false? We can accurately predict how happy we will be in the future.

A: False

Daniel Gilbert, the Harvard psychologist and best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness has wrestled with the problem of defining and predicting happiness and has drawn some interesting and instructive conclusions (Gilbert, 2007). Instead of talking about predicting our future happiness, he says that we make systematicerrors in what he calls “nexting.” In essence, our brains are continuously “nexting.” When we try to determine how stable it will be when we walk on the sand, or what we have to do to catch a ball or a Frisbee, we are constantlynexting into the future to imagine ourselves there.

The problem with nexting is that we are pretty well immersed in the now, and we have a hard time nexting to the future using anything else but the information we have right now. Since we don’t actually know what is coming, we take our best guess based on what is in front of us. This is why we are often surprised and don’t always get it right when it comes to what will make us happy. We are actually not very good at imagining how happy we are going to be because our sense of tomorrow’s happiness can only be based on what makes us happy now.

But the future isn’t made up of what we know now. We can’t take into account what circumstances will come into our life to make us feel different in the future. Consider these examples: Christopher Reeve, after becoming a quadriplegic, reported that he was in some ways better off, as did Lance Armstrong after having cancer. In fact, cancer patients in general are more optimistic than those who are healthy.

The functional result of all of this is that we delude ourselves just enough to get by. It would appear that in order to be happy we have to fudge the data a little, just enough so we aren’t overwhelmed by the daily disappointments, unwelcome surprises, and the evening news.

The point of all of this is that mental well-being might be a matter of faking ourselves out to suggest we arehappy enough now, and will likely be happy enough in the future. Ironically, the accuracy of our perception of the now may be one of the biggest obstacles in assessing exactly what may make us happy.

4. Experts say when we do something kind, it causes others to be kind, creating a cascading effect.

A: True

According to researchers Fowler and Christakis, kindness spreads. They have determined there is a mimicryprocessatwork. Watching othersengaged in acts of kindness, or knowing that they have done so, tends to inspire usto be kind.

Here is an inspiring video on how it works that was filmed in Red Bank, N.J., and an article about a not-so-random act of kindness.

5. What are the three top strengths of good teachers?

1. diligence, intellectual curiosity, fairness

2. social intelligence,zest,humor

3. willpower, verbal ability, compassion

4. trust, honesty, bravery

A: No. 2

Research has shown that the students who gained the most on standardized tests rated their teachers’ top strengths as zest, humor and social intelligence. When you think about the teachers that have inspired you the most, wasn’t it the ones who had energy, a sense of humor and sensitivity to others? This research comes from measures of character strengths.

To learn more about what yours are check here.

6. In 2011, which country was ranked happiest?

1. United States

2. Denmark

3. Finland

4. Israel

5. Austria

A: Denmark

While the reasons for this are stillbeing researched, one likely possibility is that the communal / social nature of living in Denmark hascreated a closer connection and less sense of economic disparity among its population. Here is a listing of the top ten.

By the way, the United States did not make the list.

Here are six questions about some of the findings that may intrigue you and test your knowledge. The good news? You can’t fail a positivepsychologyquiz! Usethisasa guideto learn more about the developing field.Or,ifyou got them all right, you know how good it is to be kind — so get out there and help someone!

1. True or false? Negative thoughts are more powerful than positive thoughts.

A: True

Barbara Fredrickson’s (2009) work on positivity created a way of measuring internal dynamics by using a Losada ratio, a measure of positive to negative thoughts. She found a ratio of 3 to 1 seems to be a tipping point of sorts for positivity. In other words, we need three positive thoughts to counteract the effect of one negativethought.

This is the equivalent of the discovery that we have good and bad cholesterol, HDL and LDL, and that the ratio between the two determines cardiovascular health. We need more positive than negativethoughtsin thesameway we need more HDL, the good cholesterol, than LDL. You can assess your current ratio at her website.

2. What percentage of our happiness can we actually change?

1. About 40 percent

2. About 50 percent

3. About 10 percent

4. About 60 percent

A: No. 1

Leading researcher Sonya Lyubomirsky has been able to determine that about 40 percent of our capability for happiness is underdeveloped and within our power and ability to change. About10percentcan be attributed to life circumstances and 50 percent of our happiness is set.

Lyubomirsky developed an assessment of personal happiness through a brief 4-item scale called The SubjectiveHappinessScale. It assigns you to an activity that helps to bring a little more joy into your life.

