What is Safety?

In a world where police officers shoot people they have prejudices against, where individuals get assassinated because they express their opinions openly, where pilots crash planes on purpose, and where people get arrested for allowing their children to walk home from school unsupervised, issues of safety are a top priority. While the degree of actual threat varies greatly depending on neighborhood, social class, ethnic identity, racial appearance, economic background, sexual preference, and gender, we are all united in the high concern for our own safety and that of our family and friends. As best we can, we try to regulate our environment by controlling the social world that we engage in. The general rule for this is: The more expensive the neighborhood and the home property prices, the lower the crime rate and the better the school district. Although this helps asserting a feeling of increased security, there is no guarantee that a higher-end neighborhood will actually prevent you from any kind of harm. You can never completely control your environment and have to live with the fact that in the end, something could happen (and it does), even in the most expensive neighborhoods. Despite any efforts, you still may encounter random school shootings, abductions or any other random acts of violent aggression.

Constant concerns for the physical safety of children turn parenting into a special challenge. While helping on the National Incidence Study of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART 2) as a research assistant more than a decade ago, I learned that 1,315,600 children went missing in the U.S. during the period from 1997-1999. The enormous number can partially be explained by the fact that it also included children that voluntarily ran away from home and those that were missing for more than an hour due to misunderstandings between child and caretaker, but reappeared. Last year's number for missing children, whose absence had been reported to the authorities, amounted to 466,949, which means close to half a million! So far this year, Amber Alert helped recover 758 missing children. These numbers demonstrate that the perceived threat to our kids' physical safety is real and has to be taken very seriously.

Another danger that we think about quite some time, and that unfortunately becomes real all too often, is gun violence. Many of the incidences could be easily prevented with stricter gun laws. This would alleviate us from the worry about angry criminals roaming the streets waiting to kill someone (or like in our neighborhood recently a suicidal, armed veteran who roamed the area close to the local elementary school). The change in legislation would make guns less accessible and prevent many of the violent incidences that occur in a heated moment when there is easy access to a gun. Often times fatalities happen unintentionally, because of simple avoidable mistakes like storing guns inappropriately and not keeping ammunition separate from firearms. Remember the unfortunate incident last year when a 9-year old girl shot her shooting instructor with a machine gun in Arizona? Or the more recent incident from last December when a 2-year old boy unintentionally shot his mother in a Walmart store with a loaded gun that his mother carried around in her purse while shipping? Unfortunately, there are many more horrific, unforgettable incidences, like school shootings, drive by shootings and lethal hostage crisis that further highlight the danger of accessibility of firearms.

Even if we act responsibly and are successful in raising our kids to become upright and respectful citizens, we cannot control our environment and guarantee that we or our children are safe. No wonder that as a result, parents often become overprotective of their children. The constant fear that something could happen to them while playing outside, keeps parents worried non-stop. In other countries that have a much lower crime rate and where guns are far more regulated than in the U.S. (like Scandinavian countries or Germany), children of all ages have a lot more freedoms and parents worry much less. Kids there are encouraged and taught how to use public transport alone, how to ride their bikes to friends' houses (even if that may be a few miles away) and how to walk to a shop unaccompanied. Nobody in these cultural environments finds this dangerous, irresponsible or unadvisable. In fact, studies have confirmed that it helps kids to learn how to become responsible, independent, and find their place in society. The current generation of children in the U.S. not only does not have a life similar to those children, but they also don't have a life similar to that of their own parents who enjoyed many of the same freedoms that kids in other countries still have. Due to the understanding of safety in the U.S., kids have a very structured life where they go from one supervised activity to the next and barely have any unstructured time. While this method assures us that they are accounted for, it also deprives them of acquiring many skills learned by free play they will need as adults. We have yet to see, what kind of effect this will have once this generation enters the workforce.

