Pre-Ramble: Ok, that’s it.  Somebody needs to start keeping a closer eye on these scientific break-through, expert, researcher people.

Just when I thought I was on the righteous road to health and happiness …  All those good clean living habits – green leafy foods …, running circles around myself …, popping vitamin D’s …, flossing regularly…, cutting back on sweets (a little) …, and, ever since Conan went off the air, even getting a decent amount of sleep. … I figured that I had more than checked that box that asks, “Are you basically taller than you are wide?” …

Well, now, according to a study conducted at the Mayo Clinic, “fat” can be a significant factor in your health, even if you look and weigh in THIN. !

So, basically what they’re telling me is that I can work out and eat “super-foods” ’til I’m blue in the face (blueberries have topped the superfoods list for a couple of years running), and I could still be considered a fatty? 

No way.

Yes way. Cardiologist Francisco Lopez-Jimenez and his team have studied body-mass index data from over 6,000 Americans and found that those who looked to be of normal weight but had a high percentage of body fat were “at significantly greater risk of future heart problems than those with lower amounts of fat … their bodies behave like they are obese, but they are not.” Lopez-Jimenez estimates that as many as 30 million Americans could fall into the category which he has named “normal-weight-obesity.”

Great. We thought we were a nation of slovenly, rotund, bacon-eaters BEFORE — NOW, even the folks who can slither into their skinny jeans are potentially suspect. And, even if we are able to cinch that belt in another couple of notches, the only way to know for sure if you are obese … or rather, “at increased risk,” is to measure the fat to muscle ratio. 

While there’s not yet an app for that, body fat can apparently be measured using a special scale that passes a small electrical current through body tissue. (Look for the study that finds that the majority of people who measure body fat index with these special scales are at increased risk for repeated electrocution to the feet.)

I’m sorry, but I am not going to pull my head out of the sand to buy into every one of these scientific break-throughs that comes along – at least not right away. Remember when eggs were evil and oat bran was going to save the world?  Remember when we were supposed to eat a whole bunch of fish? … until — wait, … just kidding,… too much of that stuff will give you mercury poisoning … I’m just saying … what’s next? Are scientists going to try and tell us that dinosaurs had red tail feathers??  Please!!

The Take-Away:  I think I’ll wait a a couple of months to see if the research holds up before I run out and throw myself onto the taser-scale.  I guess until we’re able to put some healthy skepticism into scientific speculation, my best suggestion is moderation in all things, and just in case they’re actually on to something — shake those tail feathers once in a while!!

Pre-Ramble: Quick – before it’s over, we must recognize today, the last Monday in January, as the festive holiday that it is – Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day.

Actually, not only is it Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, but it is also the 50th Anniversary of the invention of the “sealed air cellular material” known by fans everywhere as “bubble wrap.”  

The Bubble Wrap® brand continues to provide the assurance of quality and performance in bubble cushioning that we have come to depend on.  According to the cushy product’s website,

Bubble Wrap® was invented in 1960 by Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, using their patented air-trapping technology. The clear, bubbled wrap was originally intended to be used as textured wallpaper, however the two inventors quickly realized it was actually a superior cushioning material and went on to found Sealed Air Corporation, now a global, Fortune 500 company that offers a wide range of packaging solutions and has annual sales in excess of $4 billion.  Sealed Air is widely recognized for its strong commitment to innovation and continues to be an industry leader in research and development.

Bubble-app … Bubble wrap continues to enjoy a healthy popularity, serving as a buffer for shipping fragile items and most recently as a hand-held game on the Apple iPhone (shown right). Players see how many virtual, life-size ”bubbles” they can pop (including super-realistic sound effects) at the touch of a thumb in a given amount of time. (I’m thinking that a companion game would be the amount of time it takes a parent to seize the game-phone mid-bubble and throw it from a moving vehicle.)

The Take-Away: I couldn’t neglect to recognize this kind of important annual celebration and demi-centennial milestone that you have come to expect from me … Woot!

