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World’s Largest Kindness Study Suggests Pandemic Has Made People Kinder
In the world’s largest public study of kindness, two-thirds of participants said they believe the pandemic has made people kinder. The Kindness Test, an online questionnaire created by researchers and psychologists at England’s University of Sussex, reached over 60,000 people in 144 countries. Their recent study concluded that faced with challenges such as the pandemic, most of the world seems to have turned to the path of kindness. The main focus of the study was acts of kindness, defined by researchers as an act carried out to benefit others. Whether it’s someone holding a door open for us or offering a friendly smile on our weekly commutes, the idea of a small gesture to make someone else smile is an act of kindness we can all appreciate. It also revealed a link between kindness and wellbeing, as people who receive, give or notice more acts of kindness also reported higher levels of wellbeing.
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Heroic Uber driver recounts stopping mid-ride to rescue people from a burning building
Fritz Sam, an Uber driver, was taking a passenger to New York's LaGuardia Airport recently when he noticed a commotion on the street in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood. That's when he observed flames and dark smoke coming out of a second-floor window of an apartment building. He asked his passenger if he could pull over and help the residents. Sam ran into the building without hesitation when he found out that there was one resident stuck inside. The driver is being hailed as a hero for helping two separate occupants evacuate the building. Despite the stop, Sam was able to get his passenger, Jemimah Wei, to the airport on time! Wei tweeted about the experience and confirmed on Twitter that she caught her flight despite the unexpected detour. Praising his brave action and thoughtfulness, Wei highlighted how Sam went above and beyond to keep his New York neighbors safe.
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Teacher’s ‘Welcome to Kindergarten’ music video is a must-watch for calming first-day jitters
A Chicago educator named Dwayne Reed, is paying musical tribute to kindergarten students and their teachers. His “Welcome to Kindergarten” song is helping to reduce first-day-of-school anxieties for many children this year. As the dean of students at a Chicago elementary school, Reed has always loved to sing. His catchy song goes: "Welcome to kindergarten, where we can learn and play. Get ready for all of the fun we'll have today." The 31-year-old is known for his 2016 "Welcome to 4th Grade" music video, which he recorded during his first year of teaching. After that video created fans out of fourth, fifth and even sixth graders, Reed decided to turn to an even younger crowd. Noting that the kindergarten experience can be really overwhelming at first, the educator is happy to help ease the transition for the kids and their parents.
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The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer
by Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn and Dr. Elissa Epel
The Telomere Effect, is a New York Times bestselling book, coauthored by the Nobel Prize winner who discovered telomerase and telomeres' role in the aging process and the health psychologist who has done original research into how specific lifestyle and psychological habits can protect telomeres, slowing disease and improving life. Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Elissa Epel's research shows that the length and health of one's telomeres are a biological underpinning of the long-hypothesized mind-body connection. The authors have found that changes we can make to our daily habits can protect our telomeres and increase our health spans, particularly the number of years we remain healthy, active, and disease-free. The book reveals the authors’ findings which demonstrate that sleep quality, exercise, aspects of diet, and even certain chemicals profoundly affect our telomeres, and that chronic stress, negative thoughts, strained relationships, and even the wrong neighborhoods can eat away at them. The authors include a practical guide to lists of food, types of exercise that are healthy for our telomeres, mind tricks you can use to protect yourself from stress, and information about how to protect your children against developing shorter telomeres, from pregnancy through adolescence. This book will make you reassess how you live your life on a day-to-day basis and challenge you to make simple changes to keep your chromosomes and cells healthy, allowing you to stay disease-free longer and live more vital and meaningful lives.
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If you like our #Positivity® Newsletter...You’ll 💕Our Podcast,
Common Denominator. Each week, I have inspiring conversations
with great thinkers.
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Beauty isn’t only skin deep! Plastic surgery is not only about improving a person’s appearance but it can be so much more. It often involves facial and body reconstruction caused by illness, trauma, or birth disorders. Dr. Michael Salzhauer is one of the most popular plastic surgeons in the country. Well-known as “Dr. Miami”, Dr. Salzhauer is famous for his flashy personality and equally big heart. This renowned plastic surgeon describes why plastic surgery isn’t about vanity and that it can do wonders for a person’s self-esteem by improving function and appearance.
 Coming Soon
‣ Moving on can be hard to do! How do you navigate life after marriage with strength and confidence? Certified divorce specialist and the author of the bestselling book “Moms Moving On”, Michelle Dempsey-Multack explains why divorce is sometimes the only option, and how you can move through it with grace. With practical advice to guide you through the process, Dempsey-Multack has great insights on the challenges of separation, co-parenting, divorce, and even dating afterwards!
‣ One of Inc.'s 2021 Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs to watch, Samia Gore, is the founder of Body Complete Rx, a plant-based supplement company. She is also the first black woman to have a line in the Vitamin Shoppe in the weight loss category. As the first black female founder to break significant ground in the nutritional supplement industry, Samia will share secrets to building a business and making it into an empire.
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Available on your favorite podcast app and YouTube
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Things to make you smile
Video of Ohio senior citizen doing karaoke performance at Goodwill goes viral
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During a recent shopping trip at a Goodwill store in Hamilton, Ohio, Deanna Mae Garvin shared her musical talents with her fellow shoppers. She was in search of a new karaoke machine. When an employee helped her get one off the shelf, they asked for Garvin to sing a song in return, and she was happy to pick up the microphone. Shopper John Schuerfranz filmed her performance and posted it on Facebook — and the video has since gone viral.