But today's threats on personal safety do not come from violence alone, but also from the foods that we consume. Often times we don't check carefully which foods go in our mouth and may not be aware that we stuff ourselves with harmful ingredients. Lots of foods are genetically modified, enriched (with chemicals) or processed in ways that are dangerous to our bodies. While many of us check the labels and try to protect ourselves from as many harmful substances as possible, often times information about certain ingredients becomes confusing, and as consumers we don't really know what is safe and what not. In those moments, the thought in my head is often, 'If official/authorities allow foods to contain these ingredients, then they cannot be so bad, right? After all, they are the experts and they wouldn't want to people to get sick.' But should we really trust this inner voice? In some other nations food labeling and identifying harmful foods undergoes much stricter guidelines than in the U.S.. I remember in a Danish supermarket that Heinz ketchup had a big neon sticker across the label indicating that the product contained high fructose corn syrup and that the local authorities highly discouraged the consumption of this product, because this ingredient was harmful. The point is, consumer self-education to a certain point has to be expected, but it should also be in the interest of the authorities here in the U.S. to create awareness and educate. They should alert us about potentially dangerous foods and prevent these foods to enter the market while instead directing consumers to cleaner and healthier choices. If no attention is raised about harmful ingredients, serious health hazard remain disguised.

Another threat that has become very real for many families is that more and more kids grow up with dangerous, sometimes fatal food allergies. I got to know a family with a child haunted by severe peanut allergy. For the kids it could be fatal just by coming in contact with peanuts or food containing them and by coming in contact with something that had touched peanuts or foods containing them. For this particular family it meant that the mother accompanied the child everywhere to supervise the surroundings and make sure that it was safe, at least until school age. Once the child started Kindergarten, the mother still came to school to observe the child's lunch and eliminate potential threats. Since a drastically increasing number of children suffer from allergies, more and more parents have to send separate snack packages for their child to those birthday parties that they attend, pass on eating and drinking instructions to the supervising parents before playdates, and have to trust that they will remember this significant information. All these considerations lead to constant worries on behalf of the parents, something that earlier generations of parents did not have to do.

What does this all mean? That we as individuals, consumers, and parents should remember our right to the pursuit of happiness which clearly includes issues of safety. We should demand more protection against threats from guns and harmful foods that could be eliminated with the right kind of legislation. For officials and authorities it should be a clear priority to protect the rights of the people to personal safety and not place economic gains of big corporations before the needs of individuals. With stricter gun laws and higher health standards in place, we may even be able to revive some of the lost freedoms for our children and us.

What is Balance?

We all have busy lives. We have deadlines at work, family obligations and some days we barely manage to do everything we are supposed to do. We worry about traffic and commute. We have to rush to make our meetings on time, being prepared enough. As parents we rush to get everything done for our kids: sign and return permission slips for school, to pack a healthy, well-balanced lunch that they will actually eat;  to pick them up on time; to drop them off to their activities with all the supplies they need; to have a dinner available when the evening comes, of course we strive for home-made and healthy. Most of us don’t have paid helpers, so we have to manage on our own. On many days, we barely make it and compromise our high standards quite a bit. The kid may go to school with not such a healthy lunch after all and dinner may be take-out, some of the clothes may be semi-clean, etc. On most days we experience some kind of stress that comes from rushing all the time. With so busy lives, it seems strange to get up every morning rushing around all day and then go to bed again in order to perform the same dance the next day. It is hectic for most families, but it is so much harder for single parents who work full-time and have to get their kids organized and ready by themselves every day.

In a culture that is so focused on work, it is difficult to find balance. Between working full-time, commuting, and the kid’s activities, there is barely any time to spare. Many people do not even have the time to unwind after a busy day of work, because they are already stressed out about the next day. Living such a hectic life doesn’t seem healthy or sane. It not only makes you wonder how people can endure it in the long run, but you also start doubting the deeper meaning in life. In order to stay healthy, we all need to take time for ourselves. We need unstructured time to relax, recharge and to do “nothing”. We need this valuable time to process things, to remain sharp, but also in order to avoid serious health risks. It allows us to grow, to find what makes us happy, and to progress. 

Unstructured time allows you to figure out what you are really interested in. If you never have free time, how will you know what you like? You keep rushing from one appointment to the next and at the end of a busy day you fall into bed while watching TV without that healthy meal that you had originally promised yourself, you have no time to reflect. When you have some unstructured time, it gives you the chance to take a breather, you can ignore all your to-do-lists for a while and some stress will fall right off you. If instead you run away from the silence that accompanies unstructured time and switch on your TV or radio, you miss an opportunity to refresh your brain. Unstructured time makes you creative. If you have nothing specific to do, you have time to think about things that were on your mind, may get clarity or start to tinker with things. You may enjoy an intellectual challenge that you stumble upon and want to pursue and notice that you like applying your brain in new ways. As some studies have shown, you may have some really great ideas while you are not specifically trying to solve problems or focus on something. Subconsciously, you may be digesting the things that went on at work or in a group setting, but in your free time, you may be able to make sense of it all and find unexpected innovative solutions.