Post-Note: For the science lovers in the crowd, Sealed Air Corporation is sponsoring the Bubble Wrap® Competition for Young Inventors to encourage students in grades 5–8 to demonstrate their creativity and ingenuity by creating an invention that incorporates the use of Bubble Wrap® cushioning.  Three finalists will win a three-day trip to New York City and the Grand Prize Winner will be announced at the Bubble Wrap™ Awards Ceremony on Saturday, May 22, 2010.  The deadline for entries is Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010. See the Sealed Air website for details.

Pre-Ramble: Well, if you’re sitting at your computer reading this blog, you’re probably going to want to read real fast and then get up and take a lap …

This just in: Health experts warn that “sitting is deadly.”

That’s right. Sitting. Sitting in your office, … in the car, … on the couch, … at the movies, … on the porch, … at the dinner table … wherever…

Apparently, it doesn’t matter where the sitting takes place, it’s all about the overall number of hours spent in a seated position.  According to an article in this week’s British Journal of Sports Medicine,

After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals … genes that regulate the amount of glucose and fat in the body start to shut down … Research is preliminary, but several studies suggest that people who spend most of their days sitting are more likely to be fat, have a heart attack or even die.”

Get up, lard butt. I always feel antsy when I have to sit in a meeting for longer than 45 minutes, … I can practically feel the blood pooling in my ankles and the few traces of muscle fiber left in my big old fanny breaking down, but I always thought that was just me being impatient or squirrely. Now I know that it’s actually the genes in my backside degenerating. 

It’s clear that there needs to be a whole lot more research and some useful metrics on this scenario. For example, are these researchers telling me that a marathon-runner sitting on the beach in a lounge chair is in greater danger than, say, a truck driver standing at the bar eating a double cheese-steak?  When does the “generally-accepted-as-healthy-sitting-down-person” trump the “generally-accepted-as-unhealthy-standing-up-person”?  I need to see a graph. 

Well and then …  Have you ever wondered if articles that appear side-by-side in the newspaper ever read each other?  I’m pretty sure they don’t, or else a researcher from the ”Sitting is deadly“ article would totally have called the researcher from the adjacent, “Young people are getting more screen time than ever” article to sound the alarm.

This doesn’t sit well …  A ten-year-long study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation on 2,000 young people between the ages of 8 and 18 confirms that youth are now spending more hours on the computer, in front of a television, playing video games, texting and listening to music than an adult spends full-time at work — more than 53 hours per week. The study goes on to report a positive correlation between kids who spent the most time in front of electronic media and earning poor grades, getting into trouble and reporting that they are “often sad.”

With the exception of the Wii, an entire generation of kids - millions and millions of them – will have been sitting on their failing sorry asses in front of a screen for the better part of their lives. The public health ramifications could be daunting; the personal health ramifications, even more so.

The Take-Away: For gosh sake, GET UP AND MOVE AROUND! 

Pre-Ramble: So, 2010 is the 50th anniversary of the invention of Light Amplification by Simulated Emission of Radiation – a.k.a. the LASER. 

I know!! What are you going to wear?!

Yep - 50 years ago, scientists messing around with light and mirrors came up with a snazzy new way to do everything from encoding information on discs to sending information over fiber-optic cables to enticing a cat. 

As with most game-changing discoveries, the laser has its roots in the work of Albert Einstein, specifically his paper, Zur Quantentheorie der Strahlung (On the Quantum Theory of Radiation). Einstein toyed with the absorption and emission of electromagnetic radiation to arrive at the fact that highly-focused particles of light are able to accomplish amazing things. I simplify this explanation for our purposes here because there were many brilliant minds and turf-wars involved in the evolution of the laser concept and its applications, … and also because I don’t actually understand most of it.

The point (heh-heh) that I would like to build upon is that the laser gets its power from being focused. I’m thinking that there are many areas of our personal and professional lives that would benefit from a little extra intentional attention. Particularly in this age of digital technology, successful individuals and companies seem to benefit from a defined focus for their chosen career, product, service or point of view. Many effective brands use a highly effective drag-net of conventional and new social media mechanisms that bring focus to their agenda. 