3. True or false? We can accurately predict how happy we will be in the future.

A: False

Daniel Gilbert, the Harvard psychologist and best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness has wrestled with the problem of defining and predicting happiness and has drawn some interesting and instructive conclusions (Gilbert, 2007). Instead of talking about predicting our future happiness, he says that we make systematicerrors in what he calls “nexting.” In essence, our brains are continuously “nexting.” When we try to determine how stable it will be when we walk on the sand, or what we have to do to catch a ball or a Frisbee, we are constantlynexting into the future to imagine ourselves there.

The problem with nexting is that we are pretty well immersed in the now, and we have a hard time nexting to the future using anything else but the information we have right now. Since we don’t actually know what is coming, we take our best guess based on what is in front of us. This is why we are often surprised and don’t always get it right when it comes to what will make us happy. We are actually not very good at imagining how happy we are going to be because our sense of tomorrow’s happiness can only be based on what makes us happy now.

But the future isn’t made up of what we know now. We can’t take into account what circumstances will come into our life to make us feel different in the future. Consider these examples: Christopher Reeve, after becoming a quadriplegic, reported that he was in some ways better off, as did Lance Armstrong after having cancer. In fact, cancer patients in general are more optimistic than those who are healthy.

The functional result of all of this is that we delude ourselves just enough to get by. It would appear that in order to be happy we have to fudge the data a little, just enough so we aren’t overwhelmed by the daily disappointments, unwelcome surprises, and the evening news.

The point of all of this is that mental well-being might be a matter of faking ourselves out to suggest we arehappy enough now, and will likely be happy enough in the future. Ironically, the accuracy of our perception of the now may be one of the biggest obstacles in assessing exactly what may make us happy.

4. Experts say when we do something kind, it causes others to be kind, creating a cascading effect.

A: True

According to researchers Fowler and Christakis, kindness spreads. They have determined there is a mimicryprocessatwork. Watching othersengaged in acts of kindness, or knowing that they have done so, tends to inspire usto be kind.

Here is an inspiring video on how it works that was filmed in Red Bank, N.J., and an article about a not-so-random act of kindness.

5. What are the three top strengths of good teachers?

1. diligence, intellectual curiosity, fairness

2. social intelligence,zest,humor

3. willpower, verbal ability, compassion

4. trust, honesty, bravery

A: No. 2

Research has shown that the students who gained the most on standardized tests rated their teachers’ top strengths as zest, humor and social intelligence. When you think about the teachers that have inspired you the most, wasn’t it the ones who had energy, a sense of humor and sensitivity to others? This research comes from measures of character strengths.

To learn more about what yours are check here.

6. In 2011, which country was ranked happiest?

1. United States

2. Denmark

3. Finland

4. Israel

5. Austria

A: Denmark

While the reasons for this are stillbeing researched, one likely possibility is that the communal / social nature of living in Denmark hascreated a closer connection and less sense of economic disparity among its population. Here is a listing of the top ten.

By the way, the United States did not make the list.

The Four Characteristics of Ineffective Communication

“Trouble comes from the mouth.”

–Chinese Proverb

1. “You” Language Plus Directives

Ineffective communication is often characterized by the use of certain types of “you” language, such as “you are. . .,” “you should. . .,” “you need to. . .,” “you have to. . .,” “you’d better. . .,” and “you people. . . .” Directives are statements that either pass negative judgment, or order another person around. Some examples of “you” language plus a directive include:

“You are not good enough. . .”

“You should pay attention. . .”

“You need to do this now. . .”

“You have to understand my position. . .”

“You better get it right. . .”

“You people should behave. . .”

Most people don’t like being judged or told what to do, and when we use “you” language plus directives, it’s easy to arouse in others feelings of resentment and defensiveness. This type of communication is also problematic in that it tends to invite a “no” response, resulting in disagreements and conflicts.

It’s important to note that there are “you” statements that are good for communication. For example, “you-positive” statements are simply sentences that begin with the word “you,” followed by a positive comment (“you did a good job on this project”; “you have a wonderful personality”). “You-neutral” statements are sentences that begin with “you,” followed by a factual or informative comment (“you’re the third person to arrive”; “you’ll find more information by reading this article”). In general, there’s nothing wrong with using “you-positive” or “you-neutral” statements. It’s “you-directive” that is ineffective communication.

2. Universal Statements

Universal statements are expressions that generalize a person’s character or behavior in a negative way. The most common types of universal statements involve the use of words such as “always,” “never,” “again,” “so,” “every time,” “such a,” and “everyone.” Universal statements are often used in combination with “you” language. For example:

“You always leave the toilet seat up.”

“You never put the tooth paste cap back on.”

“You’re messing up again!”

“You are so lazy!”

“You forget to do this every time!”