The most creative and innovative thinkers came up with their ideas, inventions or new ways to understand the world while being alone and experiencing unstructured time: Plato sat in his cave, Newton under a tree, Einstein on his bike, and Stephen Jobs in his garage when the innovative ideas hit them. Not that we all have to become geniuses like them or need to develop ideas that have the power to transform the world, but in order to find balance and to understand yourself and your surroundings, we have to spend some time alone in an unstructured environment.

Even for people who don’t work full-time it is hard to find balance. We have the tendency to overdo things that we perceive as important: e.g. if we want to lose weight, our whole life suddenly revolves around the gym, running, swimming, eating, etc. If we focus on being healthy, we tend to instantly devote most of our day to buying great ingredients, cooking and baking fresh foods and observing what we ear. If we want to learn a new skill, we suddenly dive into it, forgetting other things and sometimes people that are important to us. It must be part of human nature that we start obsessing about things. In order to live a healthy life, there needs to be a balance between all the different aspects that make up a good life: the social, intellectual, professional, spiritual, and individual dimensions. If you are not challenged enough in your daily routine, you tend to become lazy and unsatisfied. Even though you don’t have so many things to do, it may get harder and harder for you to do them all, because you are not challenged.

On the other hand, rushing all the time not only makes life less fun, but it also has serious health risks. Recent studies have shown that the levels of hormones that regulate appetite are profoundly influenced by sleep duration and sleep deprivation. Sleep loss is associated with an increase in appetite that is excessive in relation to the caloric demands of extended wakefulness. At the same time, when we feel under stress, we start producing a stress hormone that slows down our metabolism so that we can survive longer on less food. So, if we don’t sleep enough, the production of the appetite reducer is inhibited and we tend to eat more, even though we are not hungry. Due to the lack of sleep, we will not be able to control out food intake levels which necessarily leads to increased waistlines and an increased risk for diabetes. At the same time, gaining weight causes even more stress. Instead of sleeping more to counteract the process, we chose the opposite and make our life even more hectic: schedule more time for the gym and may end up getting even less sleep because of it, which again will increase our waistline.

Balance is not only a problem that parents and adults struggle with, but it also deeply affects children. Many children have lives that are far too busy and too structured. After school, they usually to go to after school care or have scheduled activities, like soccer, baseball, basketball, instrument lessons, etc. or they have planned playdates, visits to doctors, the library, museums or any other kind or activities organized by their well-meaning parents. Recent studies comparing child-raising in the United States with that of other nations have found that in order for children to grow up to be independent, well-rounded, creative, and smart, they need a larger amount of unstructured time, in which children can discover the world through role play. Extensive role play in young years, can free them from anxiety as they practice living through dangerous situations through play. It also allows them to figure out what they are good at and what they enjoy. Having more free or unstructured time as a child, these studies found, makes us smarter, braver, and much more creative. 

As long as the U.S. system doesn’t have the provisions for working parents to take better care of their children (e.g. paternity leave, extended maternity leave, reduced or more flexible work-week for parents) that already exist in many other countries, the weekly rush will probably not change. This means that finding balance is left up to us adults/parents. We have to make a more conscious effort to allow ourselves to rest and sleep enough and to raise our children in an environment that does not keep them busy all day. Instead, we have to allow them to experience plenty of unstructured time that challenges them to be creative and in which they can discover themselves and the world.

What is a Friend?

Many people have several hundred facebook friends, hundreds or even thousands of followers on twitter, linkedIn, and other social media websites. This makes you wonder, what these “friends,” “followers” or “connections” really are and what functions to they fulfill in our daily lives. What are friends? And can the interaction with virtual circles actually be a substitute for face-to-face friendships that we have in real life? And what does it mean for our society that we have so many “friends”?