My man, Sven – Even our local weather guy uses the power of focus. He builds ratings by hosting ancillary programming, writing a blog, playing front man for mobile weather applications, cheer-leading the Facebook fan page, and Twittering pithy meteorological fun facts. This nearly constant source of purposed noise serves to direct attention from many diverse angles to a single focal point — all roads lead to Sven as the go-to source for information about the weather.

Like the “narrow-wavelength electromagnetic spectrum monochromatic light” of a laser, the weather guy and his PR team have identified and established him as an expert in his subject matter area and work hard to promote that focused identity. Here, the concept of “focus” not only works to clarify or define an entity from the inside out, but it also creates a point that can be “found” by energy/attention from the outside in. Somewhere between goal setting and the “Law of Attraction,” what is defined and “put out there” into the world becomes something that “the world” can then respond to.

The Take-Away:  Whether you are drafting a college application essay, making a case for a business proposition, or setting up some personal improvement goals, the more clearly articulated these narratives or plans can be, the more likely they are to be realized. As you work to advance your goals for 2010, take a minute to consider ways that you can focus your approach to bring about a more successful outcome. (If you’re writing a blog for example, write on a topic that can support what you are doing in other areas of your life, rather than digressing around some lame anniversary of quantum radiation … I bet there wasn’t even cake.)

Pre-Ramble:  I am torn. Between the concern and sorrow that I feel for the victims of yesterday’s earthquake in Haiti, and the superficial cattiness that I want to indulge around the new season of American Idol and the current flap in late-night-talk-show-sphere.  The one seems so catastrophically tragic as to be nearly un-discussable, and the other, so trite and meaningless as to be embarrassingly undiscussable in comparison.

It seems somehow wrong to muse idly on about the E! Hollywood quibble-du-jour while tens of thousands of people have been crushed by a natural disaster so significant as to leave only the most random of lucky souls untouched. Satellite views of  Port-au-Prince reveal scene after gut-wrenching scene of collapsed buildings covered in a haunting white rubble.  Many of the injured cower outside hospital buildings refusing to go inside for treatment for fear of being trapped. The Red Cross estimates that 50,000 people or more have been killed. It doesn’t seem fair that people who had nothing to begin with are now left with even less.

And then, a world away, we have the late night smack down, where dueling comedians publically speculate on the fate of their buffeted NBC compatriots. As the situation (no relation to the Jersey Shore) sorts itself out, the prime contenders brandish some of the best material either of them has had in years. Conan O’Brien’s interview with British funny man Ricky Gervais and his bit on the upcoming NBC sponsored Winter Olympics were medal worthy.

The Take-Away:  As much as I want to cut loose and frolic around in the quasi-dramatic absurdity of the late-night circumstances, today is not the day to do it. I will watch Conan tonight and laugh along with his guests at the latest posturing.  But part of me will be standing vigil … waiting silently, … respectfully, … helplessly, … and extending my prayers of hope and healing into the fractured Universe.

Pre-Ramble:  This story appeared in my inbox the other day and it was so compelling, I wanted to share it with you.

One cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces in a Washington D.C. subway station. He played for a total of 45 minutes during which time approximately two thousand people walked through the station, most of them on their way to work.

“He emerged from the Metro at the L’Enfant Plaza Station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play…

• After three minutes, a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing, slowed his pace, stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried along.  
• Four minutes later, a woman threw one dollar into violinist’s opened case, and, without stopping, continued to walk.
• Six minutes later, a young man leaned against a nearby wall to listen to the music, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
• Another ten minutes went by and a three-year old boy stopped to listen, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The child turned to look at the violinist again, but the mother continued to pull him along.  The child continued to walk, but twisted his head around to get another glimpse of the violinist the whole time.
• This action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.
• During the 45 minutes of continuous playing by the musician, six people stopped and listened for a short while and about twenty gave money, but continued to walk at their normal pace.  The violinist collected a total of $32.
• The violinist finished playing and silence took over the station.  No one noticed.  No one applauded. There was no recognition of any kind.

The violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.  Two days before, Mr. Bell played to a sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.”

