Thus we come to the topic of this week’s review, the Sleep Cycle app. I’ve used this app myself for quite some time as well as have had many of my patients download and use it in order to provide me with a more objective measure of their sleep quality.  Without going into too much detail (I’ll leave that to Trey, the tech expert), Sleep Cycle makes use of the iPhone accelerometer to measure motion during sleep.  How does it do this, you ask?  By placing your iPhone under your bottom sheet, close to your head.  Basically, the more you move during sleep, the lighter you’re sleeping. The less you move, the deeper…and more restorative…is your sleep.  Professional sleep study centers commonly use a technique called “actigraphy” to assess sleep quality. Actigraphy involves wearing some type of motion-sensing device to record the subject’s movement during sleep. Sleep Cycle uses this same technique…using the iPhone.  Sleep Cycle records your movement throughout the night and provides you with a cool, useful graph of the amount of time you spent awake, asleep, and in deeper sleep.

The Sleep Cycle app can also be used as a sort of “smart alarm clock,” that will awaken you close to the time you want, but when you are in a lighter stage of sleep (more movement).  The idea here is that it is much easier to awaken feeling refreshed when we’re in one of our lighter stages of sleep. We’ve all had that experience of being roused from sleep by an alarm when we’re in one of those deep sleep stages.  We grudgingly awaken feeling disoriented, irritable, and still sleepy! Sleep Cycle rectifies this problem by awaking you during a period of more active movement close to the time you wish to awaken.

All in all, I found the Sleep Cycle app a winner for ease of use and for the quality of information it provides regarding your sleep quality.  Definitely worth the .99 cent investment.  The only thing I would add to the information provided would be some type of “Sleep Score,” like a 0-100 rating where 100 would equate to a great night’s sleep.

For anyone wanting to learn what to DO with the information you learn from Sleep Cycle, as well as how to get a great night’s sleep and awaken feeling refreshed, I’ve written a useful “How-to” guide on this which can be found at www.psychdigest.com/a-perfect-nights-sleep/

“Too Much TV Leads to Depression”

“The Link Between Diet & Depression”

“Can Allergies Lead To Depression?”

“Vacation Depression: How to Cope”

“How Relationships Can Cause Depression”

“Technology Leads To Anxiety & Depression”

“Can Fertility Problems Cause Depression?”

“Can Dental Fillings Cause Depression?”

“Docs Warn About Facebook Use & Teen Depression”

“More Music, Less Reading in Kids With Depression”

Just for the sake of it, I Googled “depression” and “toothpaste,” and low and behold I found this…“Ingredient in Toothpaste Linked to Depression.” So, it’s pretty obvious that depression is a hot topic these days.  This, of course, can lead to a lot of confusion about depression…What is it?  How is it different from sadness or the “blues?” And, most importantly, do you have it?

Everyone feels blue at one time or another.  A death in the family, a career disappointment, a romance gone awry – all can cause most people to feel down for a period of time.  Grief and sadness, however, are normal reactions to life’s stressful events.  After a time, most people will heal and return to a normal life.

Depression is more than the normal ups and downs of life that we all have.  When sadness just won’t go away and it begins to interfere with daily life, it’s called “depression,” one of the mood disorders.

Basically, depression is a feeling of being slowed down…with a loss of interest in things, a feeling of lethargy, a chronic sense that “something’s wrong.”  Your whole body feels slowed down (depressed).  Your ability to think and feel may be fine, but your desire or ability to do things may slow dramatically.

Depression: What are the Symptoms?

• Depression exhibits itself differently in different people. Common depression symptoms are:

• Depressed mood, sadness, or an “empty” feeling (or appearing tearful or sad to others)

• Loss of interest or pleasure in activities you once enjoyed

• Inability to sleep or excessive sleeping

• Increased feelings of restlessness, irritability, or anxiety

• Feelings of worthlessness, or excessive or inappropriate guilt

• Difficulty concentrating or making decisions

• Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide (or wanting to “run away” from responsibility)

• Physical symptoms such as increased feelings of fatigue or energy loss, significant weight loss or weight gain, headaches, stomachaches, muscle pain or tension, and/or an increase in intensity of chronic pain

• Increased feelings of sadness or helplessness after brushing your teeth (just kidding with this one…checking to see if you’re still paying attention:)

If you (or someone you know) have 5 or more of these symptoms for most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks, and the symptoms are severe enough to interfere with daily activities, the cause may be depression.

