Colbie Caillat's "Try"

I hear this song on the radio a lot these days, but I feel like the video really enhanced my understanding of the meaning on a deeper level. So for those of you out there who are visual learners, I wanted to share.  It seems like so many of us struggle with image in one way or another, and this really spoke to my heart. I hope you too enjoy Colbie Caillat's new song, "Try."

The Lost Art of Listening

Discourse over social and political issues (and thus health issues) today is fraught with fighting, name-calling, finger-pointing, and a general lack of cooperation. It is no wonder that approval ratings for Congress hit an all-time historic low this summer.

In part as a response to this tumultuous state of affairs, some of my college friends recently started an organization called Listen First Project. Their mission is simple:

"Listen First Project seeks to facilitate greater understanding, respect and cooperation by encouraging the timeless but abandoned practice of listening to each other, regardless of politics, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education or any other distinction. We believe in the power of listening to transform our discourse and change the world."

Image source: http://www.listenfirstproject.org

My dad loves to tell a story from my toddler years about the time I was chattering away on a long car trip, when suddenly it grew very quiet. Wondering why I made such an abrupt end to my soliloquy, my parents turned around to ask if I was ok. My response: "My mouth is tired."

And thus kicked off my illustrious career as a talker.

Listening has always been a challenge for me. It is not that I am uninterested in what others have to say. Quite the opposite! I get so enthusiastic, however, that I feel the need to jump in and respond to every....single....thing someone shares. When someone makes a statement, I often feel compelled to pose the arguments for the alternative position just to see if they can find any common ground with the opposition and to understand better what they think. I love engaging others and being engaged at what I perceive to be a fun and challenging level.

(Note to others: it turns out that not everyone enjoys this or feels respected and heard through this type of dialogue. Who'd'a thunk it?)

Despite my loquacious tendencies, Listen First Project has really struck a chord with me. When I think about the state of American politics, I sense that common decency has been lost somewhere along the way and is needed to bring us back on track.

Although I recognize the imperative for listening in the broader political realm, as I reflect on the above stories and personal traits embodied by my everyday experiences, I am realizing more and more that the first place listening needs to start is with me.

One thing I tried earlier this year was one week without expressing opinions - just to see if I could do it and come out alive. Most days, I failed at least once, but it made me much more aware of my own talking instincts and habits. Why do I feel the need to be heard on anything and everything? Will the world stop or people go on perpetually uneducated if I do not inform them of my views? As it turns out, the world kept turning and people kept learning and growing that week! In many ways, holding back my own voice made me more aware of the power that voice has when I do use it.

I was also called out by a friend for interrupting during a group project meeting last semester, and I really took it to heart to try to adjust this bad habit. I still struggle with interrupting, but being more conscious of it has meant that I now catch myself in the act more often, apologize, and ask the other person to please continue expressing their thoughts, because I do care.

Other places that learning to listen well has been making an appearance in my life include learning how to teach well (pedagogy) by facilitating other students in having discussions of their ideas, administering surveys with Best Babies Zone in East Oakland to understand community members' perceptions of their experiences,  and even learning in my prayer life how to sit quietly with God, rather than simply listing my requests.

Listening is one of the most important things I can do, both for my personal relationships and my professional success. In public health, understanding health concerns from the perspectives of the communities they affect, listening to community ideas for solutions, and investing in solutions that have community buy-in are often significantly more important to community thriving and successful interventions than any expertise or ideas I bring to an issue.

Learning to listen well will undoubtedly be a lifelong process for me.

I am excited to see where Listen First Project goes. To learn more about their efforts, check out the Listen First website, Facebook page, and Twitter feed @ListenFirstProj.

Now, I would love to hear your ideas! How have you fostered the practice of listening well in public discourse, and perhaps more importantly, in your own day-to-day life?



Note: Another resource I have found helpful on this topic for those interested in the intersection of listening and faith is Richard Mouw's book, "Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World."

BART Food Waste Advertisements

Recently, I have been noticing these advertisements on my morning and evening BART (Bay Area Mass Transit) commutes.

