Picking the right preschool

By DANIELLE RUSH
KOKOMO TRIBUNE (KOKOMO, Ind.)

Comment: A good article. True in most things. Not convinced about the easels. I think easels are defeating for little kids. I think flat painting is best.

KOKOMO, Ind.— In one classroom at First Presbyterian Little School, 4-year-olds waddle like penguins, making the sound of the letter “P.”

Next door, another group of children listens to a Bible story, while the next class settles back into its seats after playing outside on the playground. It’s all in a day’s work for a preschooler.

Karen Dikeman, Little School director, said this is the time of year parents are searching for a preschool for their children for this fall. Kokomo resident Pat Schreckenghaust chose her grandson’s preschool after asking several people for recommendations.

One person in particular spoke highly of her son’s two years at Little School, so Schreckenghaust visited the school and talked to teachers before enrolling Dylan in the program. She said it was the right decision for her grandson, who will be 3 in June. “He loves it. He’s so proud of his little folder” of papers he brings home after each week’s session. She thought it was important for Dylan, an only child, to have a preschool experience, so he could interact with other children.
“He’s learning how to play with other kids and learning rules. When they’re the only kid at home, they don’t learn how to share.”

Dr. Marilyn Skinner, director of Indiana University Kokomo’s Early Childhood Education Center, suggests visiting several preschools before making a selection.

“You would want to go there when there were actually children there, so you can see how they interact with the children, and if they are kind to them and have soft voices and maintain good control … If you can’t go yourself, talk to someone who has sent their children there.”

Parents should also be sure the school has plenty of books being used, words hanging on the walls, weather charts, posters with children’s activities, activity centers such as water and sand tables, blocks, and other toys to encourage creative play. She said signs of creativity are important.

“Are they allowing them to be creative, or are they trying to make them all look the same? If you walk in and every piece of art looks alike, you know they’re not allowing creativity.”

Parents should also ask if the school has curriculum it follows, and if there is time for physical activity indoors and outside. “Children should be outside a lot when the weather is good,” for muscle development, she said, and there should be an appropriate place for indoor play as well.
Skinner said activities should be age-appropriate, and adapted for the child’s abilities. A bright child may need accelerated activities, while others may not catch on as quickly and may need to repeat some activities.

She said teachers should either have a degree in early childhood education or some non-degree training in early childhood education. Dikeman, at Little School, added that parents should ask about teachers’ training in first aid and CPR, and if teachers’ have had a background check, in addition to asking about their academic credentials.

She agreed that classroom visits are important, to see if a particular school is the right fit for a particular child. She said because Little School is a Christian-based program, she makes sure parents understand that “sharing the love of Christ is part of our curriculum.”

She said parents should also look for a program that develops a child’s cognitive, physical, emotional and social skills. In addition, she said, parents may ask about pre-kindergarten skills, to be sure their child will be prepared for kindergarten. At her school, teachers work with Kokomo-Center Schools and Northwestern School Corp., to be sure the children leave with the skills they need for kindergarten.

“It seems more and more is being required. Preschool now is probably what kindergarten was.”
Dikeman said the preschool day varies in length, depending on the age of the child, and should include time for play. “They learn so much through their play,” she said. She said not every child is ready for preschool at the same time, and parents need to consider their child’s readiness before enrolling. Younger children often have separation anxiety when parents drop them off, and those who seem very upset might want to wait another year, she said.

“It varies with children. Not every 3-year-old or 4-year-old is at the same place. You can’t look at a 4-year-old as a cookie cutter.” Skinner said preschool can be a valuable learning experience, but it is not necessary for every child. Parents may do many of the activities preschool offers in their own home, if they have the time and ability.

“I would say it depends on if you as a parent have lots of time to work with your child and take your child places for socializing and being involved with other children, especially an only child. If you’re a parent who has lots of time and several children, it wouldn’t be nearly as important.”

Danielle Rush writes for the Kokomo (Ind.) Tribune.

