​A few weeks ago I posted about Wangari Maathai, the resilient and accomplished woman behind the Green Belt Movement which has planted over 51 million trees in Kenya since its inception in 1977. The Green Belt Movement created impactful change, not only by significantly improving the environment with the planted trees, but also empowering women in communities across Kenya by teaching them forestry skills and how to care for the seedlings so that they could earn a wage with each tree that survived at least six months. 

So I was fascinated to learn that the state of New York aims to plant “25 Million Trees by 2033,” an initiative launched by Governor Kathy Hochul in her 2024 State of the State Address. The initiative recognizes the vital importance of trees and forests in both community health and climate mitigation. And the New York State Dept of Environmental Conservation is utilizing the innovative Tree Tracker to document tree plantings.

Any tree planted since January 2024 goes toward the 25 million total. The Tree Tracker is a stellar way to engage the general public; whether a family plants one tree or a school plants 20, they enter the info in the Tree Tracker. The Tracker records locations, planting dates, species, and sizes, and a state-wide map is updated with each new planting. Progress of the trees can be shared and the website provides tips on caring for the planted trees to nurture successful growth. The website also offers a calendar of tree planting events all over the state so volunteers can be a part of a community that plants and cares for trees. In addition, the website includes links to obtain funding for tree planting projects. 

I realize this is not our state, and most of us reading this will not directly benefit from the 25 Million Trees project. I am excited about the project because of the resources committed, what it will accomplish, the community engagement, and the innovation of the Tree Tracker. The 25 Million Trees is a large-scale answer to a large-scale problem. It builds community by bringing people together for events, educates folks of all ages, and provides opportunities for time outdoors and beautifying parks, streets, and private lands. 

A brilliant solution backed by action and real resources. More of these, please.


Sources/Learn More

• The Optimist Daily: New York launches interactive Tree Tracker to monitor 25 million tree goal. 
• New York State Dept of Environmental Conservation: 25 Million Trees by 2033

​One of the reasons people come to Essentrics® class is to decrease pain or prevent pain from occurring in the first place. It is ironic that we are looking to reduce pain, yet when we experience pain during an activity or workout we have been well-trained (since birth it seems) to push through that pain. 

The problem with pushing through pain is that we usually cause ourselves more pain in the moment, which is unpleasant to say the least. In addition, pushing through pain continues to irritate already inflamed tissues so that the healing process doesn’t have a chance to progress. The resulting chronic pain pulls at your attention through the day, needing to be tended to - which depletes your resources of focus and energy.

As I often demonstrate in class, if you start to raise your arm overhead, and halfway up your shoulder sends a pain message to your brain - stop, pull your arm back to the position you were in before the pain started, and work in that place. Miranda Esmonde-White, the creator of Essentrics, calls this concept “working in a pain-free zone.” You can watch her Aging Backwards video (less than eight minutes long) detailing this and five other Essentrics principles. Aging Backwards challenges the inevitability of limitation as we grow older.

If your goal is to heal, to reduce or prevent pain, and to return to (or keep doing) the activities you love, your best strategy is to heed the pain message your body is sending your brain. That pain message is different from the discomfort of aching arms because you are challenging your muscles to do one more set. The pain message is very clear: “stop because it hurts in a bad way.” When you are conscious of working your injured or tight body part in a range where it can move without pain, you are creating mobility and allowing the blood to flow, thereby supporting your body’s healing process. 

When you demand that your body work through pain, you set up a fight between your brain and body. We get much better results when we see that our brain and body are on the same team, working for the common goal of pain-free activity, strength, and mobility. So rather than push through pain, work with your body, listen to its messages, and live and move well!

Originally published February 2023

​I stare at the screen and will my brain to spit out just one more meaningful sentence. Unfortunately, zombie mode has set in and nothing is forthcoming. Time for a break. The physical movement of scrubbing dishes until they gleam, water warming my hands, sudsy scent freshening the air, and a fun audio book all coax my mind to another track. Thoughts scurry behind the scenes, synthesizing and coalescing without my conscious control. And a few minutes later, voilà, I’m back at the keyboard, ideas morphing easily into concrete words.

