Turkey’s Taksim square protest flared up last week when police took drastic measures to clear activists from Gezi Park- slated for destruction to make way for yet another shopping center. But that’s not the only unsustainable project the government is pursuing in the name of economic growth. We list 5 of the major ones.
I’m no Pollyanna, but I usually maintain a healthy screen between my personal life and world events. Lately I’ve been reporting on the disturbing happenings in Turkey, and hanging out with people working with Jordan’s Syrian and Palestinian refugees. It’s been tough to keep a happy face. But research shows you will live longer if you are happier.
So today, crack of dawn, I took a walk to Amman’s Abdeli market, an enormous tented street sale where ten bucks can buy you a new wardrobe of mildly used designer clothes plus a week’s worth of fruit and veg. After an hour navigating narrow aisles between the overstuffed stalls, the takeaway is a clear and calm mind.
Got to thinking of other accessible and cheap ways to re-calibrate. Consider these ten free ideas:
1. Write down the simplest (legal and safe) things that give you pleasure. Then do them every week.
2. Get off your ass and move. Green Prophet’s already advised as to how hiking can mend a broken heart. Exercise enhances your state of mind by boosting brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine. A simple walk can knock the edge off stress and put new spin on whatever’s bugging you.
3. Jump in cold water, or hop in a cool shower. It increases circulation, minimizes inflammation, and instantly invigorates. While you’re at it, sing a stupid song loudly. Wim Hof tells you to do it.
4. Turn off the TV (and computer, and tablet, and e-reader, and smartphone, and Instagram and Siri and Alexa). They’re hypnotics. You may smirk at the latest YouTube FAIL, or become emotional over horrible newscasts, but your body is immobile and your brain passive. Take frequent technology breaks, and do something else on this list
5. Enjoy nature. Kick off your shoes to touch the grass, sand, soil or water. Take up gardening, even if it’s just a bit of time nurturing apartment-grown herbs.
6. Be a tourist in your own town. Walk a different way to an old destination. Check out the shops you never entered. Go play on the kids’ swings, or read a newspaper in a park. We are creatures of habit, try on new ones.
7. Shut up for a change. Quiet your own mind and really listen, don’t just prepare your rebuttal.Talking less and listening more is bound to improve your communication skills. Listen when you’re alone, to birds, wind in the trees, the sounds of life beyond your ear-buds.
8. Take a nap. Babies all over the world endorse this as a primo way to quell crankiness.
9. Laugh more. Comedy is everywhere, look for the “laugh WITH you”, not “AT you” kind. Surround yourself with funny people. You can go back to YouTube but only if you watch brilliant classics like this.
10. Feel grateful, and express it. No need to go all “Oprah”. Simply run through the stuff you are lucky to have in your life: health, friends, love, a decent haircut. Get in a habit of acknowledging what’s good in your own life. It’ll make a positive difference in how you handle everything else.
Citizens of the United Arab Emirates receive free healthcare and education, and enjoy subsidized water, electricity and fuel. Men can claim free land and no-interest building loans; couples get cash towards their wedding expenses. And next January, lucky residents in two Abu Dhabi neighborhoods will get high-tech trash bins.
Water scarcity combined with desertification makes for a scary combination in the Middle East, but The Sahara Forest Project (SFP) is pioneering a promising solution: greenhouses that use saltwater to grow food in the middle of the desert.
Thinking and living in tune with nature is a way of life that is best started as early as possible, which is why we think there ought to be more schools like The Green School in Kfar Saba, Israel.
Qatar’s controversial 2022 World Cup planning got a burst of star power when renowned Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, who was one of Time Magazine’s top 100 most influential people in 2010, was appointed to join AECOM to design the Al Wakrah Stadium.
It gets hot in Israel, so two local entrepreneurs have invented a water-saving device called the Q-Fog to keeps cyclists cool. Pump a lever on the handlebars and presto – instant air con!
The National Bank of Egypt has announced that it will give low interest loans to hotels throughout southern Sinai and Red Sea provinces that are commited to switching to renewable energy, according to local press. The move comes in advance of crippling energy shortages during the hottest time of the year.
Does a vision of rich, creamy, sweet and cheesy dessert with a crunchy topping totally seduce you? Well, it seduces people with a sweet tooth everywhere in the Levant. In Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Greece and Turkey, good housewives make knafeh, the most luxurious dairy dessert.
An old prison in the heart of Tehran has been converted into an enormously popular tourist attraction. The Qasr prison is one of Iran’s oldest penitentiary institutions that was decommissioned in 2008; soon after, the municipality commissioned Experimental Branch of Architecture (EBA) to give it a surprising facelift.
Life has changed for Egyptian women since the revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak, with sexual harassment, unemployment and illiteracy rates soaring. Artistry Egypt, which is run by the development NGO Ganat El-Kholod, trains unskilled women to learn how to make eco-friendly artisanal textile crafts.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) officially declared Israel’s Hula frog extinct in 1996, but now the frog has returned to the Hula Valley, and a team of scientists have made some exciting new discoveries about its genetic heritage.