10 signs of a great preschool
1. The right student/teacher ratio: There should be one teacher for every seven to 10 children and no more than 20 in a classroom.
2. Daily circle time: During this time, children learn skills such as taking turns, listening to each other and sitting still. They can improve their language skills by listening to stories and singing songs.
3. A language-rich environment: Children should be read to every day. The preschool should have lots of books, as well as words posted all around the room.
4. An art center: Look for easels, paint brushes, crayons, clay and other art materials.
5. A block center: Stacking and arranging blocks helps children develop spatial and problem-solving skills.
6. Rotating chores: Handling tasks gives children a sense of responsibility and accomplishment.
7. Manipulatives: These are objects children can pick up and work with their hands. Doing so helps them build fine motor skills for future writing and strengthen spatial skills, eye-hand coordination and early math skills.
8. A water table and sand table: Children learn about space, size, weight, force, pressure and volume while playing with water and sand.
9. Physical activity every day: Active play develops children’s coordination and gives them a chance to practice their basic physical skills.
10. New materials introduced frequently.
Source: www.parents.com

Preschool questions
Parents magazine published this list of questions parents should ask when searching for a preschool:
• What are the schedule options?
• What is the tuition?
• How old are children when they enter your school?
• What is the cutoff date for new students?
• Do you have openings for next September?
• How many children are in each class?
• How many adults supervise each class?
• What are the qualifications of the teachers?
• What training does the director have?
• Is the program licensed or accredited?

If the program meets your basic needs, ask about the enrollment process and schedule a time to visit. Parents should meet the director, take a tour and spend an hour or two in a classroom. Try to revisit your top choices before making your final pick.
Source: www.parents.com

The Kids Are Alright
What the latest day-care study really found.
By Emily Bazelon

Comment: As I’ve said infinitum ad nauseum, the primary educator is the parent. Ask Carl. He knows.

The headlines blared this week. “Does Day Care Make Kids Behave Badly? Study Says Yes” (ABC). “Child Care Leads to More Behavior Problems” (Fox). “Day-care Kids Have Problems Later in Life” (NBC). “Poor Behavior Is Linked to Time in Day Care” (New York Times). And, ironically, “Bad Mommies” (Slate).

It’s useless to rail at the press for leading with the bad news and for ignoring the researchers’ caveats that no cause-and-effect conclusions can be drawn from their data. Still, coverage like this feels designed to twit working parents. And it turns out that in the case of day care, the headlines and the stories really were alarmist—even wrong.

The source of the fuss is the latest installment of a long-running $200 million effort by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Since 1991, a team of researchers has been tracking more than 1,300 children, following them from infancy through various child-care settings (home with mother, home with another relative, home with nanny, or at day care) and into elementary school. In the March/April issue of Child Development, the team asks “Are There Long-Term Effects of Early Child Care?” To answer that question, the researchers report their findings about the kids’ academic achievement and behavior through sixth grade. The study controls for a host of variables, like socioeconomic status, quality of parenting (annoyingly, this measure involves only mothers), quality of child care, and quality of the elementary-school classroom. It’s all very well-done and careful.

By sixth grade, the researchers detected few differences between the day-care center kids and the others—shall we just call them the Children Whose Parents Truly Love Them?—who had stay-at-home moms or nannies or some other arrangement. What mattered more than early child care, in terms of school performance and behavior, were parenting and genes. “Parenting quality significantly predicted all the developmental outcomes and much more strongly than did any of the child-care predictors,” the researchers wrote. Never mind that central, important finding. The downside of day care is what everyone wants to talk about.

Let’s lead with the good news for working parents: The study found that kids who went to high-quality day-care centers had an edge over all the other kids on vocabulary scores. This association didn’t decrease as the kids got older. But then there is the finding that inspired the headlines: “Teachers reported more problem behaviors for children who spent more time in centers.” This effect also held steady over time. And as the New York Times put it, “the finding held up regardless of the child’s sex or family income, and regardless of the quality of the day care center.” As in, Beware of Day Care. No matter how good you think your kid’s is, it’s making him unruly and disruptive, two favorite media adjectives for kids who cause trouble at school.

