Clear Mind. Clear Thoughts.

Amazing, how time away can clear your mind and refuel your senses. These are a few of the things I noticed while on vacation this summer.

1. Tea, hot or cold, tastes better when your feet are up.

2. Telling time by where the sun is in the sky is underrated - and surprisingly not that difficult to learn.

3. Where have all the niceties gone? Please. Thank you. I'll be with you in a moment. These little social graces go a long way. Have we become so technologically involved that eye contact requires effort? What about a smile or a nod? I fear courtesy is going the way of the Dodo bird.

4. Evian spelled backwards is Naïve. Do you think the water bottle company did that on purpose?

5. The only perfect science really is hindsight.

The Importance of Down Time

Taking a break from the everday grind of your work-personal life is SO important to do. Whether you arrange a month holiday or grab a few hours away from it all, your well-being will thank you for it.

Learning to balance your work-personal life offers scientific benefits. Here are three big ones:

1. You'll be healthier: Science shows that those who take regular breaks from work-personal life have lower levels of emotional stress and less physical illness. Those who take vacations also sleep better.

2. You'll be renewed. Taking time away, even if it's just for a day, can help stave off emotional burnout. When you unplug from the daily grind, your renew your senses and reconnect with other meaningful experiences.

3. You'll be in the here-and-now. Taking a vacation helps you to live in the moment, whether it's touring a city, rock climbing a high peak or curling up with a book you've wanted to read for months. Tomorrow, next week or next month are not on the agenda. Nor are deadlines or chores. And when you turn off cell phones and other technology, time will take on a luxurious slowness and ease.

I'll be on blog-cation till September. I'm taking time away from technology, the computer and all things Internet related. I can't wait to unplug. Hope you get some down time too.

What's Your Power Color?

Quizzes like these aren't evidenced based - they're just for fun. But I do hate when they're accurate. This one in particular got me spot-on.

Your Power Color Is Red-Orange

At Your Highest: You are warm, sensitive, and focused on your personal growth. At Your Lowest: You become defensive and critical if you feel attacked. In Love: You are loyal - but you demand the respect you deserve. How You're Attractive: You are very affectionate and inspire trust. Your Eternal Question: "Am I Respected?"

What's Your Power Color?

What's your power-color?

Chromotherapy

Chromotherapy is the use of color and light to bring health and balance into one's life. As a psychologist, I feel that there are many ways to create a sense of well being. I'm open to all kinds of experiences, and like to hear when people try something new that has been meaningful to them.

Chromotherapy has been around since ancient times. Notably, Egyptians built solarium rooms with colored glass to achieve certain therapeutic benefits. The sun would shine through the glass and flood an ill person with color.

Today, there are many practitioners who use color and light in interesting ways. Some Color Therapists have a box with a mechanism that flickers light into the eyes. They report success in speeding the recovery of stroke victims and people who experience chronic depression. Some Color Therapists recommend the wearing of eyeglasses with colored lenses to achieve benefits of color exposure. Another kind of color therapy example is the practice of Feng Shui, where color is strategically placed into your home and work spaces for optimum balance of energy[1].

Using Chromotherapy doesn't only involve bathing yourself in color in a physical sense. Another form of Chromotherapy is "Color Breathing"[2].

"Color Breathing" is a meditative practice, that can easily be performed before going to sleep, or when waking in the morning, at work or at home.

With "Color Breathing" you choose a color to suit your needs. Simply hold the color in your mind's eye. Then, as you inhale a deep, slow breath through your nose, you visualize that color, try to feel the color and see the color. Then you exhale slowly through your mouth, continuing to visualize and experience the color.

Breathing Colors

Red: Increase energy and power. Affects the heart by increasing pulse rate, and the muscles by increasing their tension. Influences vitality, and increases body temperature. Can be used to develop excitement and sensuality.

Orange: Cure procrastination, improves attention, stimulates creative thinking and enthusiasm.

Yellow: Experience Joy, optimism.Increases neuromuscular tone. Purifies blood, helps digestion, and has a cleansing effect. Strongly stimulates happiness, brings on a sense of security, as well as a strong feeling of well-being.

Green: Regulates the pituitary gland, fights depression, bulimia, and other psychosomatic conditions affecting the gastric system. It is useful in calming the nervous system, fights irritability, insomnia and can be used to assist in reducing anxiety.

