Video Source: TEDx Talks

Today (November 22, 2021) marks the 58th anniversary of JFK’s assassination.

“My father’s initial belief was that the CIA had killed his brother. I always believed that, and I think you’d have to be an idiot not to.” ~ Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

By Aaron Kesel | Activist Post

Here Are The Elements MSM Misses That Proves It

Both U.S. President Joe Biden (in 2021) In 2017 and President Donald Trump (in 2017) announced that they would be holding back on disclosure of documents pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy under the pretense of “National Security,” delaying the release of over 3oo files while releasing 2,800, Dallas News reported.

What could be the reasoning behind holding back over a total of 300 files from being released to the general public to finally tell the truth about who assassinated John F. Kennedy and, more importantly, who paid to have it done?

Related Post: Insider Reveals CIA Killed JFK in Near-Deathbed Confession

If you want to see the released 2,800 files and download them and look yourself you can do so by clicking here. If you want more pieces of the puzzle to who killed JFK, keep reading. This will be a wild ride.

To start, the truth was never going to come out because an entire volume on Lee-Harvey Oswald went missing weeks ago right before the CIA was mandated to release the files, as TFTP reported.

(NOTE FILES PRESENTED BELOW AREN’T THE NEW 2,800 FILES)

It’s quite clear by now that there was much more than a single gunman from analysis of the gunshots from the Dallas Police Audio Tape alone, (SYNCED TO JFK’s MURDER BELOW). But even without that audio released in 2013, experts have said that it is nearly impossible to aim a bolt action sniper rifle, shoot, and then cock it back and shoot again simultaneously one after another and still be accurate, let alone fire three or four consecutive shots and still hit your target, The Telegraph reported.

Adding in multiple shooters to the narrative completely explains the magic bullet that hit Kennedy and John Connally (driver) somehow in the hip, History.com reported. Why? Because it wasn’t a magic bullet, it was several bullets.

In fact, E. Howard Hunt, a CIA agent who was convicted of being the lead Watergate burglar and was a main component in helping the subterfuge of Guatemala and the eventual death of Che Guevara, stated in his deathbed confession that he was a part of a hit squad that killed JFK. So a man known to do the CIA’s dirty deeds at the time confesses to killing a president of the United States, yet that’s ignored and called “conspiracy theory” by the mainstream press. Oh and a fun fact: the CIA are the ones who first came up with the word “conspiracy theorist” to discredit those who didn’t believe the Warren Commission report by controlling the narrative according to an internal memo.

The CIA in the last batch of JFK files over the summer revealed that E. Howard Hunt was fingered as being responsible for JFK’s death in a 1978 “tabloid piece.”

In August, 1978, Victor Marchetti published an article about the assassination of John F. Kennedy in the Liberty Lobby newspaper, Spotlight. In the article, Marchetti argued that the House Special Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) had obtained a 1966 CIA memo that revealed E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis and Gerry Patrick Hemming had been involved in the plot to kill Kennedy. Marchetti’s article also included a story that Marita Lorenz had provided information on this plot. Later that month, Joseph Trento and Jacquie Powers wrote similar stories for the Sunday News Journal.

The paper was then sued for libel by Hunt but he lost the case. Subsequently on Feb. 6, 1985, a jury in Miami concluded that the CIA was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Spotlight reported.

Hunt later came clean and claimed on his deathbed that the plot to kill JFK was codenamed “The Big Event.”

Speaking in a History Channel documentary years ago, former CIA Samuel Halpern, claimed that the threat against JFK’s life stemmed from Kennedy’s frustration with the CIA, which he believed was becoming a “state within a state.” Halpern was involved in the investigation of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The documentary also discusses Operation Northwoods, a proposed false flag operation against Fidel Castro, planned by the U.S. joint chiefs of staff and CIA.

According to ABC News, “the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.” All to manipulate the American people into supporting a war against Cuba.

Who killed JFK?

Kennedy also criticized the CIA’s original Bay Of Pigs (Operation Pluto/Zapata) and ultimately caused it to fail because of his decision to cut the operation’s military force down for the mission.

The CIA‘s “Bay of Pigs” plan to overthrow Cuba’s communist government had been in the works before John F. Kennedy moved into the White House. After weeks of discussion with his national security advisors, President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the CIA’s plan to oust Castro. The operation suggested opening a radio station on Swan Island in the Caribbean to broadcast anti-Castro programming to Cuba, supplying anti-Castro resistance groups within Cuba and training a paramilitary force for the eventual infiltration of the country. Eisenhower signed the deal stating that he knew of “no better plan” to oust the Cuban Communists and eliminate Castro.

While he was still running for the presidency, Kennedy learned about the plan on July 23, 1960, when CIA Director Allen Dulles visited Kennedy at his family’s home at Hyannis Port on Cape Cod to brief the then-candidate about the anti-Castro operation. But a few weeks later the plan changed. The CIA abandoned the idea of infiltrating the island in favor of an invasion, complete with air support, to drive Castro from power. Eisenhower approved a budget of $13 million for the operation but stipulated that no U.S. military personnel could be part of the combat force.

Somehow, the plan leaked to the press and on January 10, 1961, the New York Times ran a front-page story under the headline, “U.S. HELPS TRAIN AN ANTI-CASTRO FORCE AT SECRET GUATEMALAN BASE.”

On March 11, 1961, Kennedy invited CIA Director Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell, the CIA’s chief of operations to the White House. JFK wanted to know, in detail, the plans for the invasion of Cuba. Dulles and Bissell explained that after U.S. aircraft had run a bombing mission over the Bay of Pigs area, Cubans recruited from exile living in Miami would take the beach by storm. The CIA expected that the invasion would inspire anti-Castro Cubans to rise up and overthrow the dictator.

Kennedy didn’t like the idea of beginning the attack with air strikes. “Too spectacular,” he said. “It sounds like D-Day. You have to reduce the noise level of this thing.”

Many of the approximately 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles believed that they were the first wave of Cuban freedom fighters who would liberate their homeland from Castro. They were convinced that as they stormed ashore, they would be supported overhead by the U.S. Air Force, and as they advanced into Cuba the U.S. Marines would be right behind them. The exiles were absurdly mistaken; they held the beach for three days and then ran out of ammunition, and over 1,000 of the resistance troops known as Brigade 2506 were captured.

On April 14, 1961, just three days before the invasion, Kennedy called Bissell to ask how many planes he would use in the operation. Bissell told the president that the CIA planned to use all sixteen of their B-26s. “Well, I don’t want it on that scale,” Kennedy replied. “I want it minimal.” Kennedy cut the planes used down to eight and the operation ultimately failed.

CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell was fired by Kennedy. Cabell’s brother was the Mayor of Dallas, Texas at the time of his assassination (more on that later.)

CIA director Allen Dulles was also fired and replaced by John A. McCone after the second attempt was proposed to overthrow the Cuban government under Operation Northwoods.

As David Talbot wrote in his book The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government and The Daily Beast reported, did CIA Director Allen Dulles order a hit on JFK?

The next fact surrounding JFK’s assassination is that George H.W. Bush Sr. was present during the day of JFK’s assassination, but he vehemently denies that he was there despite photographic evidence that looks exactly like him. There is also an FBI memo and another document that mentions an agent, George W. Bush, receiving intel on anti-Castro Cubans but Bush denies again that the person mentioned in the report was him. While another picture shows a young Bush as a security detail for John F. Kennedy outside the funeral of Philip Graham, a reporter at the time. Then yet another document, an FBI memo, fails to account for where Bush Senior actually was that day.