Like any other illness, depression is treatable.  Although there is no “cure” for depression, it is very controllable.  There are a wide variety of treatments that are effective in treating depression.  Antidepressant medications are safe and non-addictive.  Either as an adjunct to medication or as a treatment in and of itself, counseling is a very effective treatment for depression, especially to help people understand the nature of their disorder and to develop more effective strategies for coping.  Finally, some forms of activity, such as walking, meditation (mindfully-based cognitive therapy), and yoga have been found to be quite helpful to people dealing with depression. That being said, depression is the number one cause of suicide.  If you suspect that you or someone you know is depressed, take steps now to get treatment.

Stress that has been developing for a long time can cause your health to rapidly deteriorate since the stress related hormones, such as cortisol get released into your blood stream, affecting your metabolism. Not only that, but when you are stressed out, your blood pressure, heart and breathing rates also shoot up.

However, the good news is, you can work around and overpower the negative effect stress has on your body through Yoga. When you practice Yoga, its easy breathing exercises help you relax and unwind. To bring a change in your mental as well as physical state, these exercises make it easier for you to improve emotional well-being. Once you get involved with your Yoga practice, you will start seeing positive changes in your body, right from a decreased heart rate to normal blood pressure.  By practicing Yoga regularly you increase your chances of improving your overall health as you experience better relaxation.

Once you start seeing Yoga in a more serious light, you will notice that it covers many areas that can help you in bringing down your stress levels. Yoga has a dramatic effect on your brain waves and slows them down, which dramatically reduces stress and brings in mental peace. When you put in the effort to focus on various Yoga exercises, you will notice that your mind becomes calmer, as the activities which drive the brain waves are reduced. Stress and the brain wave activity are highly correlated, and when they are out of control there are responsible for causing havoc in you.

Although Yoga is very old, medical science has started to view Yoga in a new light only recently and has started to understand the connection between the mind and body. Therefore, your stress can definitely be effectively managed through Yoga and you will start seeing the positive changes gradually. You just need to make a commitment to yourself and learn more how Yoga can help you with your stress problems and how it will make you a better, calm person overall.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a neurobiological disorder that affects approximately 2.5 percent of the population, or one out of every 40 people.  People with OCD often say that they feel as though their brains get stuck on a certain thought and they are unable to let go of it.  They are bombarded by unwanted thoughts over which they have little control…except by engaging in repetitive, and oftentimes nonsensical, behaviors.

If we were to break down the term “Obsessive-Compulsive”, we would find a good definition of the disorder; an “obsession” is a worry, thought, or mental image that persistently intrudes into an individual’s thinking.  The individual may then utilize a “compulsion” (i.e., repetitive behaviors or mental exercises), to relieve the discomforting thoughts and images created by the obsession.

An example of this might be as follows:  Upon going to bed at night, a person begins to think about someone breaking into the house.  This thought becomes persistent, and may also be accompanied by other, perhaps more disturbing, thoughts.  This, of course, is the “obsession.”  As the psychological and physical discomfort increases for the person, he/she may get out of bed, turn all the lights on, and go around to all the doors, making sure they are locked.  This is the “compulsive” act.  If performing this action doesn’t relieve the fear and discomfort, the person may perform the compulsion numerous times.