As we all know, friends are generally selected individuals who we are in close personal contact with. They know us, care for us, understand us, and worry about us when something is wrong. They are people we trust. Often we share the same interests, having met them through a joint hobby or we come from the same home town having grown up together. We share the memories of fun times and remember other bad times when they were there for us and we needed them. Friends have each other’s backs. Where I come from (Germany), real friends are special. One doesn’t accumulate a whole lot of them during a lifetime, but the ones you make, you keep. Friends don’t include everyone you ever met during high school or during activities, but only a selected few who truly know you and who are worth spending time with. This may be different in other countries where the term is used much more inclusively. With these selected few, you try to stay in touch throughout your life via phone, email, facebook (if they are on it) and meet in person as much as possible, but with age, needs of the family, and growing physical distance it may be more and more difficult to see each other regularly. But when you are lucky enough to see them again, even after years, it still feels the same and surprisingly you pick up right where you left off. 

So how is it different with online friendships? Granted, many of the connections we have in social media are people from our childhood, adolescence, college, grad school or work. So we did spend real time with them at some point. But what about all those people who we don’t really know and still have in our platforms as friends, connections, followers? We accept friends, because they follow us, accept us first, without a background check, without testing the chemistry, without sharing anything with them. Why do we do that? It probably has to do with human nature, with our necessity to be liked, that someone finds us interesting, and our hope to be understood. We like if others like and share our posts, because it shows us that we are not irrelevant to others. At the same time it also changes all values that used to accompany friendship. In social media websites we blindly trust, if we may accept someone as a friend who we don’t know, who nobody recommended to us and who we may not share any interest with. 

By using social media one shifts from becoming a private person to a public person. The spheres of private and public become blurred, even if one only shares information in specific circles, others may still become aware of it. As soon as someone comments or likes one of your posts, other circles gain access to that same information, even though it was meant to be private. Being aware of that, most people don't share the same information online as they would in person. Others enjoy being in the lime-light and get inspired by having a virtual audience and may share even more. Still others see it as teaching tool, as a way to spread their way of life, their views, their political opinions and use it massively. So for most people the online content differs strongly from what they would share in face-to-face meetings with friends.

But can online sharing fulfill the same function as sharing among friends? Probably online comments can instantly make you feel better, noticed, appreciated or consoled. Social media is a great forum to share information quickly and get instant feedback. People can send immediate positive vibes and give instant virtual hugs. That surely has a positive effect on the individual who is in need of comfort. Also, if you just won something (lottery or award) or finished your first marathon or half-marathon (still on my bucket list!) people can instantly congratulate you and enhance your sense of accomplishment. So for positive achievements, it is wonderful to spread the word. When new babies are born, within hours many mothers post the photos of their new babies on facebook, so that everyone in their circles can adore them. Also, if you have any sort of bad news, you can share it with your circles and get instant feedback, e.g. if you locked yourself out of the house again, if you are stranded with a flat tire, if your hot water stopped working in the middle of winter, if your son broke his arm jumping down the staircase, etc. Your friends and followers instantly send good vibes, best wishes, virtual hugs and things already seem a little better. Some even send real help to get you out of your crisis. Even when close friends or relatives die, people tend to post the announcements on facebook. They receive instant condolence messages that make them feel less alone. So all these things are positive as they bring people closer together faster. 

But be aware, if a person over-shares (e.g. pictures of every meal, most outfits, and most activities) others may block them or start to ignore all their posts. Nobody’s life is that interesting all the time that we crave ALL the details, right? At times, we may also ignore a person, because their life seems not spectacular enough as mirrored in the photos and comments they post on social media. They may not have a gift with words or may not be so good looking or may not live very daring lives, so we consciously or subconsciously ignore them or may decide stop following them. As quickly as we started following them, because they seemed interesting at that time, we may drop them. Being "in" and "out" changes quickly and online trends are fleeting. So, in contrast to real friendships, online connections can be very superficial and short-lived. At times, online posts seem like a popularity contest or a demonstration of who has the best, most comfortable life, who looks the best (for their age) and who "made it." But we always have to remember that any online presence is very controlled: You only share what you want others to know. This put forward only those parts of yourself that you want to publicize and leaves a lot of open blanks, which create a quite distorted image of yourself. And even the information that is shared, may not even be accurate, but purposefully picked to impress others.