George Bush Sr.’s oil company was called Zapata Offshore Co. Dulles, Bush and the mayor of Dallas Earle Cabell all knew each other. Zapata sound familiar? It was the original name for the Bay Of Pigs operation. Was Bush involved in the Bay Of Pigs invasion? Why was his company name used as the mission name is it just a coincidence? We will never know because the documents were destroyed.

In 1981, all Securities and Exchange Commission filings for Zapata Off-Shore between 1960 and 1966 were destroyed. In other words, the year Bush became vice president, important records detailing his years at his drilling company disappeared. In 1969, Zapata bought the United Fruit Company of Boston, another company with strong CIA connections. Bush later became CIA director in 1976.

Another man, Clay Shaw, was involved with the intelligence community. Shaw was in charge of the International Trade Mart. It wasn’t known then, but this was another CIA front, along with the United Fruit Company. The Shaw trial, which was sabotaged from the start, did not have enough evidence to find Clay Shaw guilty of conspiracy charges. He was released on March 1, 1969 and died of lung cancer in 1974. The Oliver Stone film JFKdoes an incredible job summarizing the trial of Shaw.

Bush was CIA, Dulles once led the CIA before being fired by Kennedy, and Cabell was a CIA asset in the 1950s, while his brother, Charles Cabell was a high-ranking CIA official until 1962 when Kennedy fired him as well.

Dulles also headed the Warren Commission investigation into Kennedy’s assassination. Despite being fired by Kennedy, Dulles was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

JFK’s son John F. Kennedy, Jr founded a magazine oddly titled George which many speculate is insinuating for people to look closer at his father’s death and that Kennedy Jr. was trying to tell the world that George H.W. Bush was involved in the murder.

Bush even laughed at the assassination of JFK at President Gerald Ford’s funeral. What’s so funny George?

Former CIA agent E. Howard Hunt names in his confession. Hunt said that CIA operatives Cord Meyer (whose wife was apparently having an affair with JFK), David Morales and William Harvey a CIA agent were involved as gunmen. Hunt also said then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and William Harvey hired Frank Sturgis, Bernard Barker and French Corsican gunmen.

Was Lee Harvey Oswald CIA?

Now back to Oswald. Was he just a patsy, or was he a part of this hit squad? There is a mysterious attempted call that has been ignored by the mainstream media. “The Raleigh Call” happened just hours before his death. Lee Harvey Oswald tried to call John Hurt, a former military counterintelligence agent in Raleigh, North Carolina, from the Dallas jail on the evening of Nov. 23, 1963. “For years, this significant information was ignored by assassination investigators and concealed from the public,” Dr. Grover Proctor said.

Oswald himself had significant military ties and intelligence serving in the Marines — where his nickname was “Osvaldovich.” He even allegedly had a CIA 201 employee file.

“We don’t know what happened, but we do know Oswald had intelligence connections. Everywhere you look with him, there are the fingerprints of intelligence,” Senator Richard Schweiker said.

Further, a document titled the “Central Intelligence Report On The Assassination Of John Kennedy” allegedly sent from then-CIA director McCone to then-Chief U.S. Secret Service James Rowley mentions Oswald’s ties to the Office Of Naval Intelligence. Although there are some who are calling the document a forgery, prior information proves Oswald’s connection to intelligence services. There is also another very similar (but very real) memorandum which shares some hallmarks with the “McCone-Rowley” memo titled “Warren Commission Exhibit 1026; Secret Service memorandum, dated March 19, 1964, re “Secret Service Report on the Assassination of President.”

Another fun fact about Oswald was that someone may have planted a counterfeit ID card in his wallet.

A former FBI Agent, Don Adams, even says that “thousands of national archives prove that John F. Kennedy wasn’t assassinated by Oswald,” adding that the “the Warren Commission was a fraud.” He also adds another suspects name who he said previously threatened to kill Kennedy; that man was Joseph Adams Milteer. Finally, the nail in the coffin that this was a sophisticated conspired plot, not just a lone wolf, was a Miami intelligence audio recording from November 9th, 1963. The recording shows Milteer talking to an informant where he relays there is a “threat to kill President Kennedy” by a group of men mere weeks before the shooting occurred.

Another theory behind JFK’s assassination is that it was a Cuban government hit job as payback for the failed Bay Of Pigs invasion a few years prior; but believing that theory would require ignoring all other factual evidence, testimony, and documents provided in this article.

Whatever the truth may be behind the killing of potentially the greatest president the U.S. has ever had, Trump has delayed it despite the fact that the CIA was mandated to disclose the redacted pages behind JFK’s death. Whether Oswald was a patsy or compliant in the assassination will also never be known, but as this article illustrates what is now known is that this was a sophisticated plot of several individuals, not just Oswald, which aligns with the story of CIA Agent E. Howard Hunt, that there was a hit squad there that fateful day that murdered President John F. Kennedy in cold blood.

Here’s a song to demonstrate a number of anomalies that don’t make sense in JFK’s killing including deaths of witnesses, which should trouble everyone since the mysterious deaths of witnesses including Dorothy Kilgallen would have to be carried out by a powerful force that in itself proves the cover-up is way more messy than the crime.

In my opinion based on everything above, JFK’s death is a clear intelligence agency hitjob; it’s absolutely impossible it was just Oswald who murdered Kennedy 55 years ago in Dallas. The theory of a lone gunman killing JFK is about as plausible as the CIA’s own director William Colby drowning himself in his own lake canoeing at night, something that his friend Senator John DeCamp said was out of character for the man who, like JFK, challenged the agency. If you are further interested in the truth behind JFK’s death follow the JFK2017 website here.

RELATED ARTICLES:

• • • Finally, The CIA Admits Covering Up JFK Assassination

• • • New Evidence of Zapruder Film Alteration and Government Cover Up of JFK Assassination

Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post and is Director of Content for Coinivore. Follow Aaron at Twitter and Steemit.

This article is Creative Commons and can be republished in full with attribution. Like Activist Post on Facebook, subscribe on YouTube, follow on Twitter and at Steemit.

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Video Source: vpro documentary

By Michael Dehoyos

When talking about exercising, it’s important to remember that a complete approach is always better than simply dwelling in one area. A lot of people will work out physically but not work on the other elements to their body and mind that are so important. Similarly, people might practice meditating but forget that physical exercise gives you a great boost to your mental state. The best approach is to address all three of the elements of exercise and to combine them for an ultimate state of wellbeing. So, with that said, let’s take a look at some exercises that will help create that synergy and to bring you total wellbeing.

Cardiovascular Exercise Outdoors

Not everyone likes to do serious running, but cardiovascular exercise is proven to give your body, mind, and soul a good workout. If you can run and like it then go for that. If you don’t want to then you could try biking or, failing that, you can even just go on walks. Experiencing the world outside, the fresh air and the sights and sounds can have great help for your mental health as well. “With the blood pumping all around your body and some good physical exercise achieved you should also find that it really benefits the quality of your sleep, particularly the ease with which you get to sleep at the start of the night, which also has concrete positive benefits for mental health and physical health”, explains James Lawton, health writer at BritStudent and WriteMyx. So, get out there!