Common obsessions include:

• Thinking about germs and contamination
• Thinking that one has done harm to another
• Fearing that one will be harmed
• Having a need for neatness and order
• Needing things to be a certain way
• Fearing that one will make a mistake
• Fearing one will lose control of oneself

Common compulsions include:

• Excessive handwashing
• Checking and rechecking locks (or the stove & oven)
• Repeated arranging of objects
• Repeated counting of objects
• Silently repeating words
• Saving or hoarding things

While most of us include pleasant rituals in our lives, such as lighting candles for religious events and celebrations, or reading prior to retiring for bed, the rituals that are a part of OCD are anything but pleasant.  The worries of leaving the house unlocked, or of becoming contaminated by germs, can become extremely stressful and interfere with normal functioning.

Most people with OCD first show symptoms before the age of 40, with as many as half first experiencing symptoms during childhood.  The symptoms may fluctuate over time, ranging from mild to extremely severe.  Men and women appear to be equally affected by the disorder.

Most people with OCD realize that their obsessions and compulsions are excessive and irrational, but feel unable to control them.  Because they are aware of them AND they feel embarrassed by them, people also tend to be secretive about their symptoms.

In many cases, individuals suffering from OCD are able to keep their rituals a secret from everyone, including family members.  Sure, family members may have some idea that the OCD sufferer is a little strange in some ways (i.e., takes too long in the shower, washes hands frequently, vacuums the house every day, won’t throw anything away, etc.), but they wouldn’t say the loved one has a “problem.”

During the course of a normal visit to ones physician, it would take a very astute doctor to pick up on OCD.  The secrecy with which the OCD individual guards his/her problem poses yet another obstacle to diagnoses and treatment.

The most effective treatment for OCD is a combination of medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy.  Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are frequently used by physicians to treat OCD. Examples of SSRIs include Prozac, Luvox, Zoloft, and Lexapro.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) involves teaching patients how to change their behavior so that they can change their thoughts and feelings.  The cognitive aspect of the therapy helps the patient change thought patterns and reduces the catastrophic thinking and exaggerations typical of people with OCD. Completing as many as 20 sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy has been reported to reduce OCD symptoms by up to 80 percent.

Treatment with medication alone is helpful, but not as effective as combining it with cognitive-behavioral therapy.  Medication can help to reduce the number and duration of intrusive thoughts, but it doesn’t teach an individual the tools for coping with the thoughts when they occur.  Thus, relying on medication alone results in a higher relapse rate; the intrusive thoughts return when the medication is discontinued.

So, in answer to the original questions posed at the beginning of this article, most of those mentioned thoughts and habits are pretty normal, meaning that most of us indulge in them, or others that are similar.  If, however, these types of thoughts and behaviors interfere with your everyday living—taking up more than an hour each day and interfering with work and relationships—it is important to talk with your doctor about it.  Don’t make the mistake of keeping it a secret, especially when effective treatments are available.

“They believed their good luck would never end.”

The Baby Boomers represent the largest generation in U.S. history, accounting for almost 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964.  They have had a major impact on American society as they have passed through every life stage.  The next stage they face is that of midlife.

The first Boomer turned 50 at the beginning of 1996, and the remaining 78 million will observe that anniversary sometime between now and 2014.  True to the example they’ve set for decades, Boomers are passing through midlife in their own unique way, much differently from their parents.

Growing up in the comfortable 1950’s, the Boomers learned to expect unlimited growth and endless possibilities.  For the most part, they were raised with a value system based on a sense of entitlement and individuality.  These values were quite different from those values of generations past.  According to J. Walker Smith and Ann Cluman, authors of Rocking the Ages, there are four important characteristics of the Baby Boomer value system:

1.   Self-absorption: The Boomers (once called the “Me” Generation) have the reputation of being more narcissistic than other generations.  Because of the times they grew up in, they have always been fascinated with themselves.  The indulgence they experienced at home in the 1950’s and the world’s seemingly limitless possibilities created a fascination with self and a feeling of being special.

2. Sense of Entitlement: As a generation, the Boomers see themselves as superior to others.  They have always assumed that they could have life their way and that the rules were meant for others, not them.  They feel entitled to rewards and view themselves as winners.  They expect success and cannot accept failure.

3. Need for control: The Boomers need to feel certain of circumstances in their lives and to sense that they are in control of life.  They have a difficult time dealing with uncertainty.

