A free wellness assessment

Whether you're a teen, in college, and adult, or an older adult, the National Wellness Institute has a free assessment that will tell you how you score in these areas:

• Physical
• Sexuality
• Nutrition
• Emotional
• Self Care
• Intellectual
• Safety
• Occupational
• Environment
• Spirituality

An online study of Jewish stress

It's like finding needles in a haystack, but for the one or two Jews out there who are stressed or worried there's a study going on right now at jpsych.com by Bowling Green State University PhD student, David H. Rosmarin, that "hopes to evaluate the effectiveness of two different treatments for stress and worry among Jews, delivered via the internet."

Qualifying participants for the 14-day study will be randomly assigned to receive 'treatments' that are spiritual-based, conventional, or no treatment. After you complete your assigned treatment you'll have access to the spiritual or conventional treatments for a year.

I can't tell you more details because I didn't qualify for the study ... not enough stress.

Looking forward to hearing back from those of you who do qualify!

(thanks to Lyn for the 411)

Not sure if you're happy? How much TV do you watch?

The NY Times just put out an article discussing a recent study about an activity that happy people do less of - watch TV.

This doesn't really surprise me because happiness tends to be an active, engaging state. And let's face it, there aren't that many amazing things on TV that leave us feeling upbeat.

Crime shows, news, reality TV, infomercials, lame sitcoms are the majority of what's available - these are not themes that lead us feeling upbeat - usually because we do it far longer than our interests really last.

Unlike socializing, going to church and reading newspapers (some of the other activities the study mentions) - where we take an active role, and when we're feeling done we move on, the shows keep coming, but it's hard to turn off the TV.

What can you do? (in increasing order of TV time)

• Get out of the house
  
• Throw out your TV so you're forced to do other things
• Make activities around the home as easy to initiate as turning on the TV (and put reminders on the remote to remind you of them)
  
• Set up a timer so you only watch a certain amount - turning off the alarm should require getting up
• Only watch shows you find uplifting
  

More "Advice from the Experts"

I recently contributed to an response on Career Builder's CBCampus.com blog (a service to college students and alumni to assist in the job search process) to this post by a student seeking more options than what she found at the career services office.

Stress: just how unhealthy is it?

Really, really unhealthy.

A documentary recently aired on PBS that follows Stanford professor, Robert Sapolsky's, detailed study about the effects of stress - http://killerstress.stanford.edu/

The gist:
Animals living on a Kenyan National Reserve experience high levels of stress for a few moments when trying to escape being eaten and then returning to normal

Typical humans in western civilization experience equally high levels of stress for rather mundane, non-life threatening situation, and have a hard time letting those stress levels go back down to the original - non-stressed levels.

There's also a section where he talks about his own stress - and he's a pretty high-strung guy. In it he shares how, while it works for others, meditating for a few minutes a day would cause him even more stress. Of course it would, it's not easy from having a head that's been running around quite quickly shift into low gear. That would be like reliving one of my worst cinema double-feature experiences - watching Run Lola Run followed by The Straight Story.

Yet, we still have to ask ourselves - is the damage being done by maintaining the faster pace worth the "productivity"?

(Thanks to Scott for the link that inspired this post).

Trying to solve a problem? Take a nap

I've always been a big proponent of naps - and can pretty much take one regardless of the environment.

The NY Times recently ran an article about a study that shows significant increases in memory and creativity immediately after sleep, and discusses the benefits of companies that have introduced nap-pods at the workplace.

No wonder I'm most productive in the morning!

(click on image for the cool blog post from highbridnation.com where I got the image)

5 essentials for an effective resume

The key to an outstanding resume is getting into the head of the person reading it. How? Follow these tips!

1. The job posting is the key - Each posting lists a short description of the company, the job responsibilities and the qualifications you're expected to bring. Use a highlighter to mark the most important skills and talents they're looking for and make sure they're in your resume.


2. The resume is a sales letter - The purpose of the resume is to get the interview. So write it with that purpose. Include enough information to make it clear that they should talk with you and not more.


3. The resume is not a biography - Too many people include every detail of their life "just in case." You wouldn't put your mom's name on your resume, so don't include every detail of what you've done in school or past jobs, just the ones that would be of most interest to the person reading it. If it's not stated or heavily implied in the job posting leave it out.


4. Make the most of what you include - Employers are busy people so choose phrasing that will be the most specific and require the least thinking from them. You're the one who needs to explicitly state that as head of your science project team you delegated assignments for its 5 members and finished 2 weeks ahead of schedule.


5. Spellcheck is not enough - Read your resume aloud - twice! Then ask at least two other people to do the same in front of you too. That way you'll catch it when you write that you have 'prefect' attendance.