Food Shift, the organization responsible for these ads, is on a mission to eliminate food waste. Since California is currently experiencing a serious drought, these ads definitely caught my attention. That's a lot of water wasted! As I checked out Food Shift's website, I learned that wasting food has environmental, social, and financial impacts.

According to Food Shift's website, that average American family of four throws out $1,600 of food each year, or 20 pounds of food per person per month.

This got me thinking about how we can waste less food. Of course, Food Shift is interested in making changes at the systemic level of food supply chains, which has the potential to make a huge impact. At the same time, I think we can and should recognize that a lot of individuals making small changes can also make a difference.

One thing we do in our household is to freeze items before they go bad. For example, when our fruit is getting on the over-ripe side, we freeze it for use in future smoothies. We also freeze a portion of our leftovers when we cook large batches of food, so that it does not go bad before we finish enough of it (or get bored of it).

Food Shift has a list of recommendations on their site, such as planning ahead, keeping stock of your pantry (and using what you already have), and learning about proper food storage.

What systemic changes do you think would decrease food waste? What personal steps do you take to waste less food?

Hilarious "Girl In a County Song" Calls Out Sexism in Country Music

Everyone who knows me well knows I love country music!

However, in the last five years or so, I have been lamenting many of the latest songs that I perceive as degrading to women. The songs that bother me tend to be about the male fantasy of a woman or women who exist solely to please and serve the man or men in the story. Sexism in song.

When I cringe at these songs, it is not coming from a prudish mentality. I love that my husband is attracted to me, and yes, I sometimes get dressed up just because I know he likes it. The flirtation and attraction are fun and exciting and even a part of human nature. I have read a number of pieces by those who criticize every country lyrical reference to physical attraction as if it were an affront to women, and I am not one of those. I am thankful for physical attraction! I also love doing nice things for my husband that show I care. I might even consider bringing him a glass of sweet tea (if we drank that stuff). Both my husband and I believe that real love involves a commitment to serve one another, so we both make the choice to lovingly serve each other daily. So to be clear, I believe that both physical attraction and serving one another are wonderful things.

What makes me cringe is when wonderful things get twisted into expectations, obsessions, and idols. And when those twisted things are portrayed as romantic. Because they're just not.

One of the most endearing things about country music is the long list of amazing love songs, ranging from fun to deeply romantic, that have come out over the years. It is hard to turn on the radio now and feel like I need to flip the station every few songs just to avoid feeling seriously disrespected by this same genre!

So when I heard this awesome song recently, I was happy to see that I am not the only one bothered by this music trend! Maddie & Tae are right on point. Check it out!

Some of the songs (and a sampling of those song's lyrics) that Maddie & Tae call out with specific references are:

• "My Kinda Party," by Jason Aldean - "You can find me in the back of a jacked up tailgate sittin' round watching all these pretty things get down in that Georgia clay....You can be my tan-legged Juliet. I'll be your redneck Romeo."
• "That's My Kinda Night," by Luke Bryan - "Waiting on you to look my way and scoot your little hot self over here."
• "Take a Little Ride," by Jason Aldean - "Well I'm just ready to ride this Chevy, ride this Chevy down a little back road. Slide your pretty little self on over. Get a little closer, turn up the radio....Sweet tan, little thing with nothing to do, I wanna take a little ride with you. I hope you're wearing those frayed out cut-offs..."
• "Drunk on You," by Luke Bryan - "Girl, you make my speakers go boom boom, dancin' on the tailgate in a full moon. That kinda thing makes a man go mmm hmmm. You're lookin' so good in what's left of those blue jeans. Drip of honey on the money maker gotta be the best buzz I'm ever gonna find. Hey, I'm a little drunk on you and high on summertime. If you ain't a 10 you're a 9.9, tippin' n' spillin' that home-made wine on your tied up T-shirt..."
• "Get Your Shine On," by Florida Georgia Line - "Slide that little sugar-shaker over here."
• "Boys 'Round Here," by Blake Shelton - "Yea, the girls 'round here, they all deserve a whistle, shakin' that sugar, sweet as Dixie crystal.....Red red red red red red redneck"
• "Redneck Crazy," by Tyler Farr (or what I like to call the "You're romanticizing scary illegal stalking song") - "Gonna drive like hell through your neighborhood, park this Silverado on your front lawn, crank up a little Hank, sit on the hood and drink. I'm about to get my pissed off on. I'm gonna lean my headlights into your bedroom windows. Throw empty beer cans at both of your shadows. I didn't come here to start a fight, but I'm up for anything tonight. You know you broke the wrong heart, baby, and drove me redneck crazy."
• "Get Me Some of That," by Thomas Rhett - "You're shakin' that money maker, like a heart breaker, like your college major was twistin' and tearin' up Friday nights. Love the way you're wearin' those jeans so tight..." (To be fair, this is not the only country song to have ever used the term "money-maker," including Trace Adkins' song, "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" several years back.)
• "Hey Girl," by Billy Currington - "Hey girl, what's your name girl? I've been lookin' at you and every guy here's doin' the same girl. It'd be a shame girl if I let you just walk on by, 'cause I'm all caught up in your sweet smile. A girl like you comes around once in a while. So hot, gotta give it a shot, gotta get get a little bit of what you got."