4. Reflection: Baby Boomers have always valued introspection and take pleasure in asking questions.

For most people, not just Baby Boomers, the lives they experience at age 45 or 50 don’t closely match the dreams they had at age 20 to 30 of “how it would be.”  When people reach 45 or 50 and are even slightly disappointed by their achievements and experiences, their feelings are likely to be compounded by the factors mentioned above, self-absorption, sense of entitlement, and a need for control.

Typical Feelings

According to Smith and Cluman, as well as Gail Sheehy, author of New Passages, people passing through middle age typically experience the following kinds of feelings:

Regret: As people reach midlife, they must face up to the loss of some of their dreams and regret the mistakes they have made.  It is not easy for anyone to face the person one will never be.

Loss: At midlife, everyone has to face the loss of beauty and youth, valued by our society.  In her book New Passages, author Gail Sheehy calls this experience “The Body Blues” or “The Vanity Crisis.”

Meaning: According to Sheehy, the “universal preoccupation” of the middle years is “the search for meaning in whatever we do.”  As they face the fact that time is limited, the Baby Boomers typically become even more intent on this need to analyze and search for significance.

Change: The midlife years can be a time of radical change for many people.  This is the result of endless questioning and evaluation of how one has lived life thus far.  Many midlife crises become mid-life meltdowns, says Sheehy, because some people react to feelings of emptiness or disillusionment by destroying everything they have built.

What Can Help?

Taking the time to assess how life is going at this point can result in benefits such as these:

• It can help in identifying and intensifying inner strengths.
• It can help in finding one’s own voice and manner of personal expression.
• It can help in the process of accepting one’s changing physical self.
• It can provide an opportunity to forgive those with whom there have been angry feelings.
• It can help one find ways to reduce stress.
• It can help with learning to simplify one’s life.
• It can reenergize a person in preparation for the second half of life.

The honest answering of the questions listed below can help significantly with the transition into midlife.  It is a list of unfinished sentences that will help one assess his life to date.  The items on this list provide a framework for conducting a self-assessment and providing a glimpse of where one should be heading during the next segment of life:

• My most important accomplishments are…..
• I want to change the following things about my life…..
• If I knew I couldn’t fail, I would…..
• I want to clean up these messes…..
• Things I want to let go of…..
• Things I want to keep…..
• I want to have these experiences…..
• I would like my epitaph to say…..

It’s normal to have both good and bad feelings about the process of growing older.  Most people, for instance, feel good about the fact that they are alive and well.  But alongside these feelings of satisfaction, there may also be a keen sense of disappointment, futility, or sadness.  Feelings of anger or disappointment about how one’s life has turned out, even though most aspects of one’s life have been positive, are not uncommon.  Many people with feelings like these ignore them, hoping they will pass.  And sometimes the feelings do pass.  But there also exists an opportunity to face these feelings and explore them more fully.

Here are some proactive steps one can take to emerge from the throes of midlife with renewed enthusiasm and a positive outlook:

Learn to better manage stress. You can learn proven techniques for calming and relaxing yourself.  Consider taking a stress management class or buying a set of relaxation tapes.

Develop your life around things you can control. Learn to recognize what you can control and what you can’t.  Avoid spending too much effort on situations that won’t pay off for you.

Learn self-acceptance. Instead of rejecting the parts of yourself that you don’t like, learn to manage them more productively.

Focus on the future, not the past. Depressed people tend to be focused on the past.  People who set goals and focus on the future tend to be more positive about life.

Develop a sense of purpose. Many people who feel lost or sad, or down lack a sense of meaning or purpose in their lives.  This means they have no goals and nothing in the future drawing them forward.  To ward off this feeling, develop a stronger sense of purpose and meaning.

Build positive and healthy relationships. Think about what you need from others in relationships.  Learn to read people and trust your instincts about whether they are good for you.

Avoid isolation. Talk to people about what’s going on with you.  If you keep your thoughts to yourself, you may be unaware that they are distorted.  If you share them with another person, you can become more objective.