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Monthly Highlight
Denver’s Charlo Meet the Artist Spreading Positivity Through Murals
“It sounds so simple now, but in that moment, my life changed. I had realized by doing something I really wanted to do, I could create joy — not just for myself but also for others around me.” — Charlo
As a graphic designer, Mexican-born artist Charlo Garcia Walterbach, has created brands and websites for companies over the last 15 years. As an artist, who goes by the mononym Charlo, he has always enjoyed painting in his free time. The idea of a mural was something he could not stop thinking about for some time. Because he didn’t exactly know the details of how or where to make a mural, he went on the Nextdoor app with the hopes that someone would offer their wall. He got a response from someone offering their garage door instead! Within 18 months of that first mural, Charlo started getting recognized for his work as a muralist. He was soon painting skyscrapers in New York and in 2021 was invited by Nextdoor and the New York Stock Exchange to create a live mural entitled “The Joy of Being Together.” Charlo noted that doing street art allows him to connect with people. His bold, beautiful drawings of interconnected shapes and symbols are rich with imagery and often incorporate hidden messages. From Denver to New York, his art is moving people and spreading joy.
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Spreading #Positivity®
Thank you, readers, for sending us your photos with your comments. We are so excited that you are helping spread a positive message everywhere you go! Let’s keep spreading #Positivity® together! Send us your photos and we will feature them in the next newsletter and on Facebook.
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In our community garden at Palo Verde Apartments, we recently hosted an event to mark the end of summer and kick off back to school. Our community’s children gathered for the sendoff which included edible craft! We brought trays full of basil starts to the back-to-school rally and we handed out school supplies. The kids learned to decorate compostable planters while marking the end to their summer vacation. It was a beautiful day of kids being kids and enjoying their connection to our community garden. Check out this video of the Back-to-School Rally.
  
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All throughout history, mankind has been curious about living longer. Today, it even seems that society is obsessed with finding the fountain of youth and turning back our biological clocks! While these concepts are pretty much illusions, we are all wondering what can we do to live longer and healthier lives. That’s why The Telomere Effect resonates so much with me. While living much beyond a hundred is seemingly impossible, recent research findings do give us insight into certain truths about longevity.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn’s groundbreaking work earned her and her colleagues a Nobel Prize. The discovery of the molecular nature of telomeres has completely changed our understanding of the aging process. Scientists have discovered telomeres function as a biological clock. Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes, repeating sequences of non-coding DNA that protect chromosomes from damage, and get shorter every time a cell divides.
The reality is that aging is a gradual and irreversible process which is manifested in the degeneration of a cell. According to scientists, when telomeres are stressed and shortened, it increases the likelihood that cells will stop dividing and die. When this occurs, the diseases we are more genetically vulnerable to more easily progress. So, if you can find a way to slow down the shortening of telomeres, you can delay aging.
Dr. Blackburn’s The Telomere Effect reveals how to live healthier and stay younger longer by identifying an important part of your physiology and teaching you how to take great care of it. As a result of this book, I have discovered 3 exciting lessons about physiology that I would like to share.
Lesson #1: How fast you age, and how old you look, depends on your telomeres. In short, telomeres determine your aging process.
To keep our bodies healthy, our cells have to regenerate frequently. Healthy structures in the body suffer when these get damaged because of the inflammatory signals they send throughout your system. This makes the operations of the entire body suffer. Telomeres can help reverse these negative effects. Each of the chromosomes in your cells has a telomere at the end of it which helps protect the cell. But each time a cell divides, it’s telomeres get shorter. The health of your telomeres determines how old you look and feel right down to the hairs on your head. Although these powerful cell structures help fight aging, they don’t last forever! It is important to take care of yourself.
Lesson #2: Cynicism and negativity affects you on a cellular level. Thinking positively affects the health of your cells.
Negative thinking damages your telomeres. Cynical hostility, or the tendency toward cynicism as defined by angry outbursts are in turn associated with increased risk of disease and mortality. Pessimism is bad for aging because of how it affects the threat level you feel when under stress. Stress causes shorter telomeres. If you’re constantly unhappy then you’re constantly increasing your stress levels and accelerating the rate at which you age. Also, stress compounded with constant anxiety can also quicken aging. For this reason, it is always best to let go of negative thoughts. Practice meditation and thought awareness so that you are not caught in a spiral of your own negative thoughts.
Lesson #3: Nurture your telomeres: Get into the habit of regular exercise and getting enough sleep. The health of your telomeres and your youth is at stake so make sure to rest and exercise.
When you exercise, your telomeres become healthier. Through exercise, you’ll decrease your chances of high blood pressure, strokes, and dementia. Sleep is another important factor for telomere health. When you sleep, your brain goes into restoration processes that also repair your DNA. Every time you interrupt this with poor sleep habits, your cells struggle to be productive and become more susceptible to stress. Getting enough sleep is also crucial to make sure your appetite stays under control. When you fail to rest enough, insulin and cortisol spike which can put you into a pre-diabetic state. Scientists have discovered that the longer you sleep, the longer your telomeres will be. Studies have shown that seven hours a night is enough for preserving your youth and chances of living a longer life.
I hope that these lessons prove that there are some things you can do daily to maintain a healthier and more youthful life. The science of telomeres is insightful and offers us a fascinating possibility to take control of our aging process. So don’t forget to stay positive, exercise and get some rest!
#Positivity®
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