Yoga

Yoga is a fantastic option for giving all three of these areas of your life a boost. There are a variety of different directions which you can take yoga, but in general getting into the habit of a regular routine, whether that be daily or weekly, of practicing yoga can have immense benefits across time. Yoga is a perfect blend of spirituality, physical activation, and mindfulness which encapsulates all of the dimensions to a well-rounded wellbeing health plan. People who do yoga tend to be so serious about it that taking it seriously yourself can be a bit daunting. But, if you just give yourself that initial nudge, I’m sure you’ll find that you’ll pick it up in no time and, in all likelihood, to great results!

Tai-Chi

If you want something with a little more physical involvement than yoga, tai-chi is a meditative, concentrated, disciplined martial art that, when mastered, can unlock strengths, both mental and physical that you were perhaps unaware you were capable of. This one takes real commitment, but it could very well be worth it in the long run. Definitely, something to explore. 

Swimming

Swimming is an underrated form of exercise which, when you really break it down, has everything. “Swimming is such a complete form of exercise that it’s a wonder it isn’t adopted by more people. It works out every muscle in your body, without posing any risk of serious injury, it’s relaxing, meditative, not to mention fun. It can be done with a friend or friends or it can be done alone and it can be done by almost anyone, even people with disabilities that restrict their ability to exercise normally”, says  Charlotte Prince, health blogger at Australia2Write and NextCoursework. Finding a pool is the central challenge to this otherwise easy and enjoyable exercise. Once you have it could unlock something special.

Meditation

Straying from the more traditional physical exercises, we have meditation. Meditating involves relaxing your body which is a form of exercise, and one that involves a lot of care and discipline. But alongside these benefits, you have the primary benefit of a really thorough way to exercise your mind and soul as you rid yourself of all your daily struggles and replace them with a sense of calm and peace. 

Conclusion

There are so many different ways that you can achieve a complete exercise routine where you address all of the different areas of your life. You can find mental benefits in physical activities and physical ones in mental activities. Ultimately, it’s what works for you, so get out there and see for yourself.

About the Author

Michael Dehoyos is a web developer at the Ph.D. Kingdom and Academic Brits. He assists companies in digitalizing their marketing strategy, as well as sharing his knowledge by contributing to numerous sites and publications, the academic service Coursework Help, amongst them.

By Julian Rose | Waking Times

Independent small and medium-sized farms have been handed a death sentence by Klaus Schwab head of The World Economic Forum. Schwab, and fellow architects of top-down control, have officially let it be known that under the policy known as ‘Green Deal’ traditional family farms are no longer wanted and the foods they produce are to be replaced by laboratory and genetically engineered synthetic lookalikes. This policy is spelled out in the pages of Klaus Schwab’s book ‘The Great Reset’ which is part of the envisaged ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’.

The British government and the European Commission are committed to adopting this insane agenda in which working farmers are to be replaced by digitalized precision robots, as part of a so-called Global Warming mitigation crusade. When properly analyzed, this is revealed as a totalitarian program for complete corporate and banking control of the food chain. A program that is designed to eliminate the independent farmer.

What Are We Going to Do About It?

There is a very straightforward answer to this question. We are going to come together at the local level and launch a mutually supportive initiative that will guarantee both the farmer and the purchaser of the farmer’s food a fair and mutually beneficial exchange.

How does it work?

Very simple. The purchaser (consumer) approaches his or her local responsible farmer and asks to buy some fresh produce. The farmer considers this proposition. Some may decline, but this will be because it has not occurred to them that the future of their current dependency on a corporate-controlled marketing regime is completely untenable under the program proposed by Mr. Schwab.

Any good farmer will not turn down an opportunity to do business with near neighbors who are in search of positive and value-for-money farm-raised foods. Especially once the farming community realizes that their future income will depend more and more upon establishing a marketplace amongst those in the immediate vicinity of his/her farm. Those who do not wish – or cannot any longer – purchase their staple food requirements from corporate-owned super and hypermarket food chains.

The Savvy Farmer…

The savvy farmer can see the writing on the wall. Can see that slavery to a system of national and global manipulation – totally out of his/her hands – is a recipe for disaster. Such a farmer will be on the lookout for a secure local market; one where purchasers want to buy direct from the farm with no middle-man taking a cut. This must be the way forward if a secure future on the land is the desired outcome. Any intelligent farmer will recognize this and will take seriously a bonafide
request to supply farm-raised produce to those eager to buy it.

The Savvy Consumer…

The savvy consumer will be looking for fresh, healthy, flavourful good quality foods upon which to raise their family, or simply to feed themselves. They will recognize that the chance to acquire such food ‘direct from the farm’ represents the best possible outcome. A bond built-up with a local farmer, via regular purchasing of their farm-raised products, provides a powerful ally for times ahead when the commercial food chain is subjected to the brutal intervention of the architects of global control and shortages become the norm. Such times are no longer speculative. They are on our doorstep.

The Savvy Farmer and the Savvy Consumer – Getting Together

Either the consumer or the farmer can take the initiative of bringing both parties together.

How?

By calling a ‘round table’ meeting in the local village/town hall or simply in your home. Invite one or two farmers to sit around that table with some individuals eager to obtain food directly from the farm. Some might even be ready to discuss contracting a farmer to grow the staple foods they require. Good quality food is grown without recourse to chemical pesticides.

Farmers need a secure income and the buyers a secure local source of nutritious food. Fair prices for both parties and delivery or ‘pick-up from the farm’ can be negotiated in a friendly and informal manner. This is not purely ‘business’ in the old sense of the term; it is forming a common bond in a time when such bonds have been tragically neglected and supermarket convenience cultures have destroyed the links that hold communities together.

New trading, bartering, and sharing practice will be built around the adoption of this ‘proximity principle’. This is the one sure way of effectively resisting the Klaus Schwab farm killer and the New World Order plan for global domination of the food chain.

Other ways of supporting local trading include farm shops, farmers markets, box schemes, food cooperatives. Get onto the front foot and regenerate your community – from the ground up!

For further details of the Proximity Principle and community, regeneration sees ‘Creative Solutions to a World in Crisis’ by Julian Rose.

About the Author

Julian Rose is an early pioneer and practitioner of UK organic farming; an entrepreneur and leader of projects to create self-sufficient communities based on local supply and demand; a teacher of holistic life approaches and the author of four books – one of which ‘Creative Solutions to a World in Crisis’ lays-out detailed guidelines for the transformation of society into caring communities built upon ecological and spiritual awareness, justice and cooperation. See Julian’s website for more information www.julianrose.info

A sketch of the timeline of the holographic Universe. Time runs from left to right. The far left denotes the holographic phase and the image is blurry because space and time are not yet well defined. At the end of this phase (denoted by the black fluctuating ellipse), the Universe enters a geometric phase, which can now be described by Einstein’s equations. The cosmic microwave background was emitted about 375,000 years later. Patterns imprinted in it carry information about the very early Universe and seed the development of structures of stars and galaxies in the late time Universe (far right). Credit: Paul McFadden

Source: Phys.org

A UK, Canadian and Italian study has provided what researchers believe is the first observational evidence that our universe could be a vast and complex hologram.

Theoretical physicists and astrophysicists, investigating irregularities in the cosmic microwave background (the ‘afterglow’ of the Big Bang), have found there is substantial evidence supporting a holographic explanation of the universe—in fact, as much as there is for the traditional explanation of these irregularities using the theory of cosmic inflation.

The researchers, from the University of Southampton (UK), University of Waterloo (Canada), Perimeter Institute (Canada), INFN, Lecce (Italy) and the University of Salento (Italy), have published findings in the journal Physical Review Letters.