Online friendships can boost our ego and fulfill short-term needs that we may crave. Social media platforms created an easy way to stay in touch with many people that we share some personal or professional history with, but all online connections, circles, friends or followers can never substitute real friends. While you gain some insights into parts of people's lives and maybe a few of their thoughts and daily routines through social media, you cannot really see who they are, who they have become, and who they want to be. You cannot sit with them over a cold beer or a glass of red wine after a good meal and talk, laugh or cry with them about things that really matter to you. 

What if we Were More Intelligent?

Last month, I watched the movie Lucy on the plane. Even though it was not one of the best movies I ever saw (far from it), I still keep thinking about it. The interesting thing about it was the particular set of questions raised by it. In short, the movie is about a woman called Lucy (played by the beautiful Scarlett Johansson) who involuntarily consumes drugs that enhance her brain capacity from ten percent (the film works with the premise that this is the norm for humans) to the total of 100%. A brilliant neuroscientist (played by the amazing Morgan Freeman), who devoted his entire life to hypothesize the outcomes of humans being able to utilize more of their brain’s capacity, can witness Lucy’s transformation. The way the movie plays this plot out is not so interesting to me, because it seems forced at times, but I rather enjoy the larger questions that it raises: What would happen to the world and us humans, if we were able to become more intelligent? What would the world look like? How would humans interact with each other? Would there still be violence in the world? Would people still waste time on petty little things or would we focus on the bigger, pressing issues that need to be addressed.

I enjoyed the naming of the protagonist and the film as Lucy. It wasn’t a coincidence, but was carefully chosen and makes perfect sense. The protagonist is named Lucy, because the name indicates a connection between her and the first known female, our almost human (Australopithecus afarensis), ancestor who lived 3.2-million-years ago and who scientists discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. National Geographic reported that scientists named her Lucy after the popular Beatles’ song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds that was played again and again at the party to celebrate the unearthing of our earliest ancestor. The Lucy of the movie is the pinnacle of human evolution as she is the highest developed human who ever lived. So the name Lucy is linking the most primitive to the most sophisticated "woman" in human evolution.

Before going into the details of the hypothetical questions, we have to note that the premise of the movie, that humans only use ten percent of their brain’s capacity, is wrong. For many decades, scientists have unsuccessfully been trying to debunk it. The original statement that led to this false belief goes back to the 1890s, when a scientist first declared that humans only used a small percentage of their brains, but never actually attached a number to this statement. It kept getting repeated and in the 1930s, the figure of ten percent became attached. Despite scientists' many efforts to destroy the common misperception and a number of conclusive studies to show that humans activate “most parts of their brain” during every day and "many parts of the brain" remaining active while we sleep, the myth still persists until today. The movie plays into this and will unfortunately help to spread the myth even further.

Despite the false premise, the movie raises many interesting questions. Even if we humans use most parts of the brain throughout the day and many parts even during the night, there seems to be still a lot of room for improvement. So what if we (the human race) were to become more intelligent? What would that look like? How would we interact with each other and in what kind of world would we live in?

The movie made us believe that violence would still play a big part in everyday reality, even if we were more intelligent. I doubt that. I believe that if we were to be more intelligent, there would be no need for violence. If people would be more reasonable, we would come to the conclusion that violence leads to more violence and cannot be a solution. Using simple logic, we would realize that intolerance and discrimination of any kind are unacceptable forms of dealing with others. Period. People would realize that dividing people up in different groups worth different treatment makes no sense. Why would a human life in one region of the world count less than in others? Why would girls be valued less than boys? Why would one skin color be preferable to any others? All these differentiations, we would realize, make no sense.

If humans were more intelligent, intelligence would not only encompass hard factual knowledge or the ability to reason, but also social and emotional intelligence that leads to empathy and responsibility. Humans would be more aware of the inequalities that persist in this world today and more willing to help each other, because we are all one (the human race). Competition between nations would not persist. Exploitation would not be tolerated. Rich people would share their wealth with less fortunate, not because any government forced them, but because they would agree that the money needs to be invested in the most reasonable way. Food supplies, for example, would be divided up differently so that no person in inner-city districts in the Western world and in broad regions of the least developed world have to go hungry or starve to death. 