Breaks are key. Breaks with physical movement encouraging blood flow, easing muscle and joint stiffness, and boosting oxygen to the brain can be helpful, as can simply sitting quietly for a couple of minutes and not doing anything. Doing nothing may sound impossible, since most of us live in a state of constant stimulation, but that stillness is incredibly healthy for our brain and mental state.

Regardless of age, we can all get overly locked-in to focused brain time. This article,
5 Research-Based Reasons to Use Brain Breaks in the Classroom, discusses how brain breaks enhance productivity, creativity, and learning. Brain breaks involving movement and play have the added benefit of fostering social bonds and teamwork. This could be anything from playing catch, to a group hike or snowshoe, to a group exercise or dance class. I especially love this teacher’s idea of Two Laps and a Nap, where after a few minutes of focused study, the students rejuvenate by walking around the room a couple of times, then put their heads on their desks for a solid three minutes of rest with soothing music. An actionable and effective tool for all!

If you take a deeper dive into the science, waking rest enhances the brain’s ability to replay and consolidate memories of what just occurred, crucial in learning a new skill. This also has implications for people recovering from stroke. In this article, NIH: Study shows how taking short breaks may help our brains learn new skills, the study participants hooked up to brain scanners  typed a code for ten seconds and then rested for ten seconds, repeating this cycle 35 times. During the rest phase, the brain repeatedly replayed the code typing. The brains that replayed the fastest and most number of times in the rest period made the most progress in learning the skill. The study also found that in addition to expected activity in the sensorimotor part of the brain, the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex (both involved with memory among other functions) were also active. The study concluded that manipulating brain replay would potentially support faster learning of a new skill as well as aiding in stroke rehabilitation.

As a general rule of thumb, taking breaks gives the brain and nervous system some space. We might think we don’t have the time to step away for a few minutes. But the reality might look more like slogging away at a task for two hours versus that same task only taking a sharply focused 30 minutes after a ten minute walk to refresh the brain and body. Think, too, of the nervous system. Rather than operating in a consistently frazzled state, that short walk can provide an ease for the nervous system, resulting in less stress, enhanced respiration, digestion, and a calmer outlook. UW: Taking Breaks Is Good for Your Brain - Here’s Why.

Here I am at the screen once again. I’ve taken many breaks to research and write this short piece. My brain is starting to sputter and the words are no longer flowing. Let’s you and I both take a little break.

​
​Biomimicry (bai·ow·mi·muh·kree) is a practice that learns from and mimics the strategies used by living organisms to solve challenges comparable to the ones we face as individuals and societies.  -Biomimicry Institute


Nature has much to teach:  peatlands store carbon (twice as much as all the world’s forests); the water filtration and nitrogen reduction by oyster beds nestled amongst mangrove roots (a single oyster filters as much as 180 liters of water per day, and mangroves absorb at least 50% of the nitrogen passing into open water); and a leaf’s use of chlorophyll, sunlight, carbon dioxide and water to create energy via photosynthesis. When we look to nature as teacher and mentor, and implement or mimic what we see, the solutions are fascinating and effective.

I first heard about biomimicry on a podcast interviewing Janine Benyus. Benyus first coined the term in her 1997 book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Growing up, she’d spent a lot of time outdoors, encouraged by her parents, who moved more than once to be distanced from developed neighborhoods, allowing Benyus many hours interacting with and observing nature.

What struck me about the interview was the perspective Benyus shared. She spoke of biomimicry not as a way to get what we could from nature, but to see nature as being wiser than us. Nature has been around much longer than we have and has developed brilliant systems. When we view what happens in nature with wonder, and begin to learn about innovative solutions to our current problems, we can be students of nature and work in harmony.

In the interest of innovative solutions, the Biomimicry Institute, co-founded by Janine Benyus, funds and trains companies demonstrating those solutions through its Ray of Hope Accelerator program. One of my favorite examples is Mycocycle, founded by Joanne Rodriguez. Mycocycle addresses the problem of construction and demolition waste which is largely petroleum-based. In the U.S. alone, 660 million tons of construction debris is produced every year. 