A holographic universe, an idea first suggested in the 1990s, is one where all the information that makes up our 3-D ‘reality’ (plus time) is contained in a 2-D surface on its boundaries.

Professor Kostas Skenderis of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Southampton explains: “Imagine that everything you see, feel and hear in three dimensions (and your perception of time) in fact emanates from a flat two-dimensional field. The idea is similar to that of ordinary holograms where a three-dimensional image is encoded in a two-dimensional surface, such as in the hologram on a credit card. However, this time, the entire universe is encoded.”

Although not an example with holographic properties, it could be thought of as rather like watching a 3-D film in a cinema. We see the pictures as having height, width and crucially, depth—when in fact it all originates from a flat 2-D screen. The difference, in our 3-D universe, is that we can touch objects and the ‘projection’ is ‘real’ from our perspective.

In recent decades, advances in telescopes and sensing equipment have allowed scientists to detect a vast amount of data hidden in the ‘white noise’ or microwaves (partly responsible for the random black and white dots you see on an un-tuned TV) leftover from the moment the universe was created. Using this information, the team was able to make complex comparisons between networks of features in the data and quantum field theory. They found that some of the simplest quantum field theories could explain nearly all cosmological observations of the early universe.

Professor Skenderis comments: “Holography is a huge leap forward in the way we think about the structure and creation of the universe. Einstein’s theory of general relativity explains almost everything large scale in the universe very well but starts to unravel when examining its origins and mechanisms at a quantum level. Scientists have been working for decades to combine Einstein’s theory of gravity and quantum theory. Some believe the concept of a holographic universe has the potential to reconcile the two. I hope our research takes us another step towards this.”

The scientists now hope their study will open the door to further our understanding of the early universe and explain how space and time emerged.

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | mercola.com  

By Neenah Payne | Waking Times 

Americans are taught that the Boston Tea Party ignited the American Revolutionary War because the colonists found the British tea tax tea intolerable. That’s part of the story, but it misses the pivotal turning point of our history — one we need to understand now before we destroy the planet.

Eastern White Pine – the Tree Rooted in American History explains the central role of the Eastern White Pine tree in the founding and building of America, its logging history, and its current importance to wildlife and humans. The king of England prized these huge, straight White Pines as masts for ships and founded New England to provide a reliable source of pines for masts. A mast 36-inches in diameter was valued in the 1700s at $25,000 in today’s currency.

Lumbering was THE economic powerhouse. The White Pine had led to the establishment of the New England colonies. However, contention over ownership of the pine gave rise to the American Revolution! In 1775, the first American flag displayed a White Pine Tree. By 1776, the American colonies had declared their independence from Britain! By 1830, Bangor, Maine was the world’s lumber capital. By the close of the 19^th century, Maine had shipped more than 18 billion board feet. Logging dramatically increased in the 20^th century.

American History Is Rooted in Eastern White Pine Tree

The St. Croix River Valley on the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin supplied pine lumber that built St. Louis, Omaha, Des Moines, Kansas City, and other prairie towns. The advent of the railroads increased the demand for lumber for tracks and fuel. The video points out, “It would not be an overstatement to say that the White Pine is the tree that built the United States of America!”

The trees can live to be 200-400 years old. The White Pine is the preferred home for bear cubs and other animals as well as eagles and other birds. The wonderful piney fragrance is caused by terpenes, chemicals in the tree which provides health benefits for a variety of conditions including cancer, neurological conditions, lowering blood pressure, and boosting the immune system.

The video shows that Bob Leverett, co-founder of Native Tree Society, is working to preserve the old-growth forests. He describes them as “forest cathedrals” and speaks of the spiritual ambiance they provide.

The Native Tree Society site says:

“The Native Tree Society was originally established in 1996 as the Eastern Native Tree Society to accurately measure and record the tallest trees, historical trees, and ancient forests of Eastern North America.  As the organization grew over the years we gained members from western North America and elsewhere around the world.  As the membership has expanded, the original scope of the group has also expanded to include trees and forests around the globe.

In July of 2011 the overall organization changed its name to the Native Tree Society to reflect a broader geographic membership and was restructured to reflect this conceptual change.   We have two formal chapters within the broader organization, the Eastern Native Tree Society (ENTS) focused on eastern North America, the Western Native Tree Society (WNTS) focused on western North America.  Members from elsewhere in the world are considered to be members at large to the NTS.  We hope to establish ties with tree interest groups in other continents and countries and to share our passion for trees and to promote the usage of our measurement standards and scientific goals in these areas.”

Restoring The Lost Forests of New England

The Lost Forests of New England – Eastern Old-Growth tells the story of New England’s ancient, old-growth forests… what they once were, what changes have taken place across central New England since European settlers arrived, and what our remnant old-growth stands look like today.

When Europeans arrived, 80-90% of the landscape in Massachusetts was old-growth forests with Hemlocks that could live 600 years, as well as Beech, Sugar Maples, and White Pines. Today, the old-growth forests are less than one-tenth of one percent of Massachusetts forests!

The video explains that these forests are important “carbon sinks”.

It’s not just the White Pines that have been under attack. The old-growth redwoods of Northern California are among the oldest living organisms in the world. It’s also the magnificent Redwoods.

Restoration of Redwood Forests

One Man’s Mission to Revive the Last Redwood Forests explains that David Milarch’s near-death experience inspired his quest to bring the redwood forests back from the brink of death before they are lost to humanity forever. It explains that in the US, 98% of the old-growth forests have been cut down. These trees have been on the planet for millions of years. Some trees are 2,000-4,000 years old.

These ancient cathedrals were sacrificed for profit — to be turned into tables and chairs, floors, and ships. However, that was extremely short-sighted because apart from being majestic and awe-inspiring, they hold the key to our own survival because of their absorption of carbon and provision of oxygen.

March decided to archive the genetics of the world’s largest trees before they’re gone. This short film documents his effort to save the redwood champions of Northern California from the effects of climate change. He is engaged in what he calls “assisted migration” which involved cloning the best trees, reproducing exact copies in the lab, and planting them in the cooler regions of Oregon in a climate the trees are accustomed to since California is going through a 1,000-year drought. California is the only native home of the redwoods and 96% of them were cut down.

Our Ancient Future: The Archangel Ancient Tree Archive Story

Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is a non-profit organization that collects, propagates, archives, and replants the genetics of ancient and iconic trees to restore the natural filter system to our water and air. These trees have the ability to clean our water, and stack carbon from our atmosphere to reduce the effects of climate change like no other species. Find out more at http://www.ancienttreearchive.org

Archangel Clones the World’s Most Iconic Trees

“CNN International profiled Archangel Ancient Tree Archive and its co-founder, David Milarch. He explains the reasons behind the nonprofit’s urgent mission to collect, propagate, the largest and oldest #ancienttrees, and restore the world’s #oldgrowth forests. We’re working to protect future generations from #climatechange. LEARN MORE: https://ancienttreearchive.org.”