It is possible for the high expectations of life held by Baby Boomers during their 20’s and 30’s to continue during the midlife transition, as well as throughout the entire life cycle.  By making a few necessary changes in old habits, mid-lifers can look forward to what Gail Sheehy has called the Flourishing 40’s, Flaming 50’s and Serene 60’s.  Maybe Boomers have additional new categories to look forward to, like the Sexy 70’s, the Exciting 80’s, and perhaps even the Never-better 90’s!  Why not?  Aren’t we entitled?

Light is absorbed by the eye and converted into another form of energy, which enables us to see color. This energy affects and is felt even by people without sight.

Light energy stimulates the pituitary and pineal glands, which regulate hormones and other physiological systems in the body.

We know that red stimulates, excites and warms the body, increases the heart rate, brain-wave activity and respiration. Mothers are encouraged to stimulate infants’ brains by dangling mobiles containing bright red balls on them.

If high blood pressure, hypertension or poor coordination plagues a person, he or she should not decorate rooms with the color red.

Pink has a soothing effect. Pink’s tranquilizing effect has gained it entrance in prisons, hospital rooms and drug centers.

Are there finicky eaters in your kitchen? Try using an orange tablecloth or placemats. Orange stimulates the appetite and reduces fatigue. Of course, if you’re on a diet, avoid orange.

Yellow is a memory stimulator. A touch of yellow in every room might just help in remembering where you left the keys or the eyeglasses. Yellow also raises blood pressure and pulse rate, but not to the degree red does.

Green reminds us of spring and, therefore, new beginnings. It brings feelings of calm anticipation and hope and it has a soothing and relaxing effect on the body as well as the mind. Still on that diet? Green is good, as it could help control the anxiety associated with the discipline of controlling yourself from overeating. Maybe that avocado-green refrigerator isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Blue is another relaxing color. Pleasant dreams might be the end result of coloring the bedroom in shades of blue. It has a calming effect on the body, it lowers blood pressure, heart rate and respiration, and in hot, humid weather, blue has a cooling effect.

A study shows that blue in the classroom can be a good thing. Children prone to tantrums and aggressive behavior became calmer after being in a classroom painted blue. Both blind and sighted children reacted the same when placed in blue surroundings.

(Rosemary Sadez Friedmann, an interior designer in Naples, Fla., is author of “Mystery of Color,” available at Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Amazon.com.)

“Curing The Clutter Epidemic: Why Americans Have So Much Stuff, And How We Can Learn To Hold On To What Really Matters”

Published in July/August 2010 edition of  “The Saturday Evening Post”

We live in a world of things, of junk, of stuff.  This fact was brought home to me – literally – when I left my job after 17 years.  I carted the contents of my office home in three garbage bags that sat around the house for the next six months.  Every time I tried to sort through those bags and commit to getting rid of any of it, I became paralyzed by fear (Would I need this later? Would I miss that once it was gone?) and overwhelmed by the task at hand.  And that was just three bags – most of it paper!  How would I ever sort through all the other stuff cluttering up my home and my life?

It’s a question many Americans ask themselves every day.  Thanks to an abundance of cheap goods, instant credit, and constant exposure to the persuasive powers of advertising, acquiring has in itself become a national pastime.  And a national problem, as our closets, attics, and lives become overwhelmed in an epidemic of uncontrolled clutter.

“We’ve begun to buy and hold on to so many items that we’re now having to acquire more and more space to accommodate our clutter,” says Dr. David Kantra, a psychologist in Fairhope, Alabama who studies the problem of clutter (see “Chronic Clutter Syndrome” & “The Psychology of Clutter“).  In the past 30 years, the size of the average American home has grown 53 percent, from 1,500 square feet to a little more than 2,300 square feet.  That’s an extra 800 square feet for stuff.  But instead of becoming more organized with this space, homeowners have filled it up, and outsourced their items to storage facilities.