One of the worst offenders that I don't think they mention specifically (so I will) is:

• "Country Girl (Shake it for Me)," by Luke Bryan - "Gonna stomp my boots in the Georgia mud. Gonna watch you make me fall in love. Get up on the hood of my daddy's tractor. Up on the tool box, it don't matter. Down on the tailgate, girl I can't wait to watch you do your thing. Shake it for the young bucks sittin' in the honky-tonks, for the rednecks rockin' 'til the break of dawn, for the DJ spinnin' that country song. Come on, come on, come on. Shake it for the birds, shake it for the bees, shake it for the catfish swimming down deep in the creek, for the crickets and the critters and the squirrels. Shake it to the moon. Shake it for me girl. Country girl, shake it for me girl,shake it for me girl, shake it for me....."

The point is, their song is not a critique of an isolated rogue artist. The genre is now choc full of seriously sexist lyrics. And even when the song lyrics aren't so bad, the music videos often make up the difference.

I am excited that Maddie and Tae's song, "Girl in a County Song," came along at this moment to garner attention about the sexist trend. And with good humor, too! I would love to hear more songs like theirs on my radio. Turn it up!

Street Level Health Project's 20 Barriers to Health Care

This past school year, I had the privilege of interning as a Health Navigator once a week at Street Level Health Project in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland. Street Level Health Project is an Oakland-based grassroots organization dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of underserved urban immigrant communities in the Bay Area. They are working to address health from many different angles, from offering care at their free clinic, to distributing food bags from the food bank, to providing community lunches, to engaging in community organizing and occupational health education through the Oakland Workers' Collective.

As a Health Navigator, I had the opportunity to build relationships with community members and to help them find the right resources to advocate for their own health and wellbeing. Recognizing that health is not just about treating illness, people came to Street Level for legal, food, housing, educational, relational, and other information. For me, the role required practicing active listening (often in Spanish), learning a lot about the resources in the neighborhood, and constantly struggling to find the balance in doing versus supporting. Although my summer internship has pulled me away from working at Street Level, I often find myself thinking of and praying for them as I pass through the Fruitvale BART station on my morning ride to work.

One thing I appreciated about Street Level was that my first week, my supervisor gave me a document explaining some of the barriers to health that many community members face. The list is in many ways common sense, but at the same time, it is easy to be blind to the obstacles that I do not personally experience on a daily basis. I thought I would share a sample of the items in the document, and I would encourage you to read the whole thing here to learn more about some barriers to health care access and to health in general experienced by many immigrants and other local residents.