Some health friendly tips for the female reproductive organs.
Visit any medical website, and you’ll learn that vaginal dryness is a common health complaint that women have regarding sexual intimacy. It can lead to itching, burning and painful sex, and is caused by a number of things such as menopausal or hormonal changes, childbirth, surgeries, medicine, douching and lack of adequate foreplay. If you do experience dryness, they recommend the use of personal lubrications.
Makes common sense, right?
What most sites rarely explain is that they type of lubrication you use can either make the dryness disappear…or end up forcing you to put a Do Not Enter sign over your nether bits.
Ansel Muir Hall, the CEO of Blossom Organics, a company that makes natural and organic aloe-based lubrication explains that the reason may be in the ingredients. Personal lubricants are popular and the market is “dominated by brands that are starting to offer better products, but most [sold today] include a host of ingredients that are truly questionable,” he explains.
As one of 3 co-founders for Blossom Organics, Hall (who is named after Ansel Adams and John Muir) told me that the company was founded on the principle that people want clean and healthy alternatives.
“Women are becoming concerned with living cleaner, healthier lifestyle. This means making good, smart choices about the products they use, but an area equally or more important that has been largely forgotten is intimacy products.”
There’s also been a general apathy among some environmentalists to examine sexuality and sexual health concerns. It’s a trend that is slowly changing as more advocates find what some advocates call their e-Spot. “If a woman is concerned with what she put on her skin, she should be even more concerned with what she’s putting in the most absorbent skin her body – her vagina,” says Hall.
Though this list isn’t by any means complete, some questionable ingredients include: parabens, petrochemicals, benzene derivatives such as sodium benzoate, methyl, ethyl and propylparaben, and benzoate of soda. Boric acid, salicylates and cinnamic aldehyde (an ingredient used in ‘hot’ lubricants) are also questionable.
Hall’s question to women who want to have safer, healthier, better sex is this: why take the risk? Companies like Blossom Organics offer great alternatives. Go with natural, organic and proven safe ingredients, he says.
Many women have a reaction to the product they are using, and might think the problem is their body, not the lubrication. One reason these ingredients need to be avoided during sex is because your skin can absorb things more readily than if it’s something taken orally.
Take just one potentially toxic ingredient: Parabens.
According to Lisa S. Lawless, Ph.D. and founder of Holistic Wisdom, an organization which provides empowering education, products and resources to promote sexual wellness, it’s best to avoid them all together. In an article for NaturalNews.com, she writes:
“Parabens are controversial toxins that have been shown to alter estrogen in females, increase allergies, decrease sperm count in men, contribute to skin cancer and disrupt normal fetal development in pregnant women.”
Regulations are poor and inadequate, she explains. The consequence is that many products contain toxins, and “there are many unanswered questions about what consumers are using on and inside their body.”
What’s more, most consumers in the middle east and beyond are unaware of what is in their personal lubricant or the effect on their health.
When it comes to safe sex and using the right lube, it’s consumer beware. Unless you know exactly what’s in that jar of jelly, you could be exposing yourself to some potentially unpleasant side effects and health concerns, suggests NaturalNews.com and other sites. Loopholes in the regulation of the sex product industry, limited testing or inadaquate reporting (depending on where a consumer lives) of reactions mean that you could experience any number of ailments and not know what ingredient, or combination of exposures, contributed to the following conditions.
Our advice is simple
1. Only use a product that clearly reveals all the ingredients to you.
2. Avoid using anything with the ingredients listed above.
3. If you can’t find or order a product like Blossom Organics, and are in a pinch, consider using something like coconut oil, vitamin E or even olive oil (though oils are not advised for use with latex condoms).
4. Never use something like motor oil, petrolatum or mineral oil.
The biggest challenge is getting the word out there,” says Hall of Blossom Organics when it comes to using good, healthy ingredients in intimate care. “We need to have an a more open dialogue about the importance of sexual health in our society. We are moving in that regard, and people are making that happen.”
In other words, it is up to you to be smart and practice safe sex when it comes to your intimate wellbeing.
Read More Sexual Health News:
3 Ways Eco-Consciousness Can Improve Your Love Life
Why are Environmentalists Avoiding the e-Spot?
A belt made of tin. A hat made of cardboard. A dress made of newspaper with DVD and CD accents. These were some of many designs showcased during Qatar’s “long” celebration of World Environment Day starting in May continuing until after World Environment Day on June 5.
The United Arab Emirates is planning to ban non-biodegradable plastic products beginning next year, and it is possible it can work with the latest technological invention from WMS Metal Industries now working locally. And the best part of this machine may be that it makes money!
Have news to share? Renewable energy news, architectural, artificial intelligence, biotech, sustainable design ideas, eco-architecture, green travel?
Email us: [email protected]
Get important news delivered directly to your inbox and stay connected!
© 2007 to 2026 Green Prophet, All Rights Reserved