Stop. When I reached the study’s author, Margaret Burchinal, yesterday, she asked if she could explain something she feared had been missed. “I’m not sure we communicated this, but the kids who had one to two years of daycare by age 4½—which was typical for our sample—had exactly the level of problem behavior you’d expect for kids of their age. Most people use center care for one or two years, and for those kids we’re not seeing anything problematic.”

In other words, the higher-than-average incidence of bad behavior showed up only among kids who spent three or four years in day care before the age of 4½. Burchinal and her co-authors used a behavior measure on which a score of 50 is exactly average (and the higher the score, the brattier the kid). The mean score of kids who spent one or two years in day care before kindergarten was 50. The mean for kids who spent three years was 51.4. The mean for kids who spent four years was 52. Kids who spent no time at all in day care had a mean score of 49.6—lowest, yes, but to an extremely small degree. Also, only 5 percent of the kids in the study spent four years in day care, and only 10 percent spent three years.

Here’s a key question: What was the quality of the day care this 15 percent received? Were their centers as good? Burchinal ran the numbers for me, and the answer is no. The study rated all child-care arrangements on a scale from 1 for abysmal to 4 for excellent. The mean score for kids who were cared for entirely at home was 2.85. The mean for kids who spent less than a year in day care was 2.84. One to two years in day care: 2.82. Three to four years: 2.76. And four or more years: 2.71. In other words, the kids with more reported behavior problems in elementary school were the ones who spent three or four years in day care and whose care was, on average, of lower quality.

The differences in quality of care among all settings are small, and the correlation between a longer time spent in day care and a reduction in the quality of care is modest. But then the uptick in bad behavior scores is slight, too. “We found that more time in day-care centers correlates to higher problem behavior scores,” Burchinal said. “This raises the question whether it could be the quality within those centers” that accounts for the effect.

Burchinal points out that on average, day care for infants and toddlers is worse than for preschoolers. It’s more expensive because states require more staff for babies. And the littlest kids don’t get much out of being in a group like the older ones do. The youngest thrive on one-on-one attention, and it takes considerable skill and experience to deftly juggle the needs of a bunch of them. So maybe the real lesson here is a reminder: Day care for infants and toddlers is the hardest to do well. And lower-quality care, coupled with three or four years spent at a center, doesn’t appear to serve kids quite as well as other arrangements (though the difference in slight).

This is not exactly heartening. Day care for infants and toddlers is often the most economical choice for families in which both parents work and no grandparent or cousin can lend a hand with the baby. We should figure out how to improve day care for infants and toddlers, not give up on it. Still, the study’s results, properly explained, do not suggest that kids who spent a year or two in day care when they are 3 and 4—or, in my opinion at least, kids who go to excellent day care for longer periods—will talk back to their teachers and throw more than their share of spitballs when they get older. These kids will behave themselves just fine. As long as their parents don’t screw them up.

I would say that this comes as a relief, since each of my own two sons spent (or in 4-year-old Simon’s case is spending) four years in day care before kindergarten. Except that I stopped taking the bad rap on day care personally a long time ago.

There is an enormous difference between excellent day care and mediocre day care—when Simon had one year of the latter, believe me, I could tell. But that distinction, crucial as it is to the kids who experience it and to their parents, often is lost on the rest of the world. One day when my older son Eli was about 2, he charmed the woman ahead of us in line at the supermarket. They grinned and goo-goo-ed at each other, and then Eli’s new friend turned to me with a big smile and said, “He must be at home with you.” I stammered no and started babbling: Eli was in day care, but it was really wonderful day care, with only 12 kids and five teachers, and really if you visited him there you would see … But the woman’s smile had vanished. We stood in embarrassed silence until her groceries were bagged. It probably doesn’t matter what the data really show. Day care is supposed to be bad for kids, so it is. The headlines don’t change.

Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor.

Scientists say they have come up with a way of making pizzas more healthy.

Comment: I know this might seem boring, but it’s really quite important that we understand what is killing us and what is making us thrive – especially our children!

Story:
US researchers have developed a way of baking and fermenting dough which can increase levels of antioxidants, which protect against cell and tissue damage.

The team from the University of Maryland told the American Chemical Society longer baking and higher temperatures are the key.

But a UK diet expert said a healthier pizza base might lead people to choose more unhealthy toppings.