Mycocycle mimics the way trees in a forest are broken down by fungi and from the resulting material new trees grow.  Mycocycle uses fungi (think mushrooms) with the optimal enzymes to break down and detoxify construction and demolition waste. When the fungi break down the waste into its components, those components are then absorbed into the system to create a new product that is durable and lightweight. This product can be used in things like flooring and concrete, and is both fire and water-resistant. Check out the details and video here.

The concept and various applications of biomimicry is something Janine Benyus discusses in her Ted Talk. This opens up a whole new world of ways we can thrive on this planet without causing harm. Benyus also calls attention to the arrival of spring, that riotous show of color and life emerging from the receding blanket of winter white. Bright green buds, blossoms unfurling, robins everywhere you look. Nature inspiring life.


Learn More
Smithsonian Science Education Center: 5 Things to Know About Biomimicry

The cold is already seeping into my legs, though I’ve only just made it past the driveway. My spiked winter running shoes bite into the ice beneath a thin layer of powdery snow, my headlamp piercing the clear blackness of this early hour. It’s -3’ Fahrenheit, and I feel slow, heavy - I’m hefting myself like a sack of potatoes with each step. I promise my aching muscles and tired brain that after the run, just these few miles, we will all head home and rest. 

I believe myself every time. Yet, too often the “rest” is a few minutes to eat something nourishing, gulp down some decaf while checking my phone to be sure the world hasn’t ended, and then it’s off to the next item on the schedule. This is not the rest my muscles, brain and I had in mind. 

The concept of true rest intrigues. To be fair, many of us don’t have the space in our schedules for plentiful rest. But true rest - that can be had with awareness and intention. In my post Downtime, I wrote that downtime is mostly a break from the thing you are spending a lot of your time doing. A change from the status quo. True rest doesn’t necessarily equal an evening on the recliner. 

This  Psychology Today article, "The 7 Kinds of Rest You Actually Need,"  points out that sleep isn’t always the right answer to the rest we actually need. You might be getting your eight hours like clockwork but still feeling burned out because you need rest from a category other than physical and mental. The seven types of rest conceptualized by Saundra Dalton-Smith, M.D., author of the book Sacred Rest, are: physical, mental, sensory, emotional, social, creative, and spiritual. The idea is not that we need rest from these categories so much as we need rest within them. For example, spiritual rest doesn’t mean you need a break from church, rather that you need to spend some time connecting with something greater than yourself - and nature fits the bill nicely here.

There’s a story that’s been on my mind lately, which I’ll loosely summarize: One lovely spring day Claude Monet was sitting gazing at the lush garden bursting with greenery and fragrant blooms. A neighbor strolled by and said, “Ah, you are resting?” Monet shook his head, “No, I am working.” A couple of days later Monet was standing at his easel applying his brush to canvas. The same neighbor came by and said, “Ah, you are working!” Monet shook his head, “No, I am resting.” 

This story captures the gist of creative rest: immersion in surroundings that feed our sensory selves, without the pressure to produce art in that moment. Another example of true rest that can be had in a brief period of time: gazing at the photo that heads this post brings an emotional calm. The mirror of the lake framed by the long grasses and dense shrubbery is a boon contrasted with our snowy January whiteness.

Thinking about the concept of true rest on my run this morning, I noticed I was carrying a lot of tension. I was fixated on the strip of white road, monitoring my traction, just getting through it. Well that wasn’t any fun at all. I looked around. At the half-remnant of the sepia Wolf-Moon, dancing between black sky and a hovering haze of clouds. At the dots of lights making a fairy village of the homes nestled in the snow. At winter-bare trees, gnarled branches and twisty twigs, frozen mid-undulation and silhouetted in bizarre beauty. What a delight! Rather than slogging to my turnaround point the awareness of my surroundings created a new perspective. I felt lucky and happy to be out there. My step felt lighter and my muscles and brain relaxed into an easy stride. A few moments of true rest.  