Birth of an Obsession

The ready availability of merchandise of every stripe was something that didn’t exist throughout most of American history, but the problem of clutter traces its origins back further than you might think – all the way to the 19th century.  The rise of industrialization and the mass production of products created a cult of desire that has survived the decades, through economic booms and busts, where accumulating goods was viewed as the road to happiness,

That idea became more pronounced in the 20th century, as the power of advertising linked products to a lifestyle.  “The message became ‘you are what you own,’” says Dr. Lorrin Koran, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Stanford University Center.  Retailers responded to that insatiable desire for ownership.  Remember the general store?  It used to stock about 1000 items in three or four aisles with one lane for checkout: That was all we needed.  Today, you could fit almost the entire contents of that store into one aisle of a huge discount chain that sells everything from hamburger meat to motor oil to flat-screen TVs.  The average super retail center carries more than 100,000 products in mega-stores that stretch the equivalent of nearly five football fields.  Shopping malls have become veritable mini-cities containing hundreds of stores, food courts, ice skating rinks, movie theaters, even hotels.

And there’s always the Internet.  Last year, online shoppers spent $204 billion on merchandise: The auction site eBay alone reported sales of $59.7 billion on merchandise ranging from brand-new cars and homes to vintage collectibles and antiques.

We’re at a point where people don’t know how to make decisions about quantities of things and whether items serve a purpose,” Laura Leist, president of the 4,200-member National Association of Professional Organizers and the voice of a service industry that has sprung up to help people clear the chaos from their homes.  They aren’t the only ones: More than 20 states have chapters of Clutterers Anonymous for clutterers in crisis.

Back to Basics

I wasn’t ready for a 12-step program yet, but it was clear I needed some help.  So I consulted a local professional organizer, who helped me sort through my junk and discard what no longer had value.  One of the first rules many organizers instill in chronic clutterers is: make the time.  Just as someone trying to lose weight needs to set aside time for exercise, someone trying to shed stuff needs to commit to at least 30 to 60 minutes a week sorting through closets, files, and storage areas.  Mark the time on your calendar and treat it as a standing appointment.

I learned other tips to help whittle away the clutter in my house and control what I brought in so that new junk wasn’t replacing the old.  I’m still working on the rest of the house, but eventually got rid of that stuff I’d brought home from the office.  Now, the only garbage bags on my floor are the ones that are on their way to the trash.

How many times have you taken a book or two with you on a trip, only to return home with them still unread?  We are all horrible at calculating free time.  We start off with high expectations only to become disappointed when confronted by reality.

Each week we have the gift of 168 hours…no more, no less.  This amount of time is the same for all of us regardless of whether we are princes or paupers.

The 168 hours available to us each week can, according to the America Time Use Survey (ATUS) conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, be divided into 3 equally divided parts:  One-third for sleep, one-third for work, and one-third for everything else.  The “everything else” includes preparing and eating meals, shopping, child care, house work, yard work, personal hygiene, paying bills, commuting to and from work, etc.

Interestingly, according to ATUS, almost one half of our “everything else” time is spent watching television.  Subtract that time and we only have about 25 hours left to do “everything else.”  In comparison, only about 8 minutes a day is spent on volunteering or on religious or spiritual activities.

80/20 Rule:

According to a popular theory called Pareto’s Principle or the 80/20 Rule, focusing your time and attention to the most important 20 percent of your priorities will bring an 80 percent return on your effort.  In other words, in anything we do (including our use of time), 20 percent of what we do is vital and 80 percent is trivial.  You can apply the 80/20 Rule to almost anything:

-      80% of your phone calls go to 20% of the names on your list

-      80% of your tools only get used 20% of the time

-      80% of the clothes in your closet get worn only 20% of the time

-      80% of the cars have 20% of their seats occupied

How the 80/20 Rule applies to the idea of time is that 80 percent of our time tends to be spent on less productive actions.  It is the other 20 percent that generates our greatest returns.  That means we need to be able to prioritize our time more effectively, especially that all important 20 percent.

Chinese author and philosopher Lin Yutang once said, “Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists of the elimination of the nonessentials.”

