Gini Nelson’s Engaging Conflicts

I love this Jane Brody Personal Health review Sorting Out Coffee’s Contradictions published today at the online New York Times. As I have said before, I embraced coffee as my drug of choice when I started law school, having survived graduate school’s all nighters with it. But for a VERY brief flirtation with green tea (which I NEVER liked — an authority had stated that if you only cut out coffee, you would lose 10 pounds over the course of a year and I HAD to try that — I only lasted about 1 month, if I recall — it wasn’t going to be worth it even if true), I remain committed to coffee. Here’s an excerpt from Jane’s article:

[A]s with any product used to excess, consumers often wonder about the health consequences. And researchers readily oblige. Hardly a month goes by without a report that hails coffee, tea or caffeine as healthful or damns them as potential killers.

Can all these often contradictory reports be right? Yes. Coffee and tea, after all, are complex mixtures of chemicals, several of which may independently affect health.

Here are some stats provided with the article to keep in mind:

Here are links to my earlier posts about coffee art, and about super coffee.

Image from http://www.pachd.com/free-images/food-images.html

As I’ve said before, here, I adopted coffee as my drug of choice while in law school. A relative just sent me a post with coffee art, lovely photos, here. It starts with this (but I can’t necessarily vouch for it — further search found a New York barista named Sammy Lin featured for his creations, here):

There is a restaurant in Vancouver that dresses up the lattes. You get to watch them create the pictures.

What can be done with coffee, cream, milk & imagination.

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“Save the date” for my September 26 – 28, 2007 SES (Science, Ethics and Spirit) Conference in Santa Fe. There will also be a two-day pre-conference Transformational Mediation Training by the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation (ISCT), a national think-tank supported by a consortium of universities including the University of North Dakota, Hofstra Law School, Temple University, and James Madison University. Kristine Paranica, the Administrative Director and Fellow of the Institute, and Director of University of North Dakota’s Conflict Resolution Center, will then present two workshops at the SES conference: one on transformational mediation, and one on the use of transformative principles in conflict communication. Both the pre-conference Transformational Mediation Training and the SES Conference will take place at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, NM with the opportunity to interact with the Center’s diverse residential community of monks and lay people. I expect that both CEU and CLE credits will be available for both. I’ll post more details over the next couple of weeks, so please check back.

Thanks to James Tyre for sharing this news release on Solosez, a listserve I subscribe to and love:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070110/sfw043.html?.v=92
Press Release Source: Meth Coffee

Meth Coffee Launches with Super Caffeinated Brew
Wednesday January 10, 9:23 am ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 10 /PRNewswire/ — Meth Coffee, a rebel coffee company in San Francisco, opened for business today with the launch of its hard- hitting coffee roast for energy addicts and caffeine freaks. Meth’s super- caffeinated beans are amplified by the addition of yerba mate, a powerful natural stimulant and antioxidant used by shamans of the Amazon for boosting stamina and mental clarity.

Boasting an intense buzz and cocoa-tobacco finish, Meth Coffee is fresh-roasted within 48 hours of shipment to jumpstart workaholics, thrill seekers, artists, and subversives seeking an exciting new fuel for their endeavors.

[....]

Now, I’m tagging this in the “Health, Conflict and Stress” category — caffeine affects us differently, and I’ll leave it up to you to decide where it fits in that category for you. Me, well, I adopted coffee as my drug of choice when I started law school, and, but for two or three very short flirtations with tea, I have never looked back.

Indeed, we are still digging out of a huge snowfall — something like 2 – 2 1/2 feet in Santa Fe over 3 days, right before New Year’s. When I heard it was coming, I took stock and ran to the store — coffee! I had everything else that was necessary — including my second most important indulgence, red wine — but, really, fresh ground coffee is #1.

In 2007, Engaging Conflicts will continue to center on issues identified by Bernie Mayer’s Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution, Chris Honeyman’s Theory to Practice work (focusing on his new book, The Negotiator’s Fieldbook: the Desk Reference for the Experienced Negotiator, co-edited with Andrea Kupfer Schneider), and the October 2006 Keystone Consolidating Our Collective Wisdom conference; as well as my Wikis and Podcasts and Blogs, Oh My! program – use of the new social media on the internet for professional, personal and business development. I’ll provide Tips, Treats, and Tools, and talk about Health, Conflict and Stress, on occasion, too.

Some Guest Bloggers In 2007

Planned guest bloggers for 2007 include Kristine Paranica, J.D., Administrative Director and Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation (ISCT) on transformative mediation and practice; and John Lande, J.D., Director of the Master of Laws Program In Dispute Resolution at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, on cooperative law, as distinguished from collaborative law.

In Engaging Conflicts Today, the newsletter (subscribe by clicking in the sidebar!), I’ve planned interviews with Bernie Mayer, John Paul Lederach, Robert Benjamin, Chris Honeyman, Janis Magnuson (of Janis Publications), Diane Levin (of the Online Guide To Mediation blog), Jack Cooley, John Stephens, Ann Gosline, and Howard Gadlin, among others. And, as I said, The Negotiator’s Fieldbook, Chris Honeyman’s and Andrea Kupfer Schneider’s new book, will also be highlighted in 2007 (in both the newsletter and in the blog), with reviews, summaries and interviews.