We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk!
-Wangari Maathai


Wangari Maathai planted a lot of trees. Over 50,000 of them to be exact. 

Professor Wangari Maathai was the founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya in 1977. She saw planting trees as a means to address issues women in many communities were facing: food scarcity, lengthier walks to gather wood for fuel, and streams drying up. The women could plant seedlings and earn a small amount of money, and the resulting trees would provide food, firewood and shade, and retain soil.

Eventually, the Green Belt Movement trained over 30,000 women in forestry and other skills, giving them agency and a way to manage the land in their communities. Tree nurseries were created to expand the availability of seedlings. Through small grants, Green Belt was able to pay the women when their seedlings survived for six months. 

Teaching women skills and giving them meaningful work went against cultural mores, and Professor Maathai was publicly ridiculed by members of parliament, verbally abused by the president, physically beaten by government police and hired thugs, and jailed several times. Yet, she persevered.

Early on in Green Belt’s formation, a huge order of seedlings arrived but Professor Maathai had nowhere to put them. She ended up filling her yard and house to the bursting point with the trees, much to her then-husband’s dismay. Later, when the Green Belt Movement was more established and had a large number of employees, the ruling government party Kenya African National Union or KANU, sent the police to kick Green Belt out of their office. Professor Maathai set up shop in her small home, cramming dozens of people into the tiny space. 

Professor Maathai fought for decades on behalf of women and planting trees. She served on political committees within Kenya, and was recognized globally for her work, serving as the United Nations Messenger of Peace and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. The very long list of her awards, achievements, and honorary degrees can be found here.

She believed that empowering people to take action within their communities, working for the common good, and to stand strong together, was the path to true democracy. Planting trees was an integral part of this work, and also was a way to promote peace and goodwill. 

Professor Maathai rallied people to plant trees to call attention to the planned destruction of Uhuru Park, a major city park in Nairobi. She also rallied a large group of women to protest political prisoners - this peaceful protest lasted for over a year. When KANU was secretly instigating violence between rural villages, Professor Maathai disguised herself and at great risk traveled to those communities to understand what was happening. She encouraged the people of battling villages to plant seedlings together as a means to mend the rifts between them. 

Wangari Maathai never gave up. By showing up to plant trees even in the face of violent opposition, by voicing the truth and encouraging people to speak up in the face of government injustice, and by teaching women the skills to benefit themselves and their communities, she planted seeds of dignity and of hope.

Sources/Learn More

• The Greenbelt Movement
• Unbowed, A Memoir, by Wangari Maathai

​Downtime, noun: time of reduced activity or inactivity.

Sometimes when exhaustion or burnout hits, vegging out on the couch staring at the TV screen is the habitual response. And yet, this kind of downtime really doesn’t bring the relief one might assume. 

Consider downtime not solely as time spent on one’s behind, but as more a change of scene, and engaging in an activity that is different than what one has been doing. This is the way to refresh both the brain and body. 

Downtime can shift in meaning from person to person, and from day to day. After shoveling snow all morning, downtime might be relaxing in front of a fire with a cup of hot chocolate. Following an hours-long computer session, a brisk walk outdoors might be more the ticket. After a solo day of working around the house, a social soak in the downtown hot springs or tea at a coffee shop might be nice. 

Downtime is as varied as can be. It is a break from the status quo, a stepping away from the norm, allowing space, a decompression of the mind. It feels good, even when it doesn’t (as in the case of a strenuous climb up a steep mountain). Downtime is subjective and meaningful to the person experiencing the downtime.

The change of activity, the change of location, the break to do something different is what brings an ease and relaxation - which is the whole idea of downtime. In this sense, downtime can be likened to play. Play is excellent for our health, easing stress, enhancing brain function and creativity, allowing relationship-building opportunities. Check out Old Dog? New Tricks: Prioritizing Play to learn more.