World’s tallest man gets hitched

March 28, 2007 03:45 PM

New Media Producer: Rachel Chambliss

Comment: I couldn’t resist this. As you read the story it just gets better and better.

After searching high and low, the world’s tallest man has married a woman two-thirds his height a Chinese newspaper reported Wednesday.

The Beijing New reported, Bao Xishun, a 7-foot-9-inch (2.36-meter) herdsman from Inner Mongolia, married saleswoman Xia Shujian, who is 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 meters) tall.

Bao’s 28-year-old bride is half his age and hailed from his hometown of Chifeng, even though marriage advertisements were sent around the world.

“After a long and careful selection, the effort has been finally paid off,” the newspaper said.

Bao was confirmed last year by the Guinness World Records as the world’s tallest person.

Bao was in the news in December after he used his long arms to save two dolphins by pulling out plastic from their stomachs.

The dolphins got sick after nibbling on plastic from the edge of their pool at an aquarium in Liaoning province.

Attempts to use surgical instruments to remove the plastic failed because the dolphins’ stomachs contracted in response to the instruments Chinese media reported.

Study links extensive child care with more aggressive behavior in school
By Associated Press
Sunday, March 25, 2007 –

WASHINGTON — Children who got quality child care before entering kindergarten had better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than did youngsters who received lower quality care.

Also, the more time that children spent in child care, the more likely their sixth grade teachers were to report problem behavior.

The findings come from the largest study of child care and development conducted in the United States. The 1,364 children in the analysis had been tracked since birth as part of a study by the National Institutes of Health.

In the study’s latest installment, being released Monday, researchers evaluated whether characteristics observed between kindergarten and third grade were still present in fifth grade or sixth grade. The researchers found that the vocabulary and behavior patterns did continue, though many other characteristics did dissipate.

The researchers said the increase in vocabulary and problem behaviors was small, and that parenting quality was a much more important predictor of child development.

In the study, child care was defined as care by anyone other than the child’s mother who was regularly scheduled for at least 10 hours per week.

The researchers said the enduring effect of child care quality is consistent with other evidence showing that children’s early experiences matter to their language development.

The long-term effect on behavior also may have a logical explanation, the researchers said.

”One possible reason why relations between center care and problem behavior may endure is that primary school teachers lack the training as well as the time to address behavior problems, given their primary focus on academics,” the researchers said.

The study appears in the current issue of Child Development. The authors emphasized that the children’s behavior was within a normal range and that it would be impossible to go into a classroom, and with no additional information, pick out those who had been in child care.

Someone asked about Spring Break. We will be on Spring Break Thursday and Friday of this week. We will go to the zoo on Wednesday until about 2:00. We will picnic at Wesselman Park depending on the weather. This upcoming break is our first since Christmas.

Yesterday we did an obstacle course and bobbed for apples. No matter how often you do this, the kids are never bored with it -soaking wet, yes; bored, no. It’s hilarious. There are children who actually have bobbing styles. The bigger boys will throw their heads under the water and come up with an apple every time. The more timid will push the apples to the side and try to get the apple with a biting motion. The smarties will try to get a stem. Then there are the emotional breakdowns where a child will throw himself into tantrum because the apple didn’t just pop into his mouth.

The children did some really cute arts and crafts yesterday. They asked to do this, and we encouraged it. Today we will resurrect beading and practice on some lace edges. I would like to introduce knitting or crochet, but I’m not sure they are old enough – let’s see. They sure are smart enough.

I think we might create paper dolls today as well. This is something girls can entertain themselves with for a long time.

I love these extra days when the children have grown up enough to really teach the creative arts. People disregard the creative arts because they can “buy” it made. But I always say to the children, you need to know how to sew, to cook, to plant, to make something from nothing because you never know when you will be someplace, even home, when the lights will go out for a long long time, and we need to know what to do and how to do it. I once wrote a passage in one of my novels about embroidery and how the intricate stitching is useful to mend clothes as well as decorate.

We are in the process of recruiting new students. We have new brochures and new bulletin board posters. If you have a bulletin board at work or you have a place we can put our brochures, please let us know. The more students we have the lower the tuition.

