LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

"The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is collecting data on the great benefits of unstructured outdoor recreation. One of the great benefits of unstructured outdoor recreation is that it doesn't cost anything. Because it's free, there's no major economic interest that would finance the research of the benefits of the child-nature connection."

"If kids are out there riding their bikes or walking, they're not burning fossil fuel, they're no bodies captive audience; they're not making money for anybody . . . follow the money! None the less, a growing body of evidence indicates that direct exposure to nature is essential for physical and emotional health. For example, new studies suggest that exposure to nature may reduce the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and that it can improve all children's cognitive abilities and resistance to negative stresses and depression."

"Nature Deficit Disorder describes the human cost of alienation from nature; among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. The disorder can be detected in individuals, families and communities."

LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

For years, James Sallis has been studying why some children and adults are more active then others. He is program director of the Active Living Research Program for the Robert Wood Research Foundation, a multi-year effort to discover how to design recreational facilities and whole communities so they stimulate people of all ages to be more active.

Based on previous studies, we can definitively say that the best predictor of preschool children's activity is simply being outdoors, says Sallis, "and that an indoor sedentary, childhood is linked to mental health problems."

The idea that natural landscapes, or at least gardens, can be therapeutic and restorative is, in fact, an ancient one that has filtered down through the ages. Over two-thousand years ago, Chinese Taoists created gardens and greenhouses they believed to be beneficial for health. By 1699, the book  English Gardener advised the reader to spend "spare time in the garden, either digging, setting out, or weeding; there is no better way to preserve your health.

LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

Richard Louv has a copy of a book named "Shelters, Shacks and Shanties" written by Daniel C. Beard in 1915. In his book Daniel C. Beard writes how he "epitomizes a time when a young person's experience of nature was inseparable from the romantic view of the American Frontier." But what really defined Beards' books, and the age they represented, is the unquestionable belief that being in nature was about doing something, about the experience -- and about not being a spectator.

"Most housing tracts, condos, and planned communities constructed in the past two to three decades are controlled by strict covenants that discourage or ban the kind of outdoor play many of us enjoyed as children."  

"The Scripps Ranch Community Association chased kids away from a little pond near the public library, where children had fished for bluegills since Scripps Ranch had been a working cattle spread many decades earlier. In response to the tightened regulations, families erected basketball hoops. Young people moved their skateboard ramps to the foot of their driveways. But the community association reminded the residence that such activity violated the covenants they had signed when they bought their houses. Down came the ramps and poles; and indoors went the kids. Game Boy and Sega became their imagination. Parents became alarmed. Their kids were getting fat."
 

LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

"Unlike television, nature can not steal your time; it amplifies it. Nature offers healing for a child living in a destructive family or neighborhood. It serves as a blank slate upon which a child draws and reinterprets the culture's fantasies. Nature inspires creativity in a child by demanding visualization and the full use of the senses."




"Many members of my generation grew into adulthood taking nature's gifts for granted; we assumed that generations to come would also receive these gifts. But something has changed. Now we see the emergence of what I have come to call nature-deficit disorder. This term is by no means a medical diagnosis, but it does offer a way to think about the problem and the possibilities - for children, and for the rest of us as well."




"I think often of a wonderfully honest comment made by Paul, a fourth-grader in San Diego: " I like to play indoors better, 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are."

-Richard Louv

LAST CHILD IN THE WOODS: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

"Within the space of a few decades, the way children understand and experience nature has changed radically. The polarity of the relationship has reversed. Today, kids are aware of the global threats to the environment - but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature, is fading."

"A kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon rain forest - but not the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds move."

"Yet, the very moment that the bond is breaking between the young and the natural world, a growing body of research links our mental, physical, and spiritual health directly to our association with nature - in positive ways. Several of these studies suggest that thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can even be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorders and other maladies. As one scientist puts it, we can now assume that just as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature."

Quotes from: "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne

"...the condition of being over weight was created through your thought to it  To put it in the most basic terms, if someone is overweight, it came from thinking "fat thoughts", whether that person was aware of it or not. A person can not think "thin thoughts" and be fat. It completely defies the law of attraction."

"Let go of those limiting thoughts. Food cannot cause you to put on weight, unless you think it can."

