(Really understanding) The first modern pandemic – The Blog of Bill Gates, April 23, 2020 This is a great read by Bill Gates to make sense of the overabundant information about COVID-19. The epidemiological situation changes every day and makes it incredibly hard to grasp all the ideas and policy proposals we read and hear about. Some parts of the article are fairly technical, but…
Today marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and with the coronavirus epidemic it’s an event unlike any other before: all digital. Throughout today, Earth Day Network will flood the Internet with global conversations, performances and video teach-ins from inspiring musicians, artists, scientists and thinkers – with a new call to action every hour. Today we face two crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and climate disaster.…
The GWI’s PositivelyWell campaign just kicked off a new interview series with wellness leaders on how the Coronavirus is impacting wellness markets and how wellness will likely evolve in a post-virus world. The first interview is with famed architect and designer Bill Bensley who discusses how the travel industry will change after the epidemic (predicting that the “old luxury will be deader than a doornail”),…
The pandemic’s severe blow to our collective sense of wellbeing will, of course, be global, but the US seems particularly vulnerable. As of last week, roughly 22 million Americans filed for unemployment. According to a new study by Harvard and City University of New York (published in the prestigious Annals of Internal Medicine), 1.5 million people in the US have already lost their health insurance during…
The Cluster Effect: How Social Gatherings Were Rocket Fuel for Coronavirus – Guardian, April 9, 2020 This article explains how social gatherings of different sorts (religious, social, cultural, etc.) helped spread the virus. This is the so-called “cluster-effect” that turbo-charged the spread of the pandemic. It begs the fundamental question of whether governments, when they start relaxing social distancing measures, will allow large social, cultural…
Strengthening our lungs and practicing conscious breathing (one of the most potent, accessible wellness tools) is more critical now. Controlled or mindful breathing can reduce chronic pain; lessen symptoms associated with anxiety, insomnia, PTSD, mass disasters and depression; and positively affect your immune system. Mindful breathing is also linked to increases in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and a better cortisol awaking response (CAR)—each a physiological key for meeting challenges with…