About Archangel Ancient Tree Archive

Why Ancient Trees? – Archangel Ancient Tree Archive

Tree Sitting To Save A Redwood

Julia ‘Butterfly’ Hill: The Modern Day Lorax provides the backstory of why Julia “Butterfly” Hill lived at the top of a Redwood tree for two years in 1998. Julia’s story is particularly important today because it transcends even the important work of saving old-growth forests. The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman, and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods is by Julia.

https://youtu.be/eVDYQIfDuyk

The Amazon description says:

“On December 18, 1999, Julia Butterfly Hill’s feet touched the ground for the first time in over two years, as she descended from ‘Luna,’ a thousand-year-old redwood in Humboldt County, California. Hill had climbed 180 feet up into the tree high on a mountain on December 10, 1997, for what she thought would be a two- to three-week-long ‘tree-sit.’ The action was intended to stop Pacific Lumber, a division of the Maxxam Corporation, from the environmentally destructive process of clear-cutting the ancient redwood and the trees around it. The area immediately next to Luna had already been stripped and, because, as many believed, nothing was left to hold the soil to the mountain, a huge part of the hill had slid into the town of Stafford, wiping out many homes.

Over the course of what turned into a historic civil action, Hill endured El Nino storms, helicopter harassment, a ten-day siege by company security guards, and the tremendous sorrow brought about by an old-growth forest’s destruction. This story — written while she lived on a tiny platform eighteen stories off the ground — is one that only she can tell.

Twenty-five-year-old Julia Butterfly Hill never planned to become what some have called her — the Rosa Parks of the environmental movement. She never expected to be honored as one of Good Housekeeping’s ‘Most Admired Women of 1998′ and George magazine’s ’20 Most Interesting Women in Politics,’ to be featured in People magazine’s ’25 Most Intriguing People of the Year’ issue or to receive hundreds of letters weekly from young people around the world.

Indeed, when she first climbed into Luna, she had no way of knowing the harrowing weather conditions and the attacks on her and her cause. She had no idea of the loneliness she would face or that her feet wouldn’t touch the ground for more than two years. She couldn’t predict the pain of being an eyewitness to the attempted destruction of one of the last ancient redwood forests in the world, nor could she anticipate the immeasurable strength she would gain or the life lessons she would learn from Luna. Although her brave vigil and indomitable spirit have made her a heroine in the eyes of many, Julia’s story is a simple, heartening tale of love, conviction, and the profound courage she has summoned to fight for our earth’s legacy”.

Photos: It’s been 20 years since Julia Butterfly fought Big Logging — by living in a tree

The public-shaming genius made international headlines and inspired a generation of eco-crusaders.

“Julia ‘Butterfly’ Hill poses in her tree-top shelter nearly 200 feet above the ground in December 1998, one year into her standoff with the Pacific Lumber Company in Humboldt County, California. (Yann Gamblin/Paris Match via Getty Images)

On December 10, 1997, the barefoot environmental activist Julia ‘Butterfly’ Hill climbed up a 600-year-old, 200-foot-tall redwood tree in a remote corner of Northern California, and stayed there for 738 days. A native of Arkansas, Hill had teamed up with Earth First!, a group of by-any-means-necessary, redneck-hippie eco-warriors best known for its legally dubious ‘monkey-wrenching’ protest tactics.

Hill, however, brought a Zen-like mysticism to the movement, and her motivation for occupying the tree, dubbed ‘Luna’ (‘anyone that would climb this high is a lunatic,’ she later explained), was as much about spirituality as it was politics. ‘There’s no way to be in the presence of these ancient beings and not be affected,’ the exhausted 24-year-old told a group of reporters after descending the tree in December, 1999. ‘There’s something more than profit, and that’s life.’

People had been tree sitting before Julia Butterfly came along. But Hill ushered in a new sense of urgency and determination, the likes of which were completely irresistible to the press. Between riding out torrential El Niño storms and freezing winds from her precarious 8-by-8-foot plywood perch, she conducted radio interviews via solar-powered cell phone, and hosted reporters and photographers willing to make the two-hour climb to her rustic penthouse. On Earth Day in 1999, Joan Baez and Bonnie Raitt even dropped by. Baez called the visit ‘one of the most remarkable experiences of my life.’

Her protest worked: Luna was spared the chainsaw (though nearby redwoods continue to be cut). When Hill finally came down, wobbly kneed and ecstatic, she said ‘it was so cold and wet this morning, I had to laugh, because I was so thankful that I don’t have to sit through another winter.’”

In Julia in the Storm, Julia explained in 2010 how she conquered her fears in the tree.

Importance of Disagreeing Agreeably

Julia is not just an activist. She is also a profound philosopher and a healer who is important to listen to now as the country faces such sharp divisions over a variety of issues that many foresee a Civil War. In this video, Julia calls for unity even with those who see us as an “enemy”. For example, even as loggers initially labeled her derisively, she refused to label them. She says it’s important to disagree agreeably.

Julia Butterfly Hill “Pro”

Julia Butterfly Hill is known for climbing a 1,000-year-old redwood tree in 1997 when she was 23 years old, and remaining there without touching the ground for two years, as part of a successful effort to call worldwide attention to the destruction of California’s ancient redwoods. Since then, she has addressed the U.N., lobbied Congress, and continued to stand on the front lines of environmental and social justice issues all over the world. She is the author of The Legacy of Luna: The Story of a Tree, a Woman and the Struggle to Save the Redwoods and One Makes the Difference: Inspiring Actions That Change Our World.

Julia Butterfly Hill “The 6 R’s”

The 6 R’s Julia advocates are “Respect, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rethink, and Rejoice!”

Julia Butterfly Hill — PeaceCasters Interview

Julia Butterfly Hill speaking on Healing the Wounds of Disconnection

Healing The Disease of Disconnect

Then & Now! Julia Butterfly Hill

“Julia Butterfly Hill ascended Luna—a giant 1,500-year-old redwood tree near Stafford, California—in December 1997. She lived in Luna for 738 days, until finally descending in December 1999 when an agreement was made with Pacific Lumber Company that protected Luna and a 200-foot buffer zone surrounding the tree.

Julia Butterfly Hill was interviewed on June 23, 2021, by Trees Foundation’s Director of Development and Outreach, Kerry Reynolds. The transcription has been edited for length. You can watch the full 27-minute interview at https://youtu.be/WPnwqKtjLgs….

Julia says:

“While I was in Luna, I learned that every issue we’re facing is the symptom, and the disease is the disease of disconnect. When we’re disconnected from the Earth and we’re disconnecting from each other, we make choices and don’t realize how it’s truly impacting all of us, and that means all the beings, everything, and the future generations. I wanted to try and help weave that together for people, that if…we’re working on the symptoms if we don’t work also at the disease, we’ll never be able to get to the healing that our world and our planet needs…. If the disease is the disease of disconnect, then the healing is all the ways that we can, and do, connect.”

About the Author

Neenah Payne writes for Activist Post and Natural Blaze

By April McCarthy | Prevent Disease

Lose your temper on the road? Frustrated with colleagues at work? You may be cutting your life short, warns molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn–who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2009–and health psychologist Elissa Epel, who studies stress and aging.

The authors claim in their new book, The Telomere Effect, that negative thoughts harm your health at the DNA level. Research has shown that a person’s “social relationships, environments and lifestyles” affect their genes. “Even though you are born with a particular set of genes, the way you live can influence how they express themselves.”

Blackburn and Epel say components of DNA called telomeres determine how fast your cells age. Short telomeres are one of the major reasons human cells grow old, but lab tests have shown that they can also grow longer. In other words, aging “could possibly be accelerated or slowed -and, in some aspects, even reversed.” The

The aging and lifespan of normal, healthy cells are linked to the so-called telomerase shortening mechanism, which limits cells to a fixed number of divisions. During cell replication, the telomeres function by ensuring the cell’s chromosomes do not fuse with each other or rearrange, which can lead to cancer. Blackburn likened telomeres to the ends of shoelaces, without which the lace would unravel.