Humans would make sure, out of responsibility toward each other, that everyone lives in decent, acceptable living conditions and that every child receives a good education, not only because that is the right thing to do, but also because it is the best way to assure future political stability and economic well-being. We would realize that with increasing globalization and interconnectedness of the world, we need secure, clean, safe, and positive living conditions everywhere to protect ourselves against poverty, violence, and orthodoxy. 

What Exactly is Time?

As we prepared and celebrated my older daughter’s birthday last week, I was thinking back to all the milestone moment in her life, wondering how we made it this far, and ELEVEN years passed by so quickly. Isn’t it strange? We have proof that it has been eleven years, but still it seemed so much shorter (even though some of the days felt that they would never end).  Why do we perceive time as expanding sometimes and standing still at others? What makes it go faster and what slows it down? Which factors play into changes in its perception? Time is never the same. It seems to be tied to emotions and it also has to do with one’s stage in life. Since Einstein we know that time is relative. It changes according to perception and according to the system that it is bound to. But what does that even mean? And how does perception of time change over the course of one’s life?

For children, time seems to consist of long periods of waiting for specific activities and events to occur. They focus on events and developments in the future. They get excited and try to figure out how long they have to wait before those events are finally there. As soon as they can, they ask e.g. if it is their birthday yet, how many days until their favorite holiday, and when will they see grandma again. Their focus on events in the future converts big chunks of the present into waiting time. The past is not at all interesting for them. There are lots of hope, dreams, and aspirations tied to their perception of they future.  They dream about what they want to be, where and how they want to live, who they may consider marrying, etc.

When we become parents, the focus shifts abruptly, as our lives suddenly get dominated not only by the needs of others, but also by the shift from the focus on the future (awaiting the day the baby will be born) to the present (baby needs to be fed and cleaned, etc.). Work has to be accomplished in the here and now so that the child has a bright, healthy, and promising future. The parents then await the child to reach their developmental milestones, but their own focus is the present. Events of the future have to be considered, planned, and executed. At work everything is about getting the task done that needs to be accomplished at that specific moment, deadlines haunt us. At home it is not much different. All the little things have to be prepared, breakfasts served, lunches and snacks packed, laundry cleaned, etc. If a birthday is approaching, like in our house recently, not only the gifts, the cupcakes, the birthday cake have to be organized and delivered to the appropriate places at the correct times, but most likely a party will be held to mark the milestone, which also entails careful preparation. While children probably only have an awareness of the upcoming party, parents are well aware of all the work that leads up to the special event. So in this stage of life we have to be focused on the present. Often we get overwhelmed because it seems that there is not enough time to accomplish everything that needs to be done. Lots of people feel that they are “running out of time” or “have no time.”

As we age and our kids leave us to live their own lives, we tend to live more and more in the past, remembering good and bad times in our childhood and thinking back to the memorable days when our own children reached their specific milestones. Focus shifts to the past and time starts to be measured by the time SINCE something happened: “five days since my daughter called me” or “two weeks since I saw them”. Time is measured in the intervals that are between the visits with family and friends and time spent together. Again, like in childhood, there are long stretches of waiting time that are not filled with so many aspirations for the future as memories of the past.

We all know well about the physical changes through which the passing of time manifests itself. For children, these signs are hopefully awaited (first lost tooth, first beard hair, first signs of development) as they signify the entering into a new phase in life. They want to grow and become full members of society. For parents, it is a dreaded shift, that people are determined to stall as long as possible or to fight head-on. Who wants to have grey hair, an increasing waistline, and wrinkles? There is a multi-billion dollar industry making profits from us all not willing to accept the process of aging, but that may be a good theme for a different blog post.

How we experience the passing of time is not only linked to our stage in life, but also to all kinds of emotions. When we are having a good time for example, time appears to pass very quickly, “it flies”. And when we are bored or waiting for something to happen is seems to drag endless or even “stands still.” But intense emotions seem to have an even more profound effect on our way of experiencing time. When we grieve the death of a loved one or suffer from a break-up of a long relationship, we only feel grief and sadness. It consumes us. There is no room for anything else. The same thing is true for the opposite emotions. When we are completely happy for example, laughing with our kids, rolling on the floor, we are consumed by happiness. We BECOME that emotion and time seems to stand still. We do not think about anything else, not the future, not the past, we just completely live in the moment. Similarly, when we immerse ourselves in an activity that we love to do (for some it may be their job, for others it may be a hobby), we tend to forget things around us and completely live in the moment. As if space and time become irrelevant. (Just think about new lovers who seem to forget time.) So, perception of time, it seems,  also has to do with our undivided attention, but it also has to do with how well we immerse ourselves in the activity that we are engaged in at the moment.