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception and people’s priorities.  The questions raised where these: In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? … If so, do we stop to appreciate it? … Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

The Take-Away:  If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made … How many other things are we missing?

Post-Note:  The Washington Post won a Pulitzer prize for Gene Weingarten’s story about this experiment.

Pre-Ramble: If there are two things that deserve our attention as we head into 2010, it’s neuroscience and cake mix. I’m talking about recent scientific breakthroughs as they relate to middle-aged mind power and the astounding news that General Mills’ Betty Crocker has 50,000 fans on Facebook.

Brain science first — According to NY Times health editor Barbara Strauch, many long held views around the decline of the aging human brain have been reconsidered.  The propensity to forget names and be easily distracted from tasks has now been reframed to suggest that … (what was I talking about? … )

“… What is stuffed into your head may not have vanished, but has simply been squirreled away in the folds of your neurons.” 

I’ll own that I have gotten more squirrely with age, but I’m pretty sure my neurons are more rumpled than folded.  New research claims that brains, with just a little strategic maintenance, continue to develop through and well beyond middle age.  The trick is to “keep brain connections in good shape and to grow more of them.” Probably easier said than done. Apparently, every moment that passes unawares is an opportunity lost toward building and maintaining precious neural pathways. It’s a wonder more of us aren’t wandering the halls of the care center with drool on our cardigans.

It seems that, as adults, we have developed a series of well-worn pathways among the connectors/synapses in our brains. Dr. Kathleen Taylor, professor at St. Mary’s College of California suggests that these synapses should be “jiggled a bit” by confronting people, situations and ideas that are contrary to one’s usual fare.  We need to ”crack the cognitive egg and scramble it up” in order to create what Jack Mezirow, professor emeritus at Columbia Teachers College, calls a “disorienting dilemma” … a situation or phenomenon that causes one to “critically reflect on the assumptions they’ve acquired.” 

Snappy synapses – Well, if that’s the way this works, I must have the healthiest neural pathways in the Universe. Since the dawn of the digital age, I have been subjected to a daily assortment of “disorienting dilemmas” … word processing, email, instant messaging, texting, skyping, podcasts, paypal, google groups … and the barrage of confounding technological developments doesn’t show any signs of letting up. Social media of every ilk is clamoring for attention … Facebook, LinkedIn, … apps for this and apps for that … and the scariest thing with the cutest name – Twitter. Everybody is going on about how Twitter is revolutionizing the world, and if a guy wants to even try to keep up with society they should start sending uber-witty Tweets to a whole bunch of people ASAP. 

If she can do it …  Cut to Golden Valley, Minnesota where traditional marketing methods at the Betty Crocker test kitchens have given way to aggressive forays into the land of social media. Forget bake-offs and box tops … old-school Betty Crocker has a thriving Facebook page and an iPhone app that lets users check recipes and kibitz with top chef experts. 

… Betty Crocker!?!  No stagnant synapses there!  The perky gal in the apron has been operating on the cutting edge of technology since 1926 when her radio debut signaled the nation’s first cooking show. (The broadcast featured thirteen different actresses working from radio stations across the country and ran for twenty-four years.)

The Take-Away:  Heck! If she can do it, … I can do it!  Betty is keeping her synapses sharp by staying on top of new media trends. We can all take a page out of her book on that!

Post-Note:  Ok, so even though I am clinging to the outer edges of the technological footprint that God intended for me, maybe it wouldn’t kill me to tweak my tech-neurons a little bit more.  Setting up a Twitter account is probably pretty straightforward. I’m even thinking that crafting messages made up of no more than 140 characters could be considered fun …  … I guess the real dilemma is convincing myself that:

a) I have the time and inclination to stop what I’m doing several times a day to send out a pithy communique; and

b) I have the kind of noteworthy swagger that merits mass communication.  (Who besides Ashton Kutcher does really?) 

Am I ready to be tethered to a constant technology-based duty that is fraught with outside expectations?  (I will be the first to admit that I hid, sabotaged or otherwise destroyed my kids’ Tamagotchi nano-pets back in the mid-90’s.)  … Hmmmm …… maybe I’ll just have another piece of super-moist chocolate cake and ponder that.