Image source: streetlevelhealth.org

Examples of common barriers for clients at Street Level:

1. No current/valid identification with photo.
2. No proof of income, due to cash payments for work.
3. No proof of address (homeless, squatting, living with friends/relatives, bills and leases are in other people’s names, no contact with primary renter, in recovery/rehab home, etc.)
4. Lack of transportation or funds for transportation.
5. Fear of ending up with a bill for services.
6. Already have a bill and are too embarrassed to go back or think they won’t be seen.
7. In another city working when they finally get a follow-up call for an appointment (seasonal farm workers or other migrant workers).
8. Inability to miss a day of work for medical care.
9. Language barriers, such as limited English, limited literacy, and/or unfamiliarity with the phone tree menu system.
10. Cultural norms about accepting advice from health care providers without asking questions.
11. Different ways of understanding wellness and illness that conflict with Western medicine.
12. Working and supporting the family is valued over self-care.
13. Fear of immigration detention or deportation.
14. The professional, dressed up, or formal atmosphere of clinics and hospitals can be intimidating.
15. Racism and classism encountered in health care settings.
16. Multiple confusing steps (find out if you’re eligible, call to get on a waitlist, make an appointment for program registration, go to registration appointment, make doctor’s appointment, go to separate location for labs and medications, etc.)
17. Difficulty planning ahead for appointments due to the often unscheduled nature of day laborer jobs.
18. Limited communication between multiple different health care providers.
19. Long wait times (all-day waits or long waitlists) for appointments in public clinics and hospitals.
20. Significant documentation or bureaucracy required to maintain coverage for care when circumstances change frequently.

This is not to say that all immigrants or clients experience all or any of these barriers. But many of the people I worked with did experience some of these, and understanding cultural, structural, and other practical barriers to trusting, consistent, and affordable medical care helped me value the perseverance and strength of the people I met and informed the way I responded. Read Street Level’s full list here.

Patio Garden!

Last year, I decided that growing edible plants would be fun. Unfortunately, the aphids, spider mites, whiteflies, and squirrels decided that eating my plants would be equally fun. This year, with my mind set on defeating the evil squirrels and aphids, I put in a bit more effort, and so far, it seems to be paying off!

Bottom left: you can just barely see the black flower barrel and next to it the green leaves of our hibiscus coming back. Middle left: vegetable cage. Top middle: hanging tomato plant. Top right: fusia basket. Bottom right: some of the herbs on our patio table. 

Firstly, I read up on aphids and other bugs. As it turns out, a natural way to control the bug populations in your plants is to plant a variety of edibles and flowers that create a sort of habitat. Rather than attracting a single bug (such as aphids), this habitat can also attract beneficial insects that prey on the harmful ones. Monoculture (planting only one plant) is a recipe for disease and bug infestation. Of course, not all plants love growing next to all others, so I used some helpful online sites to make choices. One of the predator-attracting flowers that has grown easiest for me this year is alyssum, a small white flower. Many brightly colored flowers attract other bugs, as well. And bonus: my fusia has attracted hummingbirds, which are just plain fun to watch! For lists of predator attracting flowers, read more here and here.

Top left: herbs and flowers on our patio table. Bottom left: flower barrel
with alyssum and snap dragons. Right: fusia flowers.

I also found out that certain plants are known to repel aphids (such as chives, green onions, mint, and marigolds), which I planted near the edibles I wanted to protect this year. I also tried some of the tricks I read about that may or may not be old wives tales (such as burying pieces of banana peel around affected plants). And finally, I made sure to plant everything in places where I could easily reach them this year, because physically wiping off aphids with gardening gloves when the population is small helps to prevent them from multiplying rapidly. I also read that the scent of smashed aphid warns other aphids to stay away. And smash the aphids that have dared to enter my planters I have done! I also occasionally spray the plants with an organic pesticide (made of plant oils), if it looks like there have been too many aphids on my lastest bug-smashing expedition. I try to avoid using sprays as much as possible, because I do not want to harm any of the beneficial bugs. (Plus, I found that the oils alone did very little to get rid of the aphids last year. However, combined with this year's multi-pronged attack strategy, I figured it wouldn't hurt on occasion.)

All in all, we have significantly fewer aphids this year.

Vegetable cage with a tomato, bell peppers, chives, green onion, arugula, and several types of flowers.