In one study, telomere length, an emerging biomarker for cellular and general bodily aging, was assessed in association with the tendency to be present in the moment versus the tendency to mind wander, in research on 239 healthy, midlife women ranging in age from 50 to 65 years. “People who score high on measures of cynical hostility tend to get

“People who score high on measures of cynical hostility tend to get more cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease and often die at younger ages. They also have shorter telomeres.”

Pessimism shortens telomeres too.”When pessimists develop an aging-related illness, like cancer or heart disease, the illness tends to progress faster… They tend to die earlier,” warn the authors.

Ruminating over a bad situation is also destructive. “Rumination never leads to a solution, only to more ruminating… When you ruminate, stress sticks around in the body long after the reason for the stress is over.” The resulting depression and anxiety only make your telomeres shorter.

Trying to suppress thoughts and feelings makes matters worse. “The more forcefully you push your thoughts away, the louder they call out for your attention… In a small study, greater avoidance of negative feelings and thoughts was associated with shorter telomeres.”

Even lack of focus is bad for telomeres because “when people are not thinking about what they’re doing, they’re not as happy as when they’re engaged.” To reverse the harm to telomeres, try meditation and long-distance running.

Read more great articles at Prevent Disease.

By Jill Suttie | Greater Good Magazine

Like many people over 60, I sometimes lose my keys or forget the names of my favorite films. When I do, it makes me wonder: Is this the beginning of the cognitive decline? Or, worse, am I fated to follow in the footsteps of my mother, who died of Lewy-body dementia in her 70s?

According to neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta, CNN medical correspondent and author of the new book Keep Sharp: Building a Better Brain at Any Age, the answer is no. Forgetfulness is normal at all ages, and your genes don’t doom you to dementia. What’s important is taking care of your brain in the best way possible, he argues.

“You can affect your brain’s thinking and memory far more than you realize or appreciate, and the vast majority of people haven’t even begun to try,” he writes.

Gupta distills results from hundreds of research studies to help readers understand what’s known (and not known) about keeping your brain healthy. Along the way, he busts common myths—for example, that doing puzzles is a good way to ward off dementia—and replaces them with science-based advice on how to live a longer, healthier life with a more functional brain. He also distinguishes typical memory lapses (like forgetting an acquaintance’s name) from more troublesome ones (like not remembering the way home from a frequent destination)—a distinction I found quite reassuring.

While he’s quick to hail the cognitive strengths of older people (they tend to have better vocabulary skills, for example), he also points out that our cognitive capacities can start to decline much earlier in life than we think, even in early adulthood. That’s why he recommends making lifestyle changes now to improve brainpower at every age—not just when you hit your 60s.

Keep Sharp includes a questionnaire assessing risk for cognitive decline—with some surprising questions, like “Do you sit for most of the day?” or “Do you have a history of depression?” Understanding your risk can inspire you to take corrective action. To that end, here are Gupta’s five keys to a healthier brain.

Move more

“When people ask me what’s the single most important thing they can do to enhance their brain’s function and resiliency to disease, I answer with one word: exercise,” writes Gupta. Being inactive is probably the most significant risk factor in dementia while staying fit can help stave it off. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much movement to make a difference: Even walking for two minutes every day counts.

Exercise provides many benefits overall, including better stamina, strength, stress management, and immune function. But the main reason movement helps the brain is that it reduces inflammation while stimulating growth factors that promote the function and growth of neural cells. That’s why aerobic exercise (more than stationary exercise, like weightlifting) confers cognitive benefits—though weightlifting can build muscle.

Get enough sleep

“Sleeping well is one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve your brain functions, as well as your ability to learn and remember new knowledge,” writes Gupta. That’s because sleep seems to clear the brain of debris that might otherwise build up and create problems.

Of course, some people have trouble getting good sleep; so, Gupta’s book reminds them of sleep hygiene principles that can help. He also points to the importance of resting, in general, and suggests replacing daytime naps with stress-reducing walks in nature or meditations.

To reduce stress and rumination (those troublesome thoughts that keep us up at night), he recommends that people add a gratitude practice to their day—which, he writes, “acts like a big reset button.” You can also think about community volunteering, taking regular breaks from email and social media, and avoiding multitasking.

Learn, discover, and find purpose

While puzzles may not be the answer to cognitive decline, we do need to stimulate our brains with learning and discovery, writes Gupta. Learning creates new neural pathways and promotes brain resiliency—something that may help stave off the outward symptoms of dementia (like memory loss) even if you develop the telltale brain plaques associated with Alzheimer’s.

Keep Sharp: Building a Better Brain at Any Age (Simon & Schuster, 2021, 336 pages)

“Think of it as a big backup system in the brain that results from enriched life experiences such as education and occupation,” he writes.

Building cognitive reserve doesn’t happen overnight, he warns—it results from a lifetime of challenging your brain through education, work, social relationships, and other activities. However, just because you don’t have a college education doesn’t mean you will experience greater cognitive decline, either. Aiming to challenge your mind throughout your life is more protective than a formal degree.

Gupta warns that the majority of commercial “brain games” are not effective at staving off dementia, though they may improve memory because they don’t train problem-solving or reasoning—keys to cognitive reserve. People would be better off taking a traditional class or learning a second language, he says, because these activities offer more complex challenges and social contact, too—also important for brain health.

Finding purpose in life can be good for the brain, especially if it involves contact with people of different generations or personal learning and challenge. Research suggests that people with a sense of purpose have a reduced risk of suffering the deleterious effects of dementia—even if their brain contains Alzheimer’s plaques—probably because having purpose inspires them to take better care of themselves.

Eat well

“What’s good for the heart is good for the brain,” writes Gupta. Still, there is so much conflicting information out there about diets and dietary supplements, it can be hard to separate the wheat from the chaff (pun intended).

Gupta takes pains to dispel myths around gluten and so-called “superfoods” (like kale and fish oil). There is no evidence to suggest gluten affects people’s brain function, he says, and kale and fish oil, while good for you, are not going to stop cognitive decline.

While it’s hard to recommend a perfect brain diet based on research, Gupta cites Martha Clare Morris’s work. An epidemiologist and founding member of the Global Council on Brain Health, Morris recommends a Mediterranean-like diet—one rich in vegetables, berries, beans, whole grains, fish, poultry, and olive oil.

That diet may not be palatable or available for everyone, though. So, Gupta provides more general diet advice, too (using the acronym SHARP):

• Stay away from lots of refined sugar.
• Hydrate regularly.
• Add more omega-3 fatty acids from dietary sources (not pills).
• Reduce portions (possibly trying intermittent fasting).
• Plan ahead—meaning, have healthy snacks around so you don’t turn to junk food if you become hungry.

Connect with others

Having close relationships with others you can count on is important to a happy, healthy life, and may help you live longer. It’s important for brain health, too, as research suggests its opposite, loneliness, seems to be a factor in developing Alzheimer’s.

Gupta suggests combining socializing with other activities designed to get you moving or learning. That could mean taking a walk or class with a friend, joining a team sport, or volunteering. Socializing with more diverse people or people of different generations can also be a plus. And staying connected virtually, while less than ideal, maybe helpful when one lives in a remote place without many social supports. An added bonus: Learning how to use social media for the first time may help boost memory.