Quotes from: "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne

"We've got a thousand different diagnoses and diseases out there. They're just the weak link. They're all the result of one thing: stress. If you put enough stress on the chain and you put enough stress on the system, then one of the links breaks."

~Dr. Ben Johnson

Physician, Author, 7 Leader in Energy Healing

"All stress begins with one negative thought. One thought that went unchecked, and then more thoughts came and more, until stress manifested. The effect is stress, but the cause was negative thinking, and it all began with one little negative thought. No matter what you might have manifested, you can change it with one small positive thought and then another."

~Rhonda Byrne

"Happier thoughts lead to essentially a happier biochemistry. A happier, healthier body. Negative thoughts and stress have been shown to seriously degrade the body and the functioning of the brain, because it's our thoughts and emotions that are continuously reassembling, reorganizing, recreating our body."

~Dr. John Hagelin

"I always say, when the voice and the vision on the inside become more profound, clear, and loud than the opinions on the outside, you've mastered your life!"

~Dr. John Demartini

Quotes from: "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne

"Inside relationships it's important to first understand who's coming into the relationship, and not just your partner. You need to understand yourself first."

~Lisa Nichols

"Undoubtedly to some, the idea of giving so much love to self will seem very cold, hard and unmerciful. Still this matter may be seen in a different light, when we find that 'looking out for Number One,' as directed by the Infinite, is really looking out for Number Two and is indeed the only way to permanently benefit Number Two."

~Prentice Mulford

"Oftentimes you give others the opportunity to create your happiness, and many times they fail to create it the way you want it. Why? Because only one person can be in charge of your joy, of your bliss, and that's you. So even your parent, your child, your spouse - they do not have the control to create your happiness. They simply have the opportunity to share in your happiness. Your joy lies within you." 

~Lisa Nichols

Quotes from: "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne

"Knowing the law of attraction, I wanted to really put it to use and to see what would happen. In 1995 I started to create something called a Vision Board, where I take something that I want to attract, like a car or a watch or the soul mate of my dreams, and I put a picture of what I want up on this board. Every day I would sit in my office and would look up at this board and I would start to visualize. I would really get into the state of having already acquired it." 

~John Assaraf

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." 

         ~Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Quotes from: "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne

"That a man can change himself . . . and master his own destiny is the conclusion of every mind who is wide-awake to the power of right thought."

  

~Christian D. Larson (1866-1954)

"All that we are is a result of what we have thought"

 ~Buddha ( 563 BCE - 483 BCE)

"Every man know that when his wife is appreciating him for the little things that he does, what does he want to do? He wants to do more. It's always about appreciation. It pulls things in. It attracts support."

 ~Dr. John Gray

Psychologist, Author, and International Speaker

"Whatever we think about and thank about we bring about."

~Dr. John Demartini

"It's the feeling that really creates the attraction, not just the picture or the thought. A lot of people think, 'If I think positive thoughts, or if I visualize having what I want, that will be enough.' But you're doing that and still not feeling abundant, or feeling loving or joyful, then it doesn't create the power of the attraction."

~Jack Canfield

Quotes from: "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne

"It's impossible to monitor every thought we have. Researchers tell us that we have about sixty thousand thoughts a day. Can you imagine how exhausted you'd feel trying to control all sixty thousand of those thoughts? Fortunately there's an easier way and it's our feelings. Our feelings let us know what we're thinking." 

~ Marci Shimoff

Author, International Speaker, and Transformational Leader

"You want to become aware of how you're feeling, and get in tune with how you're feeling, because it is the fastest way for you to know what you're thinking."

"It is the combination of thought and love which forms the irresistible force of the law of attraction." 

~Charles Haanel

"There is no greater power in the Universe than the power of love. The feeling of love is the highest frequency you can emit. If you could wrap every thought in love, if you could love everything and everyone, your life would be transformed."

"The principle which gives the thought the dynamic power to correlate with its object, and therefore to master every adverse human experience, is the law of attraction, which is another name for love. This is an eternal and fundamental principle inherent in all things, in every system of philosophy, in every Religion and in every Science. There is no getting away from the law of love. It is feeling that imparts vitality to thought. Feeling is desire and desire is love. Thought impregnated with love becomes invincible."