As for the squirrels, I designed a cage-like contraption with swinging doors, and so far, I have not had any whole heads of lettuce go missing. (Yes, that happened last year, when the heads were still too tiny for a human to want to eat; they were just pulled completely out of the pots, with nothing but a hole where a lettuce once had grown!) For the cage, I simply drew a rudimentary design on a piece of paper, and my husband and I wrote in some measurements. We bought the wood, metal brackets for the corners, wire fencing material, and other supplies and went to work! This was a three-weekend project for us between the shopping, building the frame, attaching the wiring, attaching the doors, etc. It was more work than I thought it would be (especially for my husband, as he did some of the heavier lifting), but I am very happy with the result!

Constructing the vegetable cage. I love drills! (Not!)

Our plants are looking great so far! This year, we have tomatoes, bell peppers, chives, green onions, arugula, basil, parsley, lovage, thyme, and rosemary, in addition to several species of flowers, such as marigolds, alyssum, pansies, snap dragons, Shasta daisies, a fusia basket, and the perennial hibiscus I planted last year (which is just starting to grow new leaves, so hopefully the flowers will come in again soon!) The veggie plants are getting quite large, and I hope that we get actual tomatoes and peppers in the near future. Hopefully I can post more pictures when we do.

Another angle showing most of the garden.

Automatic Action Tendencies (or Using Magical Mind Games and a Joystick to Change Implicit Alcohol Associations)

In the fall semester for my Theories of Health Behavior class, we spent some time talking about implicit associations. These are preferences or biases that we hold that we may not even know we hold and that have the potential to affect our choices and behaviors. One really interesting experiment we discussed involves the approach bias for alcohol (e.g. the tendency to either automatically approach/prefer or not prefer alcohol).

In one study, participants' approach bias for alcohol was measured both before and after an intervention. The intervention involved asking alcoholics in recovery to use a joystick to either pull pictures towards themselves or to push them away. Four different groups were assigned to four different levels of intervention, with two being experimental groups and two acting as control groups.

The first experimental group was directly told to push the joystick away when an image of alcohol came on the screen and to pull the joystick when a soft drink was displayed. All images were exactly square.

The second experimental group was told to push the joystick for pictures in landscape format (horizontal) and to pull the joystick for pictures in portrait format (vertical). Most of the images of alcohol appeared in landscape format, whereas most pictures of soft drinks appeared in portrait format. However, participants were not told about the alcohol versus soft drink distinction and were merely told to react based on the layout orientation of the picture on the screen.

Image source

Image source

As for the control groups, one group received no intervention at all. A second control group was told to push the joystick for pictures in landscape format (horizontal) and to pull pictures in portrait format (vertical). In this case, pictures of alcohol and soft drinks were evenly distributed between the landscape and portrait images, so that participants were pulling alcohol images the same number of times as they were pushing them away.

Image source

The results of the study showed that for both experimental groups, alcohol approach bias was changed to a strong avoidance bias immediately after the intervention. The control groups, on the only hand, averaged only a mild decrease in approach bias. Note that this was equally true in the case of individuals in the second experimental group, who were unaware that they were specifically pushing images of alcohol or that the exercise was meant to affect alcohol preferences in the first place. Furthermore, in a one-year follow-up, fewer of the experimental group participants had alcoholism relapses than the control group participants.

On the downside, the experimental groups ended up showing an increased approach bias for soft drinks!

A similar study was conducted among high-drinking students, who then taste-tested alcoholic and soft drink beverages after engaging in the joystick/image exercises. This study showed that those who had been assigned to unconsciously push away the images of alcohol and who also showed a change in their Approach Avoidance Test score, ended up drinking one full glass of beer less during the taste-testing time than those whose Approach Avoidance Test scores had not changed significantly.

While these studies certainly raise some ethical concerns about unconscious brain manipulation, they also have the potential to affect addiction treatments.

In addition to the health intervention reasons why these studies are interesting, I also found them interesting from a marketing perspective. Surely many companies who want to sell me something are also aware of the power of implicit associations and use these to their advantage. It has definitely got me wondering how my implicit preferences affect my food decisions and other consumer choices. In fact, some firms even use neuro-marketing to create the most compelling advertisements. These firms pay people to view advertisements while having their brain activity monitored, in order to predict whether the ads are likely to affect consumer preferences and behavior.....more on that in a later post!

What do you think of the joystick activity as a potential alcohol intervention? What potential benefits or downsides seem most relevant or important to you?