Pre-Ramble: So, we are officially rid of 2009 and headed into the fresh new beginning of 2010 (Yay!).

I don’t know about you, but I am feeling genuinely optimistic about the prospects for this new year. The indicators are all there – the stock market is holding its own, the price of gas is steady, Ellen is joining the American Idol judges’ panel, and Daisy, our dog, came home from Happy Camp freshly bathed. (A clean dog cannot be overrated.)

Happiness is …  For me, and I suspect many others, the main goal going into a new year is to Be Happy. Why else would we toast each other with a hearty “Happy New Year!” at the strike of midnight?  The ubiquitous New Year’s resolution is clearly designed to confer happiness upon the resolute-ee … eating less … exercising more … quitting smoking (who even smokes anymore?) … tracking down Mr./Ms. Right … Each of these, if achieved, implies an improved quality of life, and thereby an increase in happiness. (I know I’m feeling happier when I’m not piling on extra weight, smoking ten packs a day and hanging out with Mr. Wrong.)

Don’t worry … be happy …  Psychologist, Kathleen Clancy offers a list of the top ten elements of happiness noting that there is a “positive correlation” between the frequency that an individual experiences the basic attributes and the degree to which they feel ”happy.”  Her “Top Ten Ways to Be Happy“ list includes relaxation, achievement, health, fun, expression, wisdom, exhilaration, inspiration, energy and fulfillment. I’m guessing it would be tough to be able to max on all of these attributes simultaneously (especially for Lutherans), but such a quest certainly qualifies as a worthy stretch goal.

“So nice, like sugar and spice … “  Esquire Magazine (”Man at his best…”) devotes its entire October 2009 issue to “feeling good,” a state which I am going to claim as a close cousin to happiness.  If we’re feeling good, we’re feeling happy, right?  Who but the most stoic among us can listen to the James Brown classic happy tune “I Feel Good” without doing so?  Esquire’s ”Box of Permanent Joy” list includes the first three minutes of Woody Allen’s movie “Manhattan;” watching golf on television while taking a nap; a back scratcher; and “My Favorite Things” performed live by John Coltrane at the Newport Jazz Festival. If I were feeling more plucky and creative, I would come up with some witty fem-gender Joy Box items which would probably include exfoliation, chocolate, red Chanel lipstick and Taylor Lautner’s abs.

A state of mind … Apparently, happiness is not only a state of mind, but a matter of geography as well.  A recent “happiness” study conducted under the auspices of Britain’s Economic and Social Research Council compared “self-described pleasant feelings with objective measures of good living” in 1.3 million Americans and found that people in “sunny, out-doorsy states” reported a greater sense of happiness than those in states with predominantly cloudy, urban conditions.

If these findings are reliable, we must conclude that a “New York state of mind” is truly miserable, as the state of New York comes in dead last in the rankings. Interestingly, five out of the six states in which I have personally lived (Michigan, New Jersey, California, Ohio and Minnesota) appear in the lower half of the Happiness rankings, while the sixth, Arizona, (the only place we couldn’t wait to get out of), rates a sunny 5th place on the list. … ?

Happiness mappiness … Australian life coach, artist and social media zealot Adam Sicinski invites his readers to “discover what it takes to live a happy and fulfilling life” through the tenets outlined in his Keys to Happiness mind map.

“Whether your goal is to create a happy body, to partake in fulfilling actions, to release a happy self, to help others find happiness within, or to strengthen your personal happiness with mindset transformation techniques, you will find the answers within the Keys to Happiness mind map.”

Wow.  Once you adjust for aussie-psycho-babble, the Keys to Happiness mind map is really very compelling. The map’s details would be lost in this forum, but I urge you to click over to Adam’s website to have a closer look at his colorful and comprehensive work.

The Take-Away:  Maybe we’re over thinking this… Maybe achieving a state of happiness is a lot simpler than we think …

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” — Abraham Lincoln

Happy New Year!