Time Stealers

In order to make better use of that all important 20 percent, it is helpful to identify a few of the main “time stealers,”  all of which can be divided into two categories, internal (worry, perfectionism, procrastination, fatigue, messiness, poor skills, etc.) and external (prolonged phone calls, waiting in lines, inadequate help, socializing, etc) time stealers.  Overall, the vast preponderance of time stealers are internal.

Most internal time stealers boil down to “not being able to say no” (which leaves us vulnerable to unnecessary visits, long phone calls, trivial errands, nonessential tasks and so-called obligations) and “insufficient delegation” (which results in our having to do many family and professional tasks which could be done by others).   Remember, if you don’t decide how to spend your time, someone else will.

Of the many types of external time stealers, the primary culprits are interruptions and distractions.  On average, we experience an interruption or distraction about once every 8 minutes.  There are 4 types of interruptions/distractions: Crucial, Important, Little Value, and No Value.  Only about 20% of interruptions and distractions fall into the categories of Crucial or Important (which also agrees with the 80/20 Rule).  It is therefore very important that we learn to better discriminate the good from the bad and strive to eliminate those with little or no value.

Make Better Use of Time

In addition to the 80 percent of the time we spend on the stuff we have to do, there is the other 20 percent we could use in a more personal manner, possibly creating within us a greater feeling of satisfaction, interest and fulfillment.  Some of the more personal uses of time include:

-      Time for the body

-      Time for leisure

-      Time for sensuality

-      Time for consumption

-      Time for travel

-      Time for rest

-      Time for love

-      Time for others

-      Time for family

-      Time for reading

-      Time for personal development

-      Time for creating

-      Time for meditating

-      Time for spirituality

-      Time for solitude

If you had only 6 months to live, to which area(s) would you choose to devote more of your time?

See how it feels to substitute the word “life” for “time” in the following statements:

-      “I need more time”

-      “Am I using my time well?”

-      “I need to master my time”

-      “I’m going to spend some time on that”

Since you can’t change time, you must instead change your approach to it.  Even small changes can realize big results.  By better managing even 15 minutes a day, you can gain 91 hours, or 4 days, per year!  Start small – better manage that 20 percent.  Learn to say “No” more often, especially to those interruptions and distractions that fall into the “Little” or “No” Value categories.   Learn to delegate some of the less productive 80 percent to others who are fully capable of helping.  In general, take a little time thinking about how you need to spend your “time”.

One “positive” often raised about McDonald’s is that it sells calories cheap. But since many of these calories are in forms detrimental rather than beneficial to our health and to the environment, they’re actually quite expensive — the costs aren’t seen at the cash register but in the form of high health care bills and environmental degradation.

Oatmeal is on the other end of the food spectrum. Real oatmeal contains no ingredients; rather, it is an ingredient. As such, it’s a promising lifesaver: oats are easy to grow in almost any non-extreme climate and, minimally processed, they’re profoundly nourishing, inexpensive and ridiculously easy to cook. They can even be eaten raw, but more on that in a moment.

Like so many other venerable foods, oatmeal has been roundly abused by food marketers for more than 40 years. Take, for example, Quaker Strawberries and Cream Instant Oatmeal, which contains no strawberries, no cream, 12 times the sugars of Quaker Old Fashioned Oats and only half of the fiber. At least it’s inexpensive, less than 50 cents a packet on average. (A serving of cooked rolled oats will set you back half that at most, plus the cost of condiments; of course, it’ll be much better in every respect.)

The oatmeal and McDonald’s story broke late last year, when Mickey D’s, in its ongoing effort to tell us that it’s offering “a selection of balanced choices” (and to keep step with arch-rival Starbucks) began to sell the cereal. Yet in typical McDonald’s fashion, the company is doing everything it can to turn oatmeal into yet another bad choice. (Not only that, they’ve made it more expensive than a double-cheeseburger: $2.38 per serving in New York.) “Cream” (which contains seven ingredients, two of them actual dairy) is automatically added; brown sugar is ostensibly optional, but it’s also added routinely unless a customer specifically requests otherwise. There are also diced apples, dried cranberries and raisins, the least processed of the ingredients (even the oatmeal contains seven ingredients, including “natural flavor”).

