We've come a long way from mood rings!

I read an interesting article earlier this month about so-called Smart Clothing. This is clothing that would be able to determine what your mood is and then improve your mood by responding to you. It’s still in prototype form and is debuting in museums while it’s being worked on but the basic idea is this:

• Moods are programmed into your clothing based on responses to what’s happening in your body. For example, an increased heart rate may be one sign that you are getting anxious.
• The clothing is pre-programmed to respond to these moods. Responses may include a text message, image or video that displays on a sleeve or an audio recording of the voice of a loved one.
• Your clothing is set to read your mood throughout the day and to respond with the pre-programmed responses. For example, if your clothing believes that you are feeling anxious, it may provide an audio tone that you’ve recorded of a calming affirmation.

Smart clothing original article

I was just reading an article in a design magazine about a very unique design approach that has been taken by a Japanese mental health clinic located in Tokyo. The design uses a variety of different tricks that would likely confuse the mind. For example, there are doors located all throughout the mental health hospital but the doors don’t actually open. How do you get into the rooms if the doors don’t open? Well, there are hidden doors located behind bookcases and in the center of walls adorned with decorations.

It sounds almost like a form of torture doesn’t it? Here you are, trying to gather together your sanity, and everything that should be normal around you is different from the way that it’s supposed to be. It sounds confusing. It sounds frightening. But perhaps it’s exactly the opposite. Perhaps this unique approach to design could be the thing that helps to heal patients.

The thinking behind this design is that it’s a truly hands-on, day-to-day method of getting everyone in the facility to think outside of the box. When your normal surroundings are altered in a very unusual way like this, you are forced to think differently. You are forced to be more creative. This could have a very beneficial impact on altering the negative states of mind of the patients who come to receive help at the mental health clinic. It might even have a positive effect on the thinking patterns of staff and visitors.

As beautifully described by the magazine:

“By providing alternate perspectives for viewing the world, and avoiding being trapped by pre-existing perceptions, the interior allows visitors–and staff members–to experience opening new doors in their hearts, one after the other.”

It’s a fascinating idea isn’t it?

One of the things that I think is most important to learn how to do as an adult is to learn to take time out for yourself on a regular basis. I think it’s important to learn to take a few moments each day to just breathe and to be still with yourself. I think it’s important to learn to take a half day out of your week to do something alone that you truly enjoy. And I think it’s important to learn to take vacations or pursue long-term goals that allow you to take time for yourself in a bigger way throughout the year.

When you take time for yourself, you recharge your batteries. You get in better touch with yourself. You understand your needs and wants and emotions better. Taking time for yourself therefore allows you to give more to the people around you because there is more of you available to give. It allows you to be more productive while simultaneously allowing you to be more creative anmd flexible in your productivity.

Sure, it’s possible to fail to take time for yourself and to give your all to something in a productive way for awhile. Some people can even do this for long stretches of time. But you can’t do it forever. At some point, something’s got to give and then you burn out because your body and mind demand the attention that they need. Instead of doing that, we should take time out every day to be with ourselves and to be kind to ourselves so that we can keep going day after day without sacrificing our positive experience of life.

I always find it funny when people say that they don’t have the time to relax. It’s funny to me because of the irony of the fact that those people who have the least time are the ones who most need to relax and yet they don’t feel like they can. What I’ve discovered is that learning to take time away from your obligations is the single biggest thing that can allow you to be most productive in the times during which you are busy.

Learning to take time for yourself doesn’t mean that you have to give up any of your daily obligations. Take a look at my tips for ten ways to destress yourself in ten minutes or less. Each of these tips can be used throughout the day to decrease destress and yet none of them takes so much time that any part of your day should be hindered as a result of taking that time to chill out.

In fact, you will most likely find that the rest of your day goes much better because of the fact that you have taken a little bit of time to yourself. When we spread ourselves too thin, we don’t offer our full selves to anything that we are doing and everything suffers as a result of that. When we manage to take the time to care for ourselves, we do better in all that we do even if it technically seems like we have less time to give to things.

Anyone who is interested in yoga, meditation and general wellness should make it a point to check out the many different articles that were recently submitted to the Roundup of Yoga, Meditation and Personal Development blog carnival. There was a lot of useful information provided there!

My own post was on the many benefits of yoga was included in this carnival. Of course it was in the yoga section along with posts on bikram yoga, face yoga, yoga for beginners and the internal strength built by yoga. Also in the yoga section were two chakra-based posts on the root chakra and the heart chakra.

Another topic covered very well in this blog carnival is the topic of meditation and spiritual growth. This includes posts on the zen of clearing your mind, the law of attraction, consciousness and mysticism.

Additional posts in this blog carnival ran the gamut of topics including happiness, hypnosis, making the most of life through gratitude, forgiveness and optimism, making good eating choices (like papaya), your subconscious mind, having children, addictive drugs, anorexia, creativity and life goals.

Which of these posts made you feel most at peace?

My health and diet post about yoga being so much more than just a physical thing has been included in the stress subject section of the Total Mind and Body Fitness blog carnival. Other articles on stress that were included were about rush hour traffic stress, destressing at work and finding satisfaction in life.