The George Mateljan Foundation is a non-profit organization free of commercial influence, which provides this website for you free of charge. Our purpose is to provide you with unbiased scientific information about how nutrient-rich World’s Healthiest Foods can promote vibrant health and energy and fit your personal needs and busy lifestyle.

Comment: I think this article from “The World’s Healthiest Foods” site is timely because I bought asparagus yesterday as our new food for the week. I’m hoping that the children will want to try them.

Asparagus

The fleshy green spears of asparagus are both succulent and tender and have been considered a delicacy since ancient times. This highly prized vegetable arrives with the coming of spring. In California the first crops are picked as early as February, however, their season generally is considered to run from April through May. The growing season in the Midwest and East extends through July.

Asparagus is a perennial, an almost leafless member of the lily family. The spears we buy in the store are actually the shoots from an underground crown. It takes up to 3 years for crowns to develop enough to begin producing shoots, but once they do, they can produce for up to 20 years.

Health Benefits

Heart Health

Folate is essential for a healthy cardiovascular system. Folate is involved in the methylation cycle, a biochemical event in which a methyl group–one atom of carbon and three atoms of hydrogen–is transferred from one molecule to another. Methylation reactions are the body’s biochemical “spark plugs” in a wide variety of very important reactions. For example, methylation is crucial for the proper transcription of DNA, and transforms norepinephrine into adrenaline, and serotonin into melatonin. When the methylation cycle flows smoothly, the amino acid methionine is transformed into homocysteine, which is quickly converted into cysteine, and then back into methionine. Folate (along with vitamins B6 and B12) is necessary for the conversion of homocysteine into cysteine. When folate levels are low, blood levels of homocysteine rise, a situation that significantly increases the risk for heart disease. Homocysteine promotes atherosclerosis by reducing the integrity of blood vessel walls and by interfering with the formation of collagen (the main protein in connective tissue). Elevations in homocysteine are found in approximately 20-40% of patients with heart disease, and it is estimated that consumption of 400 mcg of folate daily would reduce the number of heart attacks suffered by Americans each year by 10%. Just one serving of asparagus supplies almost 66% of the daily recommended intake of folate.

A Natural Diuretic

Asparagus is a very good source of potassium (288 mg per cup) and quite low in sodium (19.8 mg per cup. Its mineral profile, combined with an active amino acid in asparagus, asparagine, gives asparagus a diuretic effect. Although some popular articles on asparagine link this amino acid to the distinct urinary odor that can follow along after consumption of asparagus, research studies suggest that this odor stems from a variety of sulfur-containing compounds (discussed in detail under the “Safety” section below). Historically, asparagus has been used to treat problems involving swelling, such as arthritis and rheumatism, and may also be useful for PMS-related water retention.

Food for Healthy Gut Flora

Asparagus contains a special kind of carbohydrate called inulin that we don’t digest, but the health-promoting friendly bacteria in our large intestine, such as Bifidobacteria and Lactobacilli, do. When our diet contains good amounts of inulin, the growth and activity of these friendly bacteria increase. And when populations of health-promoting bacteria are large, it is much more difficult for unfriendly bacteria to gain a foothold in our intestinal tract.

A Birth Defect Fighter

Especially if you’re thinking about becoming pregnant or are in the early stages of pregnancy, make asparagus a frequent addition to your meals. A cup of asparagus supplies approximately 263 mcg of folate, a B-vitamin essential for proper cellular division because it is necessary in DNA synthesis. Without folate, the fetus’ nervous system cells do not divide properly. Inadequate folate during pregnancy has been linked to several birth defects, including neural tube defects like spina bifida. Despite folate’s wide availability in food (it’s name comes from the Latin word folium, meaning “foliage,” because it’s found in green leafy vegetables), folate deficiency is the most common vitamin deficiency in the world.

Description

Asparagus is a perennial garden plant belonging to the Lily family (Liliaceae). While approximately 300 varieties of asparagus have been noted, only 20 are edible.