Studies have shown that meditation can alter the perception of time by changing mechanisms in the brain. While meditating, the outside world is systematically blocked out and the focus shifts to inside the body and the mind. As a result, influences that usually distract us, are contained before they even get to us. This not only improves our mental and physical health, but also can adjust our perception of time through relaxation and re-shifting focus. Time then “slows down” again. Buddhist monks for example are able to conduct so focused meditations (and slow their breaths) that sitting still and focusing on the inside, they believe, allows them to see a glimpse of the divine that may allow them to escape the everlasting cycle of rebirth and life. That means that focus, in a way, can help us escape the boundaries of time. The same mechanism is at work while practicing yoga. By remaining in yoga poses, slowing one's breaths and concentrating on the muscles used to remain still in the poses, focus can also be shifted and time perception can be altered subsequently.

So what do we get from this? Besides me finding it extremely interesting to think about, it may help us when we get caught up in daily rushes and worries. Maybe when we “run out of time” it is good to stop for a minute and consider the moment that we live in and refocus on the important things. In the end, time is all we have in life. The more memorable moments we create for us and for others, the more beautiful memories we can look back on and contemplate once we are old and have more time. 

Is a Hug Just a Hug?

Recently the hug between U.S. President Obama and Indian Prime Minister Modi has gained a lot of traction in the media. Apparently it was a signal that the U.S. entered into a special relationship with India. The NYT reported that Obama did not expect anything other than a firm handshake after leaving his plane in India, but instead he had been upgraded to a welcome with a big hug. 

So with all the talk about what that specific hug actually means for the U.S.-Indian relationship, I can’t help but remember the hugs between leaders of the Eastern Bloc nations during the Cold War. The most memorable one for me (as a Western German) is the one between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and Eastern German General Secretary Erich Honecker from 1979 (see below).

But hugs as political statement also lead to the more general question about the meaning of a tight squeeze. How much can one actually read into a hug? Does a hug always imply a silent message? And does a hug always mark the beginning of a special relationship? We all know that a hug is normally exchanged between close friends and family. Even between colleagues who celebrate special occasions such as birthdays, the birth of a new baby, getting married or engaged, for job promotions, baptisms, etc. But we also hug on sad occasions like funerals, after break-ups, after having failed. It always sends the message that one is not alone and can count on you, right?

But there are also lots of grey areas, where it is rather unclear whether a hug is appropriate or expected or the opposite. Have you ever had moments when you were not really sure? When you have no idea, if you should hug a person for hello and goodbye? I have experienced plenty or weirdness around hugs in different countries and distinct situations. First of all, there are cultural differences. When I lived in Denmark and slowly began to make new friends from a broad spectrum of religious, cultural, and national backgrounds, there was a lot of not knowing whether a hug would be appropriate. Yes, there seem to be cultural and social rules to hugging. The most culturally opposite with respect to hugging, if I remember correctly from my student days, were people from Latin America who were very inclusive with their hugs and those from China who were rather stiff and seemed to avoid all physical contact. 

"We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. 

We need 12 hugs a day for growth."

Medically, it is proven that hugs help people to stay healthy and stay connected. Every person needs 8 hugs per day to improve immunity, release tension, stress, and improve self-esteem and empathy. You may remember the image of a set of premature twin babies in a neonatal unit that was floating around the social media sites last year in which one of the twins was expected not to be able to survive.

Despite her orders, the supervising nurse placed the stronger twin into the bed with the weaker twin  and the most amazing thing happened: the stronger baby placed its arm around the sibling and thus helped her survive by embracing her. The hug helped to raise the sibling’s body temperature and stabilized her condition to that extent that she was able to survive.

This means that hugs have power. With every hug that is at least 10 seconds long the hormone oxytocin is released in our bodies. The result is not only improved self-esteem, the capability of fighting depression, it strengthens our immune system, lowers the risk of heart disease, and fights infections. Oxytocin also decreases the level of stress hormones (primarily cortisol) in our body and lowers our blood pressure response to anxiety-producing events. 