“You’re such a slob!”

“Everyone knows that you’re bad.”

Universal statements are problematic in many ways. First, in the mindset of the speaker, there is no possibility of the listener being any other way. The potential to change is discounted. Second, because universal statements tend to point out “what is wrong,” instead of “how to be better,” such statements actually discourage change. Finally, just as with examples of “you” language earlier, universal statements can easily be disputed. If I say to you, “you never wash the dishes,” all you need to do is to come up with one exception, “that’s not true, Preston, I washed the dishes once last year,” and you have successfully contradicted my statement. The general nature of universal statements makes them very vulnerable to specific counterexamples.

Universal statements are essentially over-generalized, negative judgments. It is especially important to avoid using universals when communicating with children, as such statements can adversely affect their self-esteem.

For tips on relationship success, see my articles Five Keys to Enhancing Your Emotional Intelligence,Seven Ways to Say “No” and Keep Good Relations,and Eight Keys to Life Hardiness and Resiliency.

3. Tough on the Person, Soft on the Issue

In every communication situation involving another person, there are two elements present: the person you are relating to, and the issue or behavior you are addressing. Effective communicators know how to separate the issue or the behavior from the person, and be soft on the person and tough on the issue. Ineffective communicators will do the opposite. They literally “get personal” by being tough on the person, while minimizing or ignoring the issue or the behavior.

For example:

Ineffective communication: “You are so stupid!” Effective communication: “You’re a smart person, and what you did this morning was not very smart.”

Ineffective communication: “You never clean up. You’re a slob!” Effective communication: “I noticed that you didn’t wash the dishes this week.”

Ineffective communication: “You are a poor student.” Effective communication: “You can do well in this class, and I noticed that you got a “C” on your last exam.”

You may have noticed the use of “and” instead of “but” in two of the examples above. “But” is a negator which can discount the significance of what is said before and puts the real meaning of the sentence on what comes after. (I like you as a friend, but. . . .) “Yes, but. . .” often times means “no.” So if you don’t mean to negate the first part of your sentence, use “and” instead of “but.” “And” is a connector which places equal emphasis on both what is said before and after.

Being tough on the person and soft on the issue can easily arouse negative reactions from people, who are likely to take what you’re saying more personally, and as a result feel angry, resentful, hurt or resistant. Note that tough on the person and soft on the issue also involves the frequent use of “you” statements and universals.

4. Invalidate Feelings

Invalidation of feelings occurs when we recognize emotions, positive or negative, coming out of a person, and either discount, belittle, minimize, ignore or negatively judge these feelings.

For example:

“Your concerns are meaningless to me!”

“Your complaints are totally unfounded.”

“You’re blowing things way out of proportion.”

“Who cares if you’re angry? Stop over-reacting!”

“So what if you got a B in math? I used to get A’s all the time.”

“Don’t feel so happy—your improvement really means very little.”

When a person’s positive feeling is invalidated, her or his positive feeling will likely diminish or disappear. As positive feelings decrease, so does desirable behavior, and the strength of the relationship. When a person’s negative feeling is invalidated, her or his negative feeling will likely intensify and linger. As negative feelings increase, so does undesirable behavior, and barrier in the relationship.