As you emerge from the holidays and rejoin the busyness of January and the brand new year, perhaps you’ll consider engaging in a moment, an hour, or a day of downtime. Doing something different from the norm, something that brings you pleasure, and that allows you to feel rejuvenated in body, mind and spirit.

For my birthday a few days ago, one of my daughter’s gifts to me was a delicate silver bracelet centered with an oval portrait of Frida Kahlo. Frida’s black hair is pulled up in her trademark style, adorned in vibrant red flowers. 

Frida Kahlo is a fascinating woman. Some of her story is in this blog post from August 2023. Despite intense physical pain, she created prolifically on the canvas.  Despite the exhausting chronic nature of the pain she experienced, she devoted hours to her clothing, presenting herself in exquisite and elegant manner. She was open about her ordeals of multiple surgeries and their lack of success to heal her body. She was honest about her emotional pain. Her humor did not subside, even when she was deeply wounded by her husband Diego Rivera, even when she could not carry a baby to full-term, something she wanted very much, even when her pain forced her to lie in bed for weeks on end.

I wear this bracelet, this lovely gift from my dear daughter, and I think not so much of Frida’s pain but of what she created out of that pain. The vivid audacity of her work, a community of artists and friends who loved her fiercely, a legacy of confronting her deepest fears and slicing them wide open, spreading them on the canvas for all to witness. 

Though I do not have the experience of her injuries, nor her skill in painting, I am motivated by her: to tell it like it is, to accept my own shortcomings, to understand that the excruciating edge of life is a part of the deal. When I gaze at her picture there on my arm I think of her fierce conviction in living, and her ability to create beauty and love in her suffering. And I am inspired.

As the sun heads south, nights are longer than days, and the temps settle to the colder side of freezing, sleep becomes irresistible. When the darkness of 5pm rolls around, it feels like bedtime, and I long to be a bear so I can hibernate.

​The thing is, we humans simply don't have what it takes to hibernate. Recent research shows hibernation to be more complex than simply taking a nap, and that there are some promising implications for human health.

Toward summer’s end and all autumn long, bears consume roughly 20,000 calories a day to attain the necessary fat to get through their extended winter nap. In Colorado, black bears (which can be cinnamon, brown or even blonde - black is the species name) head to their dens sometime in November. Part of that hibernation signal has to do with their food being unavailable: their natural diet consists mainly of grasses, berries, fruits, nuts and plants, with insects and scavenged carcasses filling in the rest. 
Colorado Parks and Wildlife: Living with Wildlife - Bears  (scroll down for “Black Bears at a Glance info and resources)

During hibernation from approximately November to mid-March, bears do not eat or drink, and their heart and breathing rate slow to about 75% of normal. Unique to hibernating animals, their body temperature does not drop very much. 

We humans were not made to hibernate. Two obvious problems for us taking a months-long snooze: bone loss and brain dysfunction. Interestingly, scientists have found that bears turn off the genes associated with bone loss during hibernation. Regarding brain function, there are tau proteins that cause tangles in the brains of humans with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Hibernating bears (and squirrels) also accumulate tau proteins in their brains. When they come out of hibernation though, the tau proteins clear, and their brain function is up and running as they emerge into spring. The implications for humans regarding both brain function and bone loss are encouraging, and research continues.
Smithsonian Magazine Article: Why Amazing Discoveries About Bear Hibernation May Help Improve Human Health

So how’s a non-hibernating human to get through winter? With, among other things, a lot of light. Anything from a light therapy lamp to an alarm that mimics the sun rising, to getting outside first thing - the important part is to set circadian rhythms by exposure to light. Since darkness encourages the body’s production of melatonin, getting out for midday or afternoon walks can be beneficial for afternoon fatigue. Sticking with a sleep routine, eating nutritious foods, drinking plenty of water and cutting screen time at least an hour before bed are all suggestions we’ve heard before, but worth repeating. Getting solid shut-eye, and bolstering your health with good choices 80% of the time will set you (and me) up for enjoying winter instead of slogging through it.
New York Times Article: How Not to Feel Dead Tired This Winter
​
​Originally published November 2023