A more accurate description than “100% natural whole-grain oats,” “plump raisins,” “sweet cranberries” and “crisp fresh apples” would be “oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen.”

Since we know there are barely any rules governing promotion of foods, one might wonder how this compares to real oatmeal, besides being 10 times as expensive. Some will say that it tastes better, but that’s because they’re addicted to sickly sweet foods, which is what this bowlful of wholesome is.

Others will argue that the McDonald’s version is more “convenient.”   This is nonsense; in the time it takes to go into a McDonald’s, stand in line, order, wait, pay and leave, you could make oatmeal for four while taking your vitamins, brushing your teeth and half-unloading the dishwasher. (If you’re too busy to eat it before you leave the house, you could throw it in a container and microwave it at work. If you prefer so-called instant, flavored oatmeal, see this link, which will describe how to make your own).

The aspect one cannot argue is nutrition: Incredibly, this McDonald’s product contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than a McDonald’s cheeseburger or Egg McMuffin. (Even without the brown sugar it has more calories than a McDonald’s hamburger.)

The bottom-line question is, “Why?” Why would McDonald’s, which appears every now and then to try to persuade us that it is adding “healthier” foods to its menu, take a venerable ingredient like oatmeal and turn it into expensive junk food? Why create a hideous concoction of 21 ingredients, many of them chemical and/or unnecessary? Why not try, for once, to keep it honest?

I asked them this, via e-mail: “Why could you not make oatmeal with nothing more than real oats and plain water, and offer customers a sweetener or two (honey, the only food on earth that doesn’t spoil, would seem a natural fit for this purpose), a packet of mixed dried fruit, and half-and-half or — even better — skim milk?”

Their answer, via e-mail and through a spokesperson (FMO is “fruit and maple oatmeal”): “Customers can order FMO with or without the light cream, brown sugar and the fruit. Our menu is entirely customizable by request with our ‘Made for You’ platform that has been in place since the late 90s.”

Oh, please. Here’s the thing: McDonald’s wants to get people in the store. Once a day, once a week, once a month, the more the better, of course, but routinely. And if you buy oatmeal, they’re o.k. with that. But they know that, once inside, you’ll probably opt for a sausage biscuit anyway.

And you won’t be much worse off.

This excellent article appeared recently in The New York Times as “How to Make Oatmeal…Wrong” by Mark Bittman

“Since we each paint our own perception of reality, we must be careful in selecting the colors we use from the palette.”

Much has been written about the idea that everything we experience in life is merely a perception of reality…or, more specifically, it is our OWN perception of reality. For example, if you and I were walking together and during the course of our travel we came across a dog on the path, the reality of this situation is simply that there is a dog on the path. However, our perceptions of, and thus reactions to, that dog could be quite different. Having been raised around dogs of all shapes, sizes, and temperaments, I would likely greet the dog on the path with a big grin and welcoming hands. If, on the other hand, you either had no personal history of being around dogs, or your experience with dogs had been marked by some injury or trauma, your perception and reaction to that dog on the path could be very different…certainly not involving a big grin and welcoming hands!

Just as in the example of our meeting with the dog on the path, where each of our own perceptions of the dog colored our reactions to it, we come across situations everyday where our perceptions color…positively, negatively, hopefully, fearfully…our reactions to reality.  Many inevitable things happen in this world – the world spins, seasons change, day fades into night, life begins and ends.  Some of these changes we may like and others we may not.  Regardless, it is what it is. Other changes, such as the stock market surges upward or downward, our favorite contestant on a reality show goes home, or a friend expresses an opinion that’s different from our own, tend to set our “coloring” into motion. “It is what it is” still holds true, but we tend to color “what is” with our perceptions of how it is or isn’t what we want it to be. If we color our perceptions with the darker colors on our palette, we tend to feel less happy.  If we use brighter, cheerier colors, we tend to feel more happy. The paint choice is ours.