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1. Save Money Now.  When it comes to the economics of most home improvements, homeowners spend hours and hours trying to project the return we’ll recoup on the upfront costs of our granite countertops and built-in theater equipment years down the road. And for the most part, the numbers look grim. Except for the basic upgrades that are essential to moving an older home, real estate insiders generally advise homeowners to avoid even trying to find an investment return on home improvements, and to simply execute improvements they can both afford and enjoy in the time they plan to live in the home.
However, many so-called ‘green’ home improvements turn this entire concept on its head. Studies show that utility bills are one of the highest monthly expenses for most households, and that green home improvements can bring those bills down by as much as 20 or 30%.  I did the math – on the average American home’s energy bill of almost $2,000/year, that would represent a savings of $400-$600 – potentially much more if you live in an area with temperature extremes!
If you install a tankless water heater, insulate your pipes and walls or even do something as simple as weather-stripping your doors and windows, you will begin to save money on your utility bills immediately. And, depending on how indulgent you really want to be, that’s cold hard cash you can redirect to the college savings fund, your own retirement accounts, or a tropical adventure.
2. Sell Faster.  Green homes simply sell faster than comparable homes without energy efficient features. Today’s home buyers want to save money (that’s why they’re buying now!) and are willing to prioritize homes that allow them to do this by way of energy efficient systems and upgrades.
The data particularly bears this out when it comes to homes with solar energy systems. The US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy recently released reported that solar homes sell twice as fast as a home without solar panels – even in a down market. (As an aside, don’t believe the old hype that going solar requires a big investment; in some states, homeowners can sign up for something called ‘solar power service’ and get solar savings without ever having to pay for panels.)
If your home isn’t currently on the market for sale, you might scoff at the notion of a speedy sale as a selfish aim. But if and when the day comes that your personal, career, family and financial plans are hanging in limbo, making the ability to move forward with your life and your vision contingent upon the sale of your home, you’ll understand what I mean!
3.  Boost Your Net Worth.  Not only are buyers willing to bestow a preference on ‘green’ or energy efficient homes, they are willing to pay more for them. And remember – the value of a home at any given time is based on what a buyer would pay for it.
The Appraisal Journal recently published data to this effect: for every $1 green home improvements decreased the property’s annual energy bills, the home’s value increases by $10-$25. That might not seem impressive on such a small scale, but these numbers translate to an increase of $8,000 to $25,000 to the market value of a greened-up 3,000 square foot home.
Same goes for solar homes; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory compared solar homes to similar homes without solar panels, and found that a solar system can add around $17,000 to a home’s value.
If you are like the average homeowner, your home may be your largest asset – or your largest liability.  One of very few ways you can reliably bulk up the value of this asset – and your net worth in the process – is to implement any number of green home improvements.  If this is a big motivator for you to go green, talk with an experienced local agent about what green features local buyers most value.
One more thing: think very broadly about what it means to ‘go green’. You could go solar or tankless, install insulation and weatherstripping, convert to low-flow toilets, and shower heads, switch out old aluminum windows for dual-paned – the options are limitless, and vary widely in cost.
4. Look better and live longer. There are green homes, and there are green households. I’m going to make the argument that if, in the process of greening your home, you take the next step and engage in the lifestyle activities that make for a green household, you can lose weight, feel better and possibly even avoid some of the chronic diseases that plague our society.
The green home element of this includes planting a kitchen garden and minimizing the water that is wasted just keeping your lawn green. Then you’ll have a back-yard (or front-yard, for that matter) harvest to reap and eat. Your household garden will attract birds, bees and, if your street is anything like mine, squirrels, deer or wild turkeys – fauna which all participate in the circle of life. (Hakuna matata.)
But maintaining a kitchen garden and implementing other green household practices like taking walks or public transporation may also increase you’re the quality of the air you personally breathe and help you shift the balance of your family’s diet from focusing on meat to the plant-based diet doctors now say minimizes the risk of heart disease and cancer, increasing lifespan. Plant-based, by the by, does not mean vegetarian or vegan; Wikipedia defines a plant-based diet as “an eating pattern dominated by fresh or minimally processed plant foods and decreased consumption of meat.”
If digging and planting is more than you can take on, you can support those who do this for your community on a larger scale and still get the benefits of a plant-based diet by subscribing to a Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program or walking to and shopping at your neighborhood farmer’s market on the weekend.
5. Live more comfortably.  In the fifteen years since I moved from my scorching-hot hometown to the very mild climes of the Bay Area, I have developed an issue I call my ‘thermoregulation challenge.’ I’m fine when I go visit my parents or vacay in Arizona, but it’s tough to stay warm at home when dressed like a normal person.  (This explains my penchant for wearing sweaters right around the calendar.)
So, I recently undertook a campaign to stop up all the drafts in my house, and wouldn’t you know it: life got way more comfortable – and fast.Call me a weatherstripping evangelist, but I can think of very few home improvements this inexpensive that make this much of a difference in the comfort level of your life. Drafts, begone!

And this increase in comfort from green home improvements was not a one-off, in my experience. I’d already noticed a major reduction in noise from installing dual-paned windows a few years back. The next thing I have my eye on is swapping out the big old vat of water that I pay to keep warm 24 hours a day for a quake-proof, tankless water-heater.  Sure – the energy-efficiency sounds great. But so does unlimited hot water, no matter how long a shower I take or how many dog baths I give.
I say there’s a reason why so many A-list celebs who are used to living in luxury live green lifestyles. The good deed piece of it makes for great PR, but make no mistake: the green life can also be the good life.

The school called police. The police report says when an officer tried to calm the child in the principal’s office, she resisted and was handcuffed. The girl was charged with simple assault and damage to property.

Police Chief Dray Swicord says the department’s policy is to handcuff people in certain situations.

“Our policy states that any detainee transported to our station in a patrol vehicle is to be handcuffed in the back and there is no age discrimination on that rule,” Milledgeville Police Chief Dray Swicord told WMAZ.