Here at the blog’s new home, you’ll see the administrative categories tabbed across the topbar (Welcome, Contact, Why Engaging Conflicts?, Guest Bloggers, RSS FAQ). The first box at the top of the right sidebar lets you search the blog using keywords. You can then bookmark the blog at Technorati (use the green icon); subscribe to the blog for free at FeedBurner (use the orange icon); and then subscribe to Engaging Conflicts Today by clicking on the blue hyperlinked “Free Engaging Conflicts Newsletter!” I have fewer categories. Also, each post now allows linking with 13 different social content and social bookmarking websites, e.g., del.icio.us, digg and smarking. (If you don’t know what any of these terms and options are, spend some time in the Wikis and Podcasts and Blogs, Oh My! category!. Finally, I’ve disabled commenting, to help save the site from robotic spamming – write me privately, and I’ll respond, though.

REMEMBER: Try something new for the New Year — subscribe to Engaging Conflicts! If you’d like to learn more about RSS or web feeds from a podcast or blog consumer’s point of view, visit our RSS FAQ.

It’s New Year’s Day — Happy New Year to us all! Most of us will at least consider resolutions to do or be better in 2007, and, for many of us, getting fitter will be one of them. Will we follow them?

Jane E. Brody, New York Times Personal Health columnist urges us, “To Avoid ‘Boomeritis,’ Exercise, Exercise, Exercise” in her December 19th column (note: a TimesSelect membership may be necessary for access) — as she says, citing Dr. Nicholas A. DiNubile, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, “evolution ha[s] not kept up with the doubling of the human life span in the last 100 years. To counter the inevitable declines with age, we have to provide our bodies with an extended warranty,” i.e., fitness.

Yet, while most of us know the benefits of exercise, few of us exercise enough, or exercise consistently enough. Why? There’s a good article available for free download posted at Change This.com, by Michale Gonzales, Ph.D., a licensed clinical psychologist. As he says in his introduction:

With all the data there is about why people should exercise, why do they still have a tendency not to? As there are many types of exercise an individual can choose, not exercising is also a choice. No one can write a book or a scientific paper that will fully explain why some people do not exercise or why they exercise erratically. For this answer one really need[s] to look within. This paper is written to help people do just that — look within.

The quick answer to the question of why an individual does not exercise has to do with time, motiviation and worthiness. These factors will be addressed in this paper: finding time, getting motivated, and believing that he or she is worth the time and effort necessary to get healthier and more fit.

Here’s the link to the paper.

I won’t see you at the gym … my first fitness resolution is to walk more, first. But walk more, I will!

Michael F. Roisen, M.D. and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. are frequent guests on the talk show circuit with entertaining and informative programs delivering clear, science-based recommendations for immediately improving our health and the quality of our lives. They are associated with RealAge, Inc., which identifies itself as “a consumer-health media company and provider of personalized health information and management tools.” The website offers many health tools, including a highly-personalized on-line exam to determine your “RealAge”, defined as “the biological age of your body, based on lifestyle, genetics, and medical history. Depending on how well you take care of yourself, your RealAge might be years younger — or older — than the calendar indicates as contrasted with your chronological age.” Reducing stress is one of their “Top 12 Ways To Make Your RealAge Younger.” They conclude that “[i]n highly stressful times, your RealAge can be as much as 32 years older than your calendar age. By building strong social networks and adopting stress-reduction strategies, you can erase 30 of those 32 years of aging caused by stress.” For more information about stress and stress strategies, and to take the free on-line RealAge test, go to the following website, clicking where highlighted (the excerpt is from the website):   taking the patented RealAge test for free. Once you know your RealAge, you’ll receive personalized recommendations, health information, and solutions to help make your RealAge younger. Science is increasingly showing that certain health choices can slow and perhaps even reverse the rate of aging. Even choices made late in life make a difference. For example, people who exercise early in life, but quit, may show no longevity benefit. In contrast, people who start exercising in their 50s and 60s, or even later, show considerable benefit.

P.S. Here’s what they say about the science behind their work:

Is RealAge scientifically valid? RealAge Answer: RealAge is not new science; RealAge is a way of interpreting and presenting already established science. We rely on the most up-to-date, high-quality scientific studies in every field relevant to preventive medicine. All health information we use has been published in well-respected, peer-reviewed journals and is widely accepted within the scientific community.RealAge experts reviewed the scientific literature, looking at those health behaviors and choices that affect mortality risk, or, as we like to say, rate of aging. Every RealAge action step we suggest for each person at the end of the RealAge test has been shown to affect the rate of aging in several scientific studies. All of the studies used are human studies.

P.S.S. A simple search at their website (using only one search term, “stress”) came up with five pages of related articles – here’s the link to the saved search: http://www.realage.com/srch/RASearch.aspx?HPC=y&CS=Y&query=stress