Medical evidence about the power of hugs goes even further: If parents hug their children every day and a hug lasts more than 10 seconds, the children will have a raised self-confidence and will walk through life much happier than those who don’t. One study of mothers affection towards their young children demonstrated that the brain volume of children with a nurturing and hugging mother was 10% larger than that of children with a mother that was not nurturing and didn't hug much. So there is a direct correlation between the development of a child’s brain and better memory and the amount of affection received from their primary care giver. Also another study showed that kids who did not get hugged enough have delayed development in walking, talking, and reading.

So what does it mean in the bigger picture? It means that we should stop worrying about those awkward seconds when we are about to greet a-not-so-close friend and embrace the moment. Carpe diem! Throw all those doubts overboard, denounce cultural, social taboos and lean in for the hug! Make sure to get your recommended 12 hugs a day to stay healthy and happy and form many special relationships.

Free Speech and Women's Rights

With the recent attacks against free speech in France, it is even more important to express ourselves freely. We cannot give in to any censorship. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right. I am particularly worried about is the rights of women, because I have two daughters and wish that they can grow up freely and safely. As long as people believe that feminism is a bad word, there is no chance of gender equality. Feminism just means that women should have the equal rights as men do.

Women have been fighting (more or less fiercely) for equal rights since the 18th century, but we really haven’t come all that far yet. Okay, we do have access to education and many have professional jobs in the West as well as in other nations, but there are not many countries where women earn the same pay for the same work as men. Sweden and other Nordik nations set a great example in changing gender roles where fathers are almost equally involved in the raising of their children and doing a good share, if not half of the domestic work, so that women can also keep pursuing their professional careers. But in other countries, it is socially still not accepted that mothers go back to work after the initial few months after childbirth spent with their kids. Of course this is a tricky issue: mother’s are guilt-ridden, if they go back to work. There is a social stigma attached to those who do. Social stigma usually confronts women who would like to be more active, more in the public, or more outspoken than culturally acceptable in their specific cultural, religious, or geographic contexts. Sometimes, even here in the West there is a social stigma if a woman wants to go for a walk alone or if she wants to go running alone. In the back of the minds, a few people may condemn the actions of the women thinking that “they may have asked for bad things to happen” simply because they differed from the norm. That is such a weird logic. As if any woman wants to be assaulted or raped. Unfortunately, this logic is still repeated these days, e.g. the recent comment by Phyllis Shlaftly.

Women should be able to go about their lives without constantly second-guessing themselves in terms of their clothes and their behavior. Even being intelligent was not considered appropriate for women in the West until really recently and writers had to adopt male pseudonyms to get their books published. Even the most essential rights are currently not secured for women. In many countries women still cannot walk the streets alone feeling safe. Women are still considered prey. The recent incident in India, where a Japanese researcher of ancient Buddhism was lured to a secluded place by her tour guide, gang-raped by him and his friends and then held for a month when the raping continued, is just one example of this. The recent Uber scandal also in India highlights this point further.  

I am so glad that the UN is stepping up and initiated a few campaigns (e.g. #HeforShe) this month that highlight the need for gender equality. Of course men play a significant role in this campaign as they openly proclaim that they are for gender equality and that is to persuade/convince others of the same. Another of the arguments that is gaining a lot of traction and is more likely to win around conservatives is that the national GDP or most countries will rise significantly, if more women are educated and have professional jobs. Similar to the old argument at the time of abolition that slavery was obsolete, because it wasn’t economically viable any more. Now the economic argument is used to empower women. Fine with me, but I do prefer the basic philosophical argument that women are equal human beings and thus deserve the same rights as men!  

So, as women, what can we do in this political climate? Express ourselves. Speak up. Be brave. Be smart. Be strong. We cannot let traditional behavior patterns decide our lives for us. We have to keep up opening new doors for the next generation of women, so  that they have safer lives, experiences fewer or hopefully no incidences of domestic violence. We have to keep working on making sure that more and more women actually gain the basic human right to decide freely over their bodies and minds. We have to raise our girls to become brave and smart and strong with a knowledge that they should have the same opportunities as boys and we have to raise our boys in such a way that they respect girls on all possible levels.