This blog carnival isn’t just about stress relief, though. It’s about all aspects of fitness and wellness. Other posts included:

• Posts on the brain including those related to memory, positive thoughts and brain plasticity.
• Tips, warnings and hints for dating online as well as offline and dealing with issues like cheating
• Exercise posts on yoga, the body (especially abs) and using ellipticals
• Beauty posts on cosmetic fillers and hair oil
• Food and nutrition posts on alcohol, pizza, health shakes, cholesterol and tea
• Financial wellness information on online banking, business and volunteerism
• Some seemingly random posts on Montana, PhotoLab, gold investing and remarkability

Wellness is a really important topic to read about so hopefully you’ll find some helpful information from the other articles that were included in this blog carnival!

I believe that the key to living a healthy life is to live in moderation. I don’t always stick with this belief. I have some hedonistic tendencies. I like to indulge and imbibe. I like to revel and rejoice. But ultimately, I believe that most things work best when they are done in moderation rather than at the extremes.

I believe that this is true of both work and play. I definitely go through periods of being a workaholic. This is sometimes great since I really do love the work that I do. But ultimately the lack of moderation in my work causes me to dislike what I normally enjoy about it and to seek to regain that balance of work and play yet again. Likewise, when I play too much, I miss my work. When I am too social, I miss my solitude and when I stay home alone too much, I miss my friends. My life is constantly about trying to find balance and that balance comes with learning moderation.

One specific example of moderation that works is in dieting and weight loss. I don’t believe in fad diets. I don’t believe in rapid weight loss. I don’t believe in extreme weight changes. What I believe is that your body has a weight that’s right for it and that if you eat healthy and in moderation then you will naturally balance out at this weight, the right weight for you and the one at which you will feel your best. I don’t believe in over-indulging in treats but I do believe in indulging in what you enjoy on a regular basis. I believe, ultimately, in moderation - in weight loss, yes, but more importantly in life as a whole.

Diary of a Smart Chick is certainly a diary of sorts. It’s a place where I think about my writing that I’m doing elsewhere on the web and add some insight to it and share it with others. But it’s not the only diary that I keep. I also keep a daily diary (or journal, rather) in my personal life. I’ve kept a diary off and on since I was about ten and it’s something that I do consistently now because I think it’s a really important part of my life.

For me, the journal is a place where I can get every single thought out of my head. I write in it every morning whether I am feeling happy or sad, sick or well. I write down what I’m feeling and what I’m thinking and what I’m going to do that day and what I’m worried about and what I’m excited about and what I don’t want to really write about.

Doing this allows that stuff to get on to the page where it can be processed. This means it’s not bouncing around inside of my brain anymore. The fact that it clears some peace of mind for me means that I can then go about my day without so much worry about those thoughts. I can make smart choices about how to handle problems. I can relax. I can be creative.

I believe that keeping a journal is something that is particularly important for writers. However, I think it’s a tool that anyone can (and should) use to get some peace of mind in their daily lives. It’s a way to understand yourself better. Plus keeping the commitment to write down your thoughts daily shows yourself that you value those thoughts and emotions which can go a long way towards living an emotionally healthy life.

Yoga is a popular form of exercise, especially in California where I live. However, it’s more than just a form of exercise. Yoga is a means of connecting with yourself. It’s a tool that can be used to get away from the hectic pace of life and bring yourself back to the core things that matter for you. It’s a way to establish peace of mind, get to know what’s going on with your body and really heal yourself from the inside out.

I never thought that I would be a yoga person. I was always someone who couldn’t sit still for long. I was always someone who wanted to do hiking and indoor rock climbing and other activities that involved a lot of motion. And I was definitely never someone who enjoyed classes filled with people who were exercising together.

But then things happened in my life. My world crashed down around me. And the only thing that I felt capable of doing was breathing (although some days I didn’t even feel capable of that). That was when I found yoga. I signed up for a weekly workshop. I dragged myself there. I learned to do some basic poses. I learned to breathe more deeply. And I learned to settle my mind so I could just relax despite the chaos happening around me. The physical exercise is certainly an important part of yoga but yoga is about so much more than that.

Ever since I started that first workshop, I have felt that yoga must be an important part of my life for the rest of my life. I make time for yoga classes no matter what else is going on. When I was ill recently, the thing I missed most was being able to go to yoga. Although it’s not the right activity for everyone, it’s now the right activity for me.

I firmly believe that we choose whether or not to be happy. I am not saying that I always feel like this is true. Sometimes I, like anyone else, feel that life is throwing too many bad things my way and it’s impossible to be happy in the midst of all of it. Sometimes I, like anyone else, feel that if only certain people in my life would do certain things differently then I could be happier.

But these are just feelings. Emotions. When I can clear away the emotional reaction that I’m having to things, my honest underlying belief is that we can choose to be happy no matter what circumstances we are facing. Of course, this requires will power and a strong commitment to maintaining our own peace of mind. It requires inner strength. But isn’t being happy worth what it takes to develop those skills? I think so.

I wrote an article over at Helium about this topic - learning to stay happy despite what’s going on in your life. It’s a short article that doesn’t cover the entire breadth of this big subject but it focuses on the key thing that I think is important for a happy life which is learning to get control over your own thoughts so that you can develop peace of mind.