Asparagus, its fleshy spears topped with bud-like compact heads, is often thought of as a luxury vegetable, prized for its succulent taste and tender texture. It is harvested in the spring when it is 6 to 8 inches tall. While the most common variety of asparagus is green in color, two other edible varieties are available. White asparagus, with its more delicate flavor and tender texture, is grown underground to inhibit its development of chlorophyll content, therefore creating its distinctive white coloring. It is generally found canned, although you may find it fresh in some select gourmet shops, and it is generally more expensive than the green variety since its production is more labor intensive. The other edible variety of asparagus is purple in color. It is much smaller than the green or white variety (usually just 2 to 3 inches tall) and features a fruitier flavor. It also provides benefits from phytonutrients called anthocyanins that give it its purple color. With prolonged cooking, the purple color may disappear.

The Times of India Editorial

Comment: This is a sad article, but well worth reading. A lot of what is said here about a country like India can be said about our own country. We have yet to understand what the consequence is of keeping children from learning till the cut of line. We still don’t understand the necessity of feeding children properly.

Go to any school you consider good, enter Class II, and write these words on the blackboard in neat letters: ‘When you read this, stand up’. Children will read the words aloud, but nobody will stand up. Why? Because, by the end of Grade I, reading has already been dissociated from meaning. The methods employed to teach how to read and the material given to read ensure that reading is mastered as a mechanical activity. For it to be a meaningful activity, an agenda of drastic reforms in early childhood education is required.

Early childhood is a stage of education we do not fully recognise. Even the amendment made to the Constitution, making elementary education a fundamental right, leaves out the first five years of life. That is when the secret powers of childhood are at their most intense. From health care and emotional security to the cultivation of language and other natural endowments, needs of pre-school children are self-evident, but they are yet to be accepted as national priorities.

Fulfilling the demands of early childhood is crucial for later development. We bumble along, with shoestring provision for a handful of programmes in the state sector, while the private sector is happy catering to middle class parents’ demand for the earliest possible attainment of literacy and compliant behaviour. Pushed when they have no power to resist, our children suffer cognitive and emotional damage at the hands of poorly paid and trained teachers. Those who come straight to Class I are somewhat luckier, but not for long because their encounter with learning in the primary school years is equally lopsided.

Any listing of the common problems that pre-school education faces must start with the lack of adequate institutional provisions. The current scramble for seats in Delhi has more to do with the paucity of nurseries than with the correctness of admission formula. Why doesn’t Delhi spend more public funds on children, schools, libraries? No one knows. Private provision can never match the demand, but even in terms of quality, most private nurseries offer nothing different from those run by the government. Exceptions apart, both lack the imagination to engage the young child with experiences derived from resources like water, sand, clay, sounds, colours and shapes.

Classically known to enrich development, the most significant activities require purely natural resources, such as a patch of land to grow plants and to keep pets. Others call for equipment, such as toys, cardboard and paper, old tyres and building blocks. Most Delhi nurseries are poor in both kinds of resources.

They have no open space to let children grow plants or comfortably move about from one activity to another. The kind of apparatus Montessori had developed is rarely seen, though many nurseries flaunt her name. The quality of play equipment is poor too, partly because India’s toy industry is rudimentary and because governments have been indifferent to the advice available from the National Institute of Design.

It is a strange fact that India, which now produces ballistic missiles, does not manufacture a high quality ball for little children to play with. The same is sadly true of the equipment and training available in training institutes.
Teachers’ training as a whole is in crisis, but training for pre-school is simply not recognised as a professional activity comparable with paediatrics.

The level of funding needed to push early childhood out of an area of darkness is far too vast for private investors to contemplate. In teacher training alone, if we were to plan for leadership and coverage within the foreseeable future, we need at least five IIM-type national institutes of early childhood, serving each region with training and equipment.

Unfortunately, district institutes of education and training are generally not in a happy state though the
increased allocation announced recently for teacher education can make a difference if funds are utilised in the context of a wider reform strategy. National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005) and its accompanying paper on early childhood by the National Focus Group chaired by Mina Swaminathan provides the outline of such a strategy, but the details need to be worked out.

