It’s pretty hard to feel positively when you can’t see past your whirlwind of thought. In order to generate your own personal positive news, slowing down your inner chatter is needed. It is then you can make substantial changes and feel genuinely more positive…and calm!

Here are some quick pointers so you can quiet your mind and let some sunshine in: 

1. Remember that the key is not to clamp down on your mind or to do battle with your thoughts. Treat your mind gently, as though you are calming an upset child.
2. Close your eyes and take three deep breaths — comfortably deep breaths, not as though you’re trying to take in enough air to swim underwater for the length of a pool. Silently count the breaths as you exhale.

3. For the next three breaths, think to yourself (as you inhale), “For this life” — (and as you exhale) — “thank you, God.” If you have trouble with the God idea, feel free to secularize. Instead of, “thank you, God,” try simply, “I am grateful.”

4. For the next three breaths, think to yourself (as you inhale), “For this day” — (and as you exhale) — “thank you, God,” or “I am grateful.”

5. For the next three breaths, think to yourself (as you inhale), “For this hour” — (and as you exhale) — “thank you, God,” or “I am grateful.”

6. For the following three breaths, think to yourself (as you inhale), “For this moment” — (and as you exhale) — “thank you, God,” or “I am grateful.”

7. And for three more breaths, think to yourself (as you inhale), “For this breath” — (and as you exhale) — “thank you, God,” or “I am grateful.”

8. And for the final three breaths, think nothing. Relax and merely enjoy the feel of your breath as it enters, and as it exits, as it arrives, and as it departs.

9. Enjoy a moment of peace.

It’s not too many times Hooters has been included in our positive news post. I dare say this may be the first (interstingly Hooters contributes a lot to charity, which you’ll read below.)

But when an ongoing tragedy like the Gulf disaster continues to unfold, all sorts of groups have the power to gather their forces - and in this case pantyhose - and help:

As the pressure increases to find a strategy over the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, an alternative effort - ‘Project Pantyhose’ - to help absorb the spill is under away.

Waitresses from restaurant chain Hooters will be voluntarily donating their torn pantyhose – to make booms stuffed with hair, fur and fleece to absorb the spill.

Across its 380 sites in the US, Hooters expects to collect of 100,000 pairs of pantyhose, which could ultimately absorb one million gallons of oil in the Gulf, if the booms are re-used eight times, the average life of a boom.

The collected pantyhose will be shipped to environmental agencies and non-profit organisations Indigo Oceanic and Matter of Trust to make the booms. The booms will be grouped together and sent out into the Gulf to absorb and block the oil from reaching the coast, protecting harbours and marshlands.

There are roughly 15,000 Hooters Girls in the US and their uniform includes pantyhose. The life expectancy of a pair of pantyhose worn by Hooters Girls at work is about 2-3 shifts. Hooters said  it supports the use of natural fibres as a non-toxic, renewable resource to aid in the oil spill clean up efforts.

All of Hooters are collecting the pantyhose for a 4-week period to create 15 miles of booms.

The restaurant company also serves a number of community projects under its Hooters Community Endowment Fund (HOO.C.E.F.), which raises money for local and national charities such as the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research, Make-A-Wish Foundation, the U.S.O., Special Olympics, American Diabetes Association, Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and Muscular Dystrophy Association. Since 1992, HOO.C.E.F. has raised more than $8 million for these and other worthwhile organizations.

A portion of this money comes from a VIP grand opening party each location holds to benefit a local charity, generating thousands annually.

Source: OptimistWorld.com

With summer in full gear (in certain parts of the world, obviously!), protecting your skin becomes imperative. But so many mixed reports abound - some sunscreens only block out UV rays and don’t offer that full spectrum protection. The ones that claim they do, don’t always. What can a sun worshipper do to stay protected in this day and age?

Well, this recent study in Telegraph UK shows how broccoli comes to the rescue:

Broccoli juice is better than conventional sunscreens when it comes to protecting against the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays, research has shown.

Tests on six volunteers exposed to pulses of UV radiation showed the extract reduced sunburn symptoms by up to 78 per cent.

Conventional sunscreens used in the same experiments were essentially ineffective.

The ointment was made from extracts of three-day-old broccoli sprouts rich in protective compounds called sulphoraphanes. Unlike a normal sunscreen, it does not absorb UV light to prevent it entering the skin. Instead, it works inside the body by boosting the production of enzymes that protect cells against UV damage and the risk of skin cancer.

Protection is said to last for several days.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, first tested the ointment on genetically engineered hairless mice before carrying out tests on six human volunteers, three men and three women aged between 28 and 53.

The results were reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The report’s lead author, Prof Paul Talalay, said the treatment could decrease the “long-term risk of developing cancer”.

The oil spill in the Gulf is now considered one of the worst ecological disasters in the history of the U.S. It’s such a painful and horrible (and ongoing) problem, many of us don’t know what to do and where to begin. We become overwhelmed with shock and dismay. We are disheartened by big business and empty promises made by our government. It’s hard not to retreat in the face of such an epic horror.