The girl’s aunt, Candace Ruff, went with the child’s mother to pick her up from the police station. She Salecia was by herself in a holding cell and complained about the handcuffs.

“She said they were really tight. She said they really hurt her wrists,” Ruff told the Associated Press. “She was so shaken up when we went there to pick her up.”

Officials at Creekside Elementary did not immediately return calls Tuesday.

“We would not like to see this happen to another child, because it’s horrifying. It’s devastating,” Ruff said.

Before the ECX, if the price of coffee shot up on New York markets, the price of coffee in Ethiopia would rise—unbeknownst to farmers isolated in rural markets. Traders aware of the price spike could buy low from farmers and sell high on national markets.

“If everybody gets that information at the same time,” says Gabre-Madhin, “then the local market follows exactly what happens in the national market, and even the international market, so that means those margins start to get squeezed.”

Pre-ECX studies estimated that a farmer’s share of the final export price of coffee was 35-38 percent.

“Now, we’ve been measuring it and tracking it between 65 and 70 percent,” she says, “so that basically means that there’s a tremendous shrinking of the margins between the rural and the national price.”

Most farm plots in Ethiopia are so small that a farmer may have only three or four sacks of produce to bring to market, so he might organize within his village’s co-op to fill one of the trucks that transports commodities to ECX warehouses throughout the country. Each truck holds 50 hundred-kilo bags, or five metric tons, which has become the standard contracting unit.

“We sort of took the same logic,” says Gabre-Madhin, “as when Chicago started in the 1840s. The size of what went into a railroad car in the Midwest is what became the contract size because that was a logical unit.”

With its warehouses, the Exchange has increased quality. Farmers used to haul harvests to market without knowing how their crops stacked up compared to others, and traders could often swindle them into selling high quality for a middling price. In the ECX system, commodities that enter a warehouse are immediately graded at a laboratory. Prices for each grade are available through the data system, and criteria to differentiate, for example, Grade 1 coffee from Grade 2 coffee are published and available to sellers and buyers. This third-party grading system circumvents buyers’ incentives to under-value farmers’ output.

At first, farmers at one co-op were angry because they perpetually received the lowest coffee price posted on the Exchange. A manager then pulled out the standards document and explained why their crop was graded poorly—shriveled beans weren’t removed, the coffee hadn’t been dried properly, dirt was mixed in with the beans. The farmers took notice and decided to control for quality. Over the first year-and-a-half it was traded, Ethiopia’s volume of highest-grade coffee tripled.

“That’s because these farmers,” says Gabre-Madhin, “who for probably 20 years have been told to do the very same thing but saw no reason to, now had an incentive to actually invest time and effort into getting better quality to market.”

“I think a lot of countries are excited about what we’ve done here in Ethiopia,” she says, and it seems that other African countries are eager to build exchanges of their own. Ghana plans to open a commodity exchange based on the ECX by the end of 2012, with hopes of improving internal food distribution as well as bolstering agricultural exports.

Gabre-Madhin also sees eventual opportunities for countries to cooperate across borders, citing the example of a regional coffee index that could give East African countries more leverage on international markets, and provide more benefits for small-scale farmers in places Ethiopia.

“Many countries are interested [in cooperating], but’s going to happen organically,” she says. “It’s going to happen because there’s a business logic to it.”

This is what I tell anybody who attempts to bring me down…

starts @ 0:55 secs

Gotta love Stewie! Don’t let nobody bring you down!

Enjoi!

Dr. Oz breaks down worse late night snacks.

The organization will market and distribute milk, yogurt, butter and half & half from two Hudson Valley farms to CSAs, institutional housing (like senior centers and halfway houses), and daycare centers throughout New York City. The first farm to join is Ronnybrook out of Ancramdale, which will maintain its traditional packaging but show its support for Milk Not Jails by hanging a branded “necklace” around the necks of its glass bottles. Proceeds from selling the dairy line will pay a former prisoner to drive a truck, the purchase of which was made possible with Kickstarter funding.

The ultimate goal of the project is to secure enough allies from across the state to affect legislative change. Milk Not Jail’s eight-point policy plan includes goals like “Legalize the sale of raw milk products” and “End racist marijuana arrests.” Of course, the project has a long way to go before it gets to that point, but it represents a useful pivot in local food activism: using food to build awareness for causes outside the environment, too.

Water-Saving Tips Here you’ll find over 75 tips to help you reduce your water footprint. The recommendations on this list will not only help you save water, they will also save you money, even if some tips cost a little money up-front. Remember, these tips are just the beginning. Keep challenging yourself to find other ways to save water every day!