~Charles Haanel

Quotes from: "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne

This book has a lot of positive information but I am skeptical about their claim that:

"The greatest teachers who have ever lived have told us that the law of attraction is the most powerful law in the Universe."

It can be said that positive thinking will attract positive outcomes but just really wanting something or wishing something  doesn't make it so. With that said, enjoy the book with a skeptical eye! 

"Our job as humans is to hold on to the thoughts of what we want, make it absolutely clear in our minds what we want and from that we start to invoke one of the greatest laws in the Universe, and that's the law of attraction. You become what you think about most, but you also attract what you think about most."  

~  John Assaraf

"And that principal can be summed up in three simple words. Thoughts become things!

~Mike Dooley

Author & International Speaker

 

"The law of attraction doesn't care whether you perceive something to be good or bad, or whether you don't want it or whether you do want it. It's responding to your thoughts. So if you're looking at a mountain of debt, feeling terrible about it, that's the signal you're putting out into the Universe.'I feel really bad because of all this debt I've got.' You're just affirming it to yourself. You felt it on every level of your being. That's what you're going to get more of.

~Bob Doyle

Quote from: "Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat" by Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D.

"Losing a few pounds can make a big difference to your health. Some people think they will never lose enough weight to improve their health. Not true. For example, for every 2 pounds of excess weight you lose, your blood cholesterol drops by an average of 3 points. That's nothing to scoff at. Losing weight can help you r blood pressure, too. In one study, after losing as few as a 9 pounds, people were able to bring their high blood pressure down to normal. Some people even went off medication with their doctor's approval."

Quote from: "Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat" by Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D.

"Perimeter Shopping is Healthy Shopping: Shop "the outside borders of the grocery store. That's where you find the freshest fruits & vegetables , meats, fish, poultry, and low-fat dairy foods. It is in the inner aisles of the store where you'll encounter most processed, canned, and frozen foods. So stick mostly to the outside aisles and you'll find foods with higher nutritional value."

Quote from: "Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat" by Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D.

Quote from: "Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat" by Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D.

"Nothing sabotages a diet like hunger. When we eat less, however, we may feel hungry, and most of us cannot resist hunger for too long. That's why the average weight-loss diet lasts for less then three weeks. But if you're not hungry it is easier to stick with your eating plan."

"Enter olive oil and other healthy unsaturated fats. They contain a fatty acid that helps keep the body satisfied and makes it possible to prolong the time between meals. Consuming a small amount of foods rich in these oils activates an appetite control switch in the brain. Because these oils are so effective in turning off your appetite, you only need a small amount (less than a tablespoon) to keep your appetite under control."

Quote from: "Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat" by Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D.

Family meals prevent easting disorders: "Anorexia, bulimia and binge eating are eating disorders that have increased steadily over the decades, mostly in young woman - though no one is really immune." Researchers "speculate that girls need family bonding time more then boys do. This piece of research underlines the importance of making time for the family meal, where everyone sits down and eats together."

Quote from: "Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat" by Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D.

"Stress causes weight gain in the tummy by triggering the brain to release the hormone cortisol to ready the body for 'fight or flight'." High levels of cortisol increase the appetite typically for carbs and fats. Visceral or deep-layer fat in the abdomen has more receptors for cortisol than fat elsewhere in the body, causing your body to lay down more flab, especially around the middle. Fortunately, cortisol drops when you boost endorphin levels with massage, meditation, or exercise."

Quote from: "Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat" by Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D.

"In a study conducted at the University of California-Davis, those given fructose saw an increase in abdominal fat, the kind that wraps around your internal organs, causes a potbelly, and has been liked to an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. This did not happen with the group who consumed glucose, even though both groups gained around 4 pounds in weight."

Quote from: "Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat" by Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D.

Amazon.com: Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat: And the 101 Truths That Will Save Your Waistline--and Maybe Even Your Life (9780307406156): Nancy L. Snyderman M.D.: Books

Very good book. Lots of useful information.

From Diet Myths That Keep Us Fat - "Hunger Pangs might simply mean you need water, not food. Your body often confuses sensations of thirst with hunger. If you've eaten within the last two hours but still feel hungry, try a glass of water rather than a snack. It just might tame your hunger."