Personally, I pray every day for the healing of our ocean, the giver of life. I pray for its protection, its purity. I do believe if we all spend one moment doing that we can make a difference. So if you can do nothing else, please pray to whatever higher power works for you. Our beautiful waters deserve it.

Here are some ways we can help.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Gulf: 3 Ways You Can Help

Written by Mark Tercek
Published on May 6th, 2010
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It’s hard to express how much all the phone calls and emails in the wake of the Gulf oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico mean to me and to all the Conservancy’s staff — especially those working long hours in the Gulf states.

Many of you contacted us again after reading our Alabama director of conservation’s latest blog posts about our efforts there, asking what you can do to help Bill and his team respond to the spill.

Here are three things you can do today to help the Gulf coast, its wildlife and the people who depend on it:

• Make a donation to help our restoration efforts in the Gulf – your contribution to our Fund for Gulf Coast Restoration will help us determine both the extent of the spill and the necessary long-term restoration work in the Gulf and states along its coast.
• Second, tell your friends about what’s at stake for the Gulf Coast. Share our work by posting it to Facebook or tweeting on Twitter. Get the word out that the plants, animals and people in one of North America’s most treasured places will need our help.
• Third, consider being a volunteer. The Conservancy is still assessing what volunteer opportunities will be needed and coordinating with groups like the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana.

Already, we’ve put to work The Nature Conservancy’s best knowledge and expertise in the Gulf region.

Our Fund for Gulf Coast Restoration will help us do even more and will be put to use by the Conservancy and its marine scientists and staff knowledgeable about the Gulf and about oil spill impacts to help the long-term restoration of this critical ecosystem.

Currently, our Louisiana staff is conducting flights over the coast with federal, state and some of our non-governmental partners to help determine the extent of the spill and are working to protect critical oyster reefs in the Grand Isle, Biloxi Marsh and Vermilion Bay areas.

I am in the Gulf region today to assess what more the Conservancy can do to respond and support our staff members who live along the Gulf and work every day on conservation here.

As you know, this is not just about the shrimp, the oysters, and the crabs. It is about both the Gulf’s marine ecosystem, as well the local economy and the people who depend on it.

I hope you will continue to follow Bill’s work and our progress on our blog, Cool Green Science.

Thank you for your offer to help and your critical support.

I’m particularly excited about this series of quotes. The more I study ancient history, the more I realize that we’ve been facing the same issues for a long, LONG time! These quotes most definitely stand the test of time.

Let our old sages guide you today!

“Every man is the architect of his own future” - Sallust (86 -35 BC) Roman Historian

“Your life is an expression of all your thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180) - Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher

“Men are not troubled by things themselves, but by their thoughts about them”.
Epictetus (C. 55 - C. 135) - Greek Stoic Philosopher

“He has half the deed done who has mad a beginning”.
Horace (65-8 B.C.) - Roman Poet and Satirist

“First say to yourself what would you be; and then do what you have to do”.
Epictetus (C. 55 - C. 135) Greek Stoic Philosopher

“The nature of man is always the same; it is their habits that separate them”.
Confucius (551-479 B.C.) - Chinese Philosopher

“Take charge of your thoughts. You can do what you will with them”.
Plato (428-327 BC) - Greek Philosopher and Prose Writer

“They can do all because they think they can”.
Virgil (70-9 BC) - Roman Poet

“Where fear is . . . happiness is not”.
Seneca (4BC - AD65) - Roman Philosopher and Playwright

“Give me where to stand and I will move the earth”.
Archimedes (287-212 BC) - Syracusan Mathematician, Astronomer and Inventor

“Learn what you are and be such”.
Pindar (522-438 BC) - Greek Poet

“What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do”.
Aristotle (383-322 BC) - Greek Philosopher

“Our life is what our thoughts are make it”.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180) Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher

“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”.
Solomon (10th Century BC) - King of Israel & reputed author of Biblical Books

“When the mind is thinking, it is talking to itself”.
Plato (428-327 BC) - Greek Philosopher and Prose Writer

“What we are is what we have thought for years”.
Gautama The Buddha (560-480 BC) - Indian Spiritual leader and Founder of Buddhism

“How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself”.
Publilius Syrus - (1st century BC) - Latin Writer of Mimes

“Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be a time. Let it first blossom then bear fruit, then ripen”.
Epictetus (C. 55 - C. 135) Greek Stoic Philosopher

“Practice yourself for heaven’s sake, in little things; and thence proceed to greater”.
Epictetus (C. 55 - C. 135) Greek Stoic Philosopher

“Perseverance is more prevailing than violence and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little”.
Plutarch (C. A.D. 46 - C 120) - Greek Biographer and Essayist

Source: TrevorCrookBlog

We live in a fast-paced world. Things are changing all the time and we want it done yesterday! Well, usually we refrain from catering to that frantic pace here at Only Positive News but today, we’re breaking our own rules and offering up tips to keep up with the busy lifestyle.