Turquoise: Improve immune system, ,increases intuition and sensitivity.
Turquoise is important for respiratory system and in strengthening the metabolism.

Blue: Relax, reduce high blood pressure, calms breathing rate and heart rate. It has anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxing effects. Calms strong emotions like anger, aggression or hysteria.

Purple: Boost self worth, gain wisdom, decreases sensitivity to pain, helps in detoxification.

Pink: Let go of negative feelings, heals grief and sadness. Restores youthfulness. Brings you in contact with your feelings.

White: Provides energy and balance, by stimulating the production of serotonin, a substance which regulates both sleep and the nervous system. Re-balances the psychophysical and hormonal systems in people who suffer from seasonal depression

Black: Is a power color and can bring authority. It can also provide protection, calm, silence as well as submission.

Brown: Increases decisiveness and concentration. This color also provides stability, grounding, conservation, protection. Brown can help awaken common sense and discrimination. It brings us back down to earth.

Silver: is the color of peace and persistence. It has been used for fighting cancer of tissue and blood.

Gold: It is a curing color, strengthening all fields of the body and spirit. Gold is very useful in increasing self-awareness. It can also renew enthusiasm.

Do you have a favorite color?

Footnotes:
[1] Institute for Chromotherapy - http://www.ifct.net/
[2] About.com "Color Therapy" accessed @ http://healing.about.com/

Professions With Highest Depression Rate

Onlinecollege.org has compiled a list of the some of the professions that have the highest depression rate.

"1.Nursing Home Employees and Childcare Providers. These, and other personal care careers, top the list of the most depressed professions out there. Almost 11% of workers in this field reported depression that lasted for two weeks or longer.

2.Food Service: Workers have to deal with low pay, few chances for advancement, physically dangerous or exhausting work, and often demanding and unforgiving work environments. As anyone in the food service industry will tell you, it's hard, hard work.

3.Social Workers: Those working in this field are three times more likely to be depressed than the general population, and many are so focused on helping others they don't get the help that they need themselves.

4.Doctors and Nurses: Doctors and nurses score high when it comes to rating their burnout and depression on the job. As hospitals and medical care facilities reduce staff and make cutbacks, these professionals are responsible for a larger patient load, adding to their stress and anxiety.

5.Artists: As cliche as the stereotype might be, artists, entertainers and those in the creative fields have higher levels of depression than the general population. While there has been no definitive link between depression and creativity, those who choose to work in an artistic or entertainment field found it depressing, with 9.1% indicating a depressive episode over the past year.

6.Teachers: Being responsible for teaching the leaders of our future is stressful enough, but throw in having too many kids in a classroom, students with behavioral problems and not enough resources to get the job done, and you've described the experience many teachers have working today. Not to mention getting emotionally involved in the lives of students and wanting to help beyond the limits of your job. These factors and others lead to early burnout and depression in teachers.

7.Secretaries and Administrative Support: Clerical support staff are responsible with keeping a lot of things running smoothly but rarely get the acknowledgment they deserve for doing their jobs well. Some mental health experts say that the high levels of depression in support staff are due to the lack of control they have over their work environment and work flow, but whatever it is that causes it, these workers are more likely to be depressed, take anti-anxiety medication and call in sick to work.

8.Maintenance Workers: No one notices maintenance workers until something is broken or doesn't work. It is this lack of attention, repetitive tasks, and low wages that leads many who work in building maintenance and cleaning to feel depressed and unhappy about their work.

9.Financial Advisors: In an economic downturn, it makes sense that those working in the financial field should feel a little down about the outlook of things, but studies have shown that those working in finance have higher levels of depression than other professions even in good times. The major leading factor? Stress. The stress of working with money, and very often large sums of it, can be too much for some.

10.Lawyers: The demands of a legal career make it easy for lawyers to burnt out and over stressed, often leading to depression. Lawyers are 3.8 times more likely to be depressed than those in other professions and rank among the highest among levels of depression in all careers. Working excessive hours, having little time for family and personal engagement and a highly competitive field all contribute to creating high levels of depression in lawyers."

Who Do You Write Like?

I write like
Margaret Atwood

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Just cut and paste a section of something you've written to see what famous author writes like you do!

I write like Margaret Atwood - who is a Canadian author, poet, critic, essayist, feminist and social campaigner.

Yeah. That's sounds about right for me!