While it’s true each of these lifestyle factors is good for preventing cognitive decline, Gupta has advice for people already experiencing cognitive decline, too. Part of his book is devoted to helping readers experiencing decline to assess where they’re at and figure out how to move forward from there.

For the rest of us, his book is a useful and highly readable primer for sharpening your brain at any age—not just to stave off dementia, but to simply enjoy your life more fully.

“The brain can be continuously and consistently enriched throughout our life no matter your age or access to resources,” he writes. If you change your lifestyle, even a little, he promises, “Your brain—no, your whole body—will love it.”

About the Author

By David Korten | Common Dreams

David Korten

Dr. David Korten is the author of “Agenda for a New Economy,”  “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community,” “Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth,” and the international bestseller “When Corporations Rule the World.” He is board chair of YES! Magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, president of the Living Economies Forum, and a member of the Club of Rome. He holds MBA and Ph.D. degrees from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and served on the faculty of the Harvard Business School.

By Jill Suttie | Greater Good Magazine

We are spending more time indoors and online. But recent studies suggest that nature can help our brains and bodies to stay healthy.

I’ve been an avid hiker my whole life. From the time I first strapped on a backpack and headed into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, I was hooked on the experience, loving the way being in nature cleared my mind and helped me to feel more grounded and peaceful.

But, even though I’ve always believed that hiking in nature had many psychological benefits, I’ve never had much science to back me up…until now, that is. Scientists are beginning to find evidence that being in nature has a profound impact on our brains and our behavior, helping us to reduce anxiety, brooding and stress, and increase our attention capacity, creativity, and our ability to connect with other people.

Related Article: The Frequency of Life: Getting Back to Nature For Good Health

“People have been discussing their profound experiences in nature for the last several 100 years—from Thoreau to John Muir to many other writers,” says researcher David Strayer, of the University of Utah. “Now we are seeing changes in the brain and changes in the body that suggest we are physically and mentally more healthy when we are interacting with nature.”

While he and other scientists may believe nature benefits our well-being, we live in a society where people spend more and more time indoors and online—especially children. Findings on how nature improves our brains bring added legitimacy to the call for preserving natural spaces—both urban and wild—and for spending more time in nature in order to lead healthier, happier, and more creative lives.

Here are some of the ways that science is showing how being in nature affects our brains and bodies.

1. Being in nature decreases stress

It’s clear that hiking—and any physical activity—can reduce stress and anxiety. But, there’s something about being in nature that may augment those impacts.

In one recent experiment conducted in Japan, participants were assigned to walk either in a forest or in an urban center (taking walks of equal length and difficulty) while having their heart rate variability, heart rate, and blood pressure measured. The participants also filled out questionnaires about their moods, stress levels, and other psychological measures.

Results showed that those who walked in forests had significantly lower heart rates and higher heart rate variability (indicating more relaxation and less stress), and reported better moods and less anxiety, than those who walked in urban settings. The researchers concluded that there’s something about being in nature that had a beneficial effect on stress reduction, above and beyond what exercise alone might have produced.

In another study, researchers in Finland found that urban dwellers who strolled for as little as 20 minutes through an urban park or woodland reported significantly more stress relief than those who strolled in a city center.

The reasons for this effect are unclear, but scientists believe that we evolved to be more relaxed in natural spaces. In a now-classic laboratory experiment by Roger Ulrich of Texas A&M University and colleagues, participants who first viewed a stress-inducing movie, and were then exposed to color/sound videotapes depicting natural scenes, showed much quicker, more complete recovery from stress than those who’d been exposed to videos of urban settings.

These studies and others provide evidence that being in natural spaces— or even just looking out of a window onto a natural scene—somehow soothes us and relieves stress.

2. Nature makes you happier and less brooding

I’ve always found that hiking in nature makes me feel happier, and of course, decreased stress may be a big part of the reason why. But, Gregory Bratman, of Stanford University, has found evidence that nature may impact our mood in other ways, too.

In one 2015 study, he and his colleagues randomly assigned 60 participants to a 50-minute walk in either a natural setting (oak woodlands) or an urban setting (along a four-lane road). Before and after the walk, the participants were assessed on their emotional state and on cognitive measures, such as how well they could perform tasks requiring short-term memory. Results showed that those who walked in nature experienced less anxiety, rumination (focused attention on negative aspects of oneself), and negative affect, as well as more positive emotions, in comparison to the urban walkers. They also improved their performance on memory tasks.

In another study, he and his colleagues extended these findings by zeroing in on how walking in nature affects rumination—which has been associated with the onset of depression and anxiety—while also using fMRI technology to look at brain activity. Participants who took a 90-minute walk in either a natural setting or an urban setting had their brains scanned before and after their walks and were surveyed on self-reported rumination levels (as well as other psychological markers). The researchers controlled for many potential factors that might influence rumination or brain activity—for example, physical exertion levels as measured by heart rates and pulmonary functions.

Even so, participants who walked in a natural setting versus an urban setting reported decreased rumination after the walk, and they showed increased activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain whose deactivation is affiliated with depression and anxiety—a finding that suggests nature may have important impacts on mood.

Bratman believes results like these need to reach city planners and others whose policies impact our natural spaces. “Ecosystem services are being incorporated into decision making at all levels of public policy, land use planning, and urban design, and it’s very important to be sure to incorporate empirical findings from psychology into these decisions,” he says.

3. Nature relieves attention fatigue and increases creativity.

Today, we live with ubiquitous technology designed to constantly pull for our attention. But many scientists believe our brains were not made for this kind of information bombardment, and that it can lead to mental fatigue, overwhelm, and burnout, requiring “attention restoration” to get back to a normal, healthy state.

Strayer is one of those researchers. He believes that being in nature restores depleted attention circuits, which can then help us be more open to creativity and problem-solving.

“When you use your cell phone to talk, text, shoot photos, or whatever else you can do with your cell phone, you’re tapping the prefrontal cortex and causing reductions in cognitive resources,” he says.

In a 2012 study, he and his colleagues showed that hikers on a four-day backpacking trip could solve significantly more puzzles requiring creativity when compared to a control group of people waiting to take the same hike—in fact, 47 percent more. Although other factors may account for his results—for example, the exercise or the camaraderie of being out together—prior studies have suggested that nature itself may play an important role. One in Psychological Science found that the impact of nature on attention restoration is what accounted for improved scores on cognitive tests for the study participants.

This phenomenon may be due to differences in brain activation when viewing natural scenes versus more built-up scenes—even for those who normally live in an urban environment. In a recent study conducted by Peter Aspinall at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, and colleagues, participants who had their brains monitored continuously using mobile electroencephalogram (EEG) while they walked through an urban green space had brain EEG readings indicating lower frustration, engagement, and arousal, and higher meditation levels while in the green area, and higher engagement levels when moving out of the green area. This lower engagement and arousal may be what allows for attention restoration, encouraging a more open, meditative mindset.

It’s this kind of brain activity—sometimes referred to as “the brain default network”—that is tied to creative thinking, says Strayer. He is currently repeating his earlier 2012 study with a new group of hikers and recording their EEG activity and salivary cortisol levels before, during, and after a three-day hike. Early analyses of EEG readings support the theory that hiking in nature seems to rest people’s attention networks and to engage their default networks.

Strayer and colleagues are also specifically looking at the effects of technology by monitoring people’s EEG readings while they walk in an arboretum, either while talking on their cell phone or not. So far, they’ve found that participants with cell phones appear to have EEG readings consistent with attention overload, and can recall only half as many details of the arboretum they just passed through, compared to those who were not on a cell phone.