Making pre-school education a part of primary schooling requires a deep curricular reform. Shanta Sinha had suggested during NCF discussions that we should recognise the needs of four- to eight-year-olds in an integrated manner. This is the period when each child develops along an individual trajectory of growth. By insisting on normative patterns, our nurseries and schools discourage individuality and the potential for creative growth. By subjecting children to learn reading within a fixed schedule and with the help of a single standard text, our system promotes mechanical decoding in the name of reading.

Reading for pleasure is replaced by pronouncing every sound correctly to avoid the teacher’s wrath. The child’s natural search for meaning is muzzled. The long road to survival by rote memorising starts. Early childhood has suffered for another reason. It carries the full burden of economic and cultural discrimination that women face.

Neither the family nor the state is willing to recognise what it means for a woman to care for a little child. Whether it is the challenge of poverty in the face of food scarcity and inflation, or the problem of looking after the small child’s health and daily needs while working for a living, women seldom find adequate support within the family or outside to play these multiple roles. Malnourishment among mothers is as common as among children.

The writer is director, NCERT.

Energy Boosts at Work

Comment: I really love this article. Everyone’s day is different, but there are some wonderful suggestions here. At school, we don’t get breaks except a quick 30 second run to the bathroom. Finding time to even sit down is tough. But going home drained and exhausted is not a good day. I love the standing quiet for two minutes. The one thing we can do that most people can’t is to catch a yoga move in the middle of nearly anything. At our morning meetings aka circle time, we can dive into a yoga move without a response. Try that at one of your morning meetings! I think the whole idea is to finish the day without that awful feeling that it’s bed time.

Stay Alert All Day, Every Day
— By Mike Kramer and Liz Noelcke, Staff Writers of Babyfit

You see the computer screen, but you really don’t. It’s more like a two-foot blur. Your eyes are between open and closed, although you’re not sure where. At the moment, you have no idea what you’re working on. And it’s only 3 p.m. Sound familiar? Is this a typical afternoon or morning? Are you looking for an energy boost at your desk? Office life can suck the energy right out of you, if you let it. But, there are numerous ways to take advantage of your workspace and stay energetic all day.

Did you realize bad posture alone can give your brain up to 30% less blood and oxygen? Along with good posture, the most effective way to fight energy lulls is with heavy doses of good stretching and good breathing. Shoot for five minutes of mental or physical activity per hour, every hour at the computer.

Here are more, different ideas for rejuvenating your mind and body. Each will only take a few minutes.

• Find a few sturdy, thick phonebooks and do some step aerobics.
• Massage your head and shoulders. Find trigger points of tension in the shoulders and base of the skull. Hold pressure for 6-10 seconds. Don’t forget your face and jaw.
• Take two steps back from your desk and lean forward until you’re at an angled push-up position against the edge of your desk. Do a couple quick sets.
• Lift 1-3 packs of printer paper in each hand. Curl them like weights or lift them over your head.
• Close your door and shadow box. Imagining a stressor while you’re punching will increase your energy, guaranteed.
• Jumping jacks. Simple, quick and pumps you up.
• Squeeze a stress ball. Relieves stress while strengthening forearms and wrists for typing.
• Try word puzzles. Keep a jigsaw puzzle in your office.
• Switch hands with whatever you’re doing.
• Stand perfectly still for two minutes. Regroup.
• When you first arrive at work, take as long as possible before sitting down.
• Forget the boardroom. Hold walking meetings.
• Hand-deliver mail, memos and faxes.
• Chat face-to-face instead of by e-mail or phone.
• Use a bathroom on the other side of the building or another floor.
• Have a lot of phone time? Buy a cordless and move around while talking.

Another approach, one that adults rarely consider but could greatly benefit from, is a nap.

A 2001 survey by the National Sleep Foundation found that 63% of Americans don’t get enough sleep. Naps will combat this. They cannot replace a good night’s sleep, but they can help you perform at your peek throughout the day. Plus you can save that daily $4 on Starbucks, because the energy you gain from a nap is better and longer lasting than caffeine. The ideal nap length is 20 minutes, easily squeezable into the workday.

No matter the method, try to find tricks that work for you. Remember, if you don’t want to feel drained at the end of the work day, you don’t have to.