Tag: #Stress Relief

Gardening Trends For 2022

This year’s garden trends emphasize environmental friendliness, reducing carbon footprints, and many more.

Indoors? Outdoors? Why Not Both?

Last year’s garden trends included both bringing plants indoors and taking elements of the indoors outside. This year? The pandemic is ongoing, and that means people are still staying home more than usual. It also means that these two trends are not only continuing, but evolving into even bigger and better things.

Let’s start by bringing the outdoors inside. Have you seen #PlantMom trending on Instagram? So have we—and this year, it’s about a whole lot more than planting a windowsill herb garden. Now, we’re looking at something more robust. That means grow lights, hanging planters, and even bringing small trellises indoors for vining plants. Some hobbyists are creating entire jungle room—although most people looking to get in on the trend are collecting a few choice houseplants with a focus on beautiful foliage or flowers. In particular, tropical plants featuring colorful or unusual foliage are growing in popularity.

Now let’s take the inside outdoors. Last year saw the beginnings of this trend as people created comfortable backyard havens with cozy seating and extras like firepits or outdoor projectors. This year, the trend marches forward. People are now creating outdoor “garden rooms.”

What do you need to create a garden room? Something for privacy, be it a fence, screens, or trellises. Shade is also a must, either via shade trees, an arbor lush with foliage, an awning, or a roof. Lighting is getting an upgrade, too. You can still have your firepit, but people are also adding string lights, lanterns and lamps to their outdoor living rooms.

Gardening As Stress Relief

Over the years, we’ve seen different types of gardening rise to fit different needs. Edible gardening grew big as the demand for locally grown produce grew, and native gardening became popular as people became more conscious of native plants and the animals who frequent them.

The big need this year? After a couple of years of uncertainty, people are looking for ways to relieve stress. In the garden, that means—well, it could mean anything, depending on what helps you to relax! Mostly, it’s about creating your own little oasis of life, color, scent, and sound.

If you find floral scents soothing, then you might want to include plants with perfumed flowers and foliage. Some people find a particular color more soothing than all the rest—and it will benefit them to plant flowers of that color. To relax to the sounds of trickling water, create a water feature by tucking a small, inexpensive fountain among the greens.

Bringing Back The Birdbath

Here’s another amalgamation of garden trends—and this one is for the birds. With the rise of native gardening to support local wildlife, birds included, and the need to create stress-relieving green spaces, the birdbath is coming back to backyards near you. In keeping with this trend, look for items that can safely be repurposed as a birdbath, or shop for something unique that serves as a focal point.

Article by Amber Kanuckel for farmersalmanac.com©

Source: Gardening Trends for 2022 – Farmers’ Almanac (farmersalmanac.com)

How to optimize your bedroom for better sleep

If you struggle to get a good night’s sleep, your bedroom could be (partly) to blame. There are certain Feng Shui rules that we should apparently all be following to ensure our best chance at a great night’s sleep. 

Let’s say you’ve already tried these tricks to fall asleep quickly, invested in the best mattress you can afford, and are sleeping in the right position, and your sleep tracker stats are still looking sub-optimal, perhaps it’s time to think about the state of your immediate environment. Here’s how to Feng Shui your bedroom for the best sleep. 

© Provided by T3

1. Face your bed towards the door

Let’s start with the position of the bed – it should be facing the door, with the headboard against a wall. “Feng shui dictates that sleeping with your head towards the door is bad luck as the door will drain positive energy away from you as you sleep,” explains Thomas Goodman, interiors expert at MyJobQuote. 

This arrangement will also help you feel safe overnight. “The bed facing the door ensures that you can see anyone that enters the bedroom space,” he continues. “Securing the headboard to the wall lets the mind know that no object can enter from where you cannot see. 

2. Clear out under your bed

“Feng Shui dictates that there should be nothing stored under the bed for energy and oxygen to flow freely around the space,” explains Thomas. If you’re really short on space and need to use the space under the bed for storage, use it for sleep-related items like spare bedding and pillows.

3. Try a symmetrical layout

This one might not be possible for everyone, but a symmetrical layout can help you feel calmer, which is conducive to better sleep. “The brain favours symmetry as it interprets it as safe, stable, and calm,” says Thomas. “Ensuring your room is as symmetrical as possible promotes calm as soon as you enter the space, putting you in the best stead for optimal sleep.”

4. Tidy up

Perhaps you don’t have space to try a new bedroom layout, but here’s a tip everyone can implement: tidy up your room and get rid of clutter. “Studies have found that those who sleep in cluttered rooms are likely to experience disrupted sleep,” explains Thomas. Again, it’s all to do with promoting a feeling of calm. “If your mind is racing, or you are thinking of a to do list etc., a cluttered room can fuel anxiety and inflict a sense of chaos. When surrounded by mess, the brain produces chemicals that enable it to stay on alert, making it difficult to fall asleep,” he adds.

By Ruth Hamilton for T3©

Source: How to optimize your bedroom for better sleep: 4 easy Feng Shui changes to make tonight (msn.com)

Does Taking 10,000 Steps a Day Actually Matter?

The goal of 10,000 steps a day came from a Japanese marketing campaign. New research offers another goal.

Whether it was from a blog post or the instruction manual of your new wearable health device, you’ve probably heard along the way that taking 10,000 steps a day is good for you. If you’re an entrepreneur keen to maximize your health, energy, and productivity, you probably took that advice.

© Illustration: Reagan Allen; Photo: Getty Images

It makes sense, after all. Exercise is clearly good for your physical and mental health. And 10,000 has a nice, scientific ring to it. But what that pamphlet or article touting 10,000 steps didn’t tell you is that, up to now at least, that number had absolutely no research behind it. It was actually dreamed up by a Japanese marketing campaign.

Getting up and moving more is a good idea. But science had no idea if there was a magic number of steps for health or what it might be. So, a team out of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst set out to fix that, finally conducting a study to determine how many steps you should really aim for.

10,000 isn’t a magic number

The research, which was recently published in JAMA Network Open, found, instead 7,000 steps seemed to be an important inflection point. Taking that many steps reduced participants’ chances of premature death by 50 to 70 percent.

That doesn’t mean that there’s no reason you might want to walk more. The more you move, the more calories you burn–so if your goal is losing weight, longer walks are likely to be more effective. And on the cognitive side, a huge amount of research shows that walking can help improve your creativity and may even help keep your brain young. Plus, it’s a big, beautiful world out there. On your feet is a great way to explore it.

But if your aim is simply to stay healthy and reduce your chances of an untimely end, this study shows there’s nothing magical about the number 10,000. If your fitness device says you managed less steps than that one day, don’t feel obligated to trudge around the block in the dark until you hit your daily target. When it comes to maintaining health, 7,000 steps will do just fine.

Article by Jessica Stillman for Inc.©

Source: Scientists Finally Did a Study to See If Taking 10,000 Steps a Day Actually Matters. Here’s What They Found (msn.com)

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