Though Strayer’s findings are preliminary, they are consistent with other people’s findings on the importance of nature to attention restoration and creativity.

“If you’ve been using your brain to multitask—as most of us do most of the day—and then you set that aside and go on a walk, without all of the gadgets, you’ve let the prefrontal cortex recover,” says Strayer. “And that’s when we see these bursts in creativity, problem-solving, and feelings of well-being.”

4. Nature may help you to be kind and generous

Whenever I go to places like Yosemite or the Big Sur Coast of California, I seem to return to my home life ready to be more kind and generous to those around me—just ask my husband and kids! Now some new studies may shed light on why that is.

In a series of experiments published in 2014, Juyoung Lee, GGSC director Dacher Keltner, and other researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, studied the potential impact of nature on the willingness to be generous, trusting, and helpful toward others, while considering what factors might influence that relationship.

As part of their study, the researchers exposed participants to more or less subjectively beautiful nature scenes (whose beauty levels were rated independently) and then observed how participants behaved playing two economics games—the Dictator Game and the Trust Game—that measure generosity and trust, respectively. After being exposed to the more beautiful nature scenes, participants acted more generously and more trusting in the games than those who saw less beautiful scenes, and the effects appeared to be due to corresponding increases in positive emotion.

In another part of the study, the researchers asked people to fill out a survey about their emotions while sitting at a table where more or less beautiful plants were placed. Afterward, the participants were told that the experiment was over and they could leave, but that if they wanted to they could volunteer to make paper cranes for a relief effort program in Japan. The number of cranes they made (or didn’t make) was used as a measure of their “prosociality” or willingness to help.

Related Article: Creating Connection: Finding Balance Between Nature and Man.

Results showed that the presence of more beautiful plants significantly increased the number of cranes made by participants and that this increase was, again, mediated by positive emotion elicited by natural beauty. The researchers concluded that experiencing the beauty of nature increases positive emotion—perhaps by inspiring awe, a feeling akin to wonder, with the sense of being part of something bigger than oneself—which then leads to prosocial behaviors.

Support for this theory comes from an experiment conducted by Paul Piff of the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues, in which participants staring up a grove of very tall trees for as little as one minute experienced measurable increases in awe, and demonstrated more helpful behavior and approached moral dilemmas more ethically, than participants who spent the same amount of time looking up at a high building.

5. Nature makes you “feel more alive”

With all of these benefits to being out in nature, it’s probably no surprise that something about nature makes us feel more alive and vital. Being outdoors gives us energy, makes us happier, helps us to relieve the everyday stresses of our overscheduled lives, opens the door to creativity, and helps us to be kind to others.

No one knows if there is an ideal amount of nature exposure, though Strayer says that longtime backpackers suggest a minimum of three days to really unplug from our everyday lives. Nor can anyone say for sure how nature compares to other forms of stress relief or attention restoration, such as sleep or meditation. Both Strayer and Bratman say we need a lot more careful research to tease out these effects before we come to any definitive conclusions.

Still, the research does suggest there’s something about nature that keeps us psychologically healthy, and that’s good to know…especially since nature is a resource that’s free and that many of us can access by just walking outside our door. Results like these should encourage us as a society to consider more carefully how we preserve our wilderness spaces and our urban parks.

And while the research may not be conclusive, Strayer is optimistic that science will eventually catch up to what people like me have intuited all along—that there’s something about nature that renews us, allowing us to feel better, to think better, and to deepen our understanding of ourselves and others.

“You can’t have centuries of people writing about this and not have something going on,” says Strayer. “If you are constantly on a device or in front of a screen, you’re missing out on something that’s pretty spectacular: the real world.”

Image sources: Peter Morgan, Auyuittuq National Park

Video Source: SOMA Breath

Can you live forever? In this video, Niraj Naik talks about immortality and longevity, and the ability to live forever. Do you think this is a myth, or is it something that’s actually true? There’s a technique in pranayama and yoga called Kumbhaka. Learn how to do the Kumbhaka Pranayama and how to fully utilize full breath retention.

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | mercola.com

It needn’t be difficult or expensive to eat healthily.

Ease into it by eliminating three bad foods and adding a few good foods to your diet. This will help maintain your weight while lowering your risk of developing a number of chronic diseases, according to the Harvard School of Public Health.

Eating the right amount of certain foods may help cut your risk of dying from heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes by almost half.

Don’t know where to begin? Let’s start with what to pitch; here are three things to get rid of:

1. Sugar-sweetened beverages such as soda, fruit drinks, and sports drinks
2. Refined grains: Think “white” as in flour, bread, rice, and pasta, as well as pastries and similar sweets
3. Highly processed foods including fast food and meats such as salami, ham, bacon, and sausage

Sugary beverages are Bad with a capital b. Most are sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, which studies show can increase risk factors for heart disease within two weeks! There is also a strong link between processed foods and depression.

Consuming high-carb, refined grains also can lead to allergies, asthma, gluten intolerance, celiac disease, heart disease, vitamin deficiencies, diabetes, and obesity.

Now that you’ve dumped some unhealthy foods, what’s to eat? Plenty! Try these simple food changes:

1. Three pieces of fruit per day
2. Two cups of cooked or four cups of raw veggies per day
3. Five 1-ounce servings (about 20 nuts) of nuts or seeds per week
4. Healthy oils such as coconut, extra-virgin olive, aka EVOO, and avocado
5. One serving (5-to 8-ounces) of red meat or 8-ounces of seafood per week

Eating plenty of organic, raw vegetables and whole fruits daily can lower your blood pressure and cut your prescription costs in half. And no, fruit juices are not a substitute for whole fruits.

Regarding fruits, they offer many vitamins, enzymes, and minerals, but limit how much fruit you eat as the fructose content can upset your metabolism. It’s best to limit fructose to 25 grams per day from all sources, and as little as 15 grams a day if you’re diabetic or have chronic health issues (including the fructose from whole fruits).

A handful of raw nuts or seeds is a satisfying — and tasty! — a snack that contains healthy fats, fiber, protein, antioxidants and minerals, all the while helping to maintain your weight, boost your immune system and benefit your heart. Pumpkin and sunflower seeds, as well as pecans, macadamia nuts, and walnuts,  are excellent choices.

Avoid grain-fed meats and go for organic, pastured beef  — not beef from animals raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The same applies to other animal meats and animal products such as pork, poultry, dairy, and eggs. Choose wild-caught seafood that is good for you and the planet. Smaller fish like sardines, anchovies, and herring tend to be low in contaminants and high in heart-healthy omega-3 fats.  Salmon is also an excellent source of omega-3; just make sure it’s wild-caught Alaskan salmon (either fresh or canned) to reap the benefits.

And yes, there are ways to adopt a keto-style diet to eat healthily and not break the bank.

Visit farmers markets or connect with local, organic farmers when shopping for meat, eggs, vegetables, and fruits. Grow your own vegetables, sprouts, and fruits and try fermenting any excess raw veggies. Fermented vegetables are easy to make and supply your body with essential enzymes and beneficial bacteria needed for good gut health and digestion.

So, go ahead, hit the Healthy Road: Throw out the junk foods, consume real food and, in the long run, you’ll feel great and could save thousands of dollars on chronic disease-related medical expenses.

You’ve got nothing to lose but weight, depression, and illness.

Read more great articles at mercola.com

By Rush University Medical Center | Science Daily

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