Here are 3 fast and easy ways to increase your positivity!

1) Pay Attention to your Self-Talk. We all talk to ourselves in the head. And when things don’t go our way, we get frustrated and often start to diminish ourselves: “I knew it, I can’t do this…” or “I’ll never make it”. Paying attention to your self-talk (and knowing that such self-talk only harms you) will allow you to disarm such destructive thoughts.

2) Meditate. Sit in silence for 5-20 minutes a day. Smile. Studies show that meditation:

- increases happiness
- decreases anxiety and depression
- increases alertness
- can improve memory and attention
- strengthens the immune system
- lowers blood pressure/ can help lower blood sugar

3) Be grateful. Every day, before you go to bed, say to yourself “I’m thankful for…Today I accomplished…”. Don’t take things you already have for granted, learn to appreciate things. Be grateful for your family, good friends, health…Complete this list. Focus on giving as this way your mind will focus on what you have and not what you don’t have. Recent studies show that grateful people are happier, less stressed, less depressed and more satisfied with their lives. Grateful people also have more positive ways of dealing with the difficulties they experience in life. This might explain why they also sleep better.

Now go seize the day!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Alexander_Storm

Regardless of your denomination (or lackthereof), prayer can be a powerful tool. For a refreshing, non-religious look on prayer, please check out this wonderful article by Sally Kemptom on prayer.

And take a look at these quotes on prayer throughout history:

Some people pray just to pray and some people pray to know God. –Andrew Murray

There is a mighty lot of difference between saying prayers and praying. –John G. Lake

You may pray for an hour and still not pray. You may meet God for a moment and then be in touch with Him all day. –Fredrik Wisloff

I have so much to do that I spend several hours in prayer before I am able to do it.—John Wesley

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go. — Abraham Lincoln

Always respond to every impulse to pray. The impulse to pray may come when you are reading or when you are battling with a text. I would make an absolute law of this – always obey such an impulse. –Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Wishing will never be a substitute for prayer. –Ed Cole

One can believe intellectually in the efficacy of prayer and never do any praying. –Catherine Marshall

Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?– Corrie Ten Boom

The only way to Heaven is prayer; a prayer of the heart, which every one is capable of, and not of reasonings which are the fruits of study, or exercise of the imagination, which, in filling the mind with wandering objects, rarely settle it; instead of warming the heart with love to God, they leave it cold and languishing. –Jeanne Guyon

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another. –William Law

When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t pray, they don’t. –William Temple

Do you know what prayer is? It is not begging God for this and that. The first thing we have to do is to get you beggars to quit begging until a little faith moves in your souls. –John G. Lake

Those who do not believe do not pray. This is a good functional definition of faith. Faith prays, unbelief does not. –John A. Hardon

Pray, and let God worry. — Martin Luther

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, pray for powers equal to your task. –Phillips Brooks

If you can’t pray a door open, don’t pry it open.– Lyell Rader

Well, this has to be one of our most unpleasant images yet on Only Positive News. What good could possibly come from cigarette butts, you ask?

Well for starters, it’s always good to pick them up and throw them out, whenever you see them. Even better, if you see the offending smoker, kindly hand them back the cigarette butt and say, “I think you dropped something.”

But enough of my not-so-hidden sarcasm! Take a look at what scientists in China are doing with these toxic troublemakers:

Chemical extracts from cigarette butts — so toxic they kill fish — can be used to protect steel pipes from rusting, a study in China has found.

In a paper published in the American Chemical Society’s bi-weekly journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the scientists in China said they identified nine chemicals after immersing cigarette butts in water.

They applied the extracts to N80, a type of steel used in oil pipes, and found that they protected the steel from rusting.

“The metal surface can be protected and the iron atom’s further dissolution can be prevented,” they wrote.

The chemicals, including nicotine, appear to be responsible for this anti-corrosion effect, they added.

The research was led by Jun Zhao at Xi’an Jiaotong University’s School of Energy and Power Engineering and funded by China’s state oil firm China National Petroleum Corporation.

Corrosion of steel pipes used by the oil industry costs oil producers millions of dollars annually to repair or replace.

According to the paper, 4.5 trillion cigarette butts find their way into the environment each year. Apart from being an eyesore, they contain toxins that can kill fish.

“Recycling could solve those problems, but finding practical uses for cigarette butts has been difficult,” the researchers wrote.

China, which has 300 million smokers, is the world’s largest smoking nation and it consumes a third of the world’s cigarettes. Nearly 60 percent of men in China smoke, puffing an average of 15 cigarettes per day.

(Editing by Miral Fahmy)

© Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved

Only Positive News is part of a growing team of online professionals choosing to highlight the success stories in this world of ours. But positive news has a stigma attached to it; some consider it “faux” journalism or soft journalism.

James Rainey from The Los Angeles Times talks about the negative reputation of positive news…and how the trend is changing (hence why positive news websites are increasing!)

I’d say a bit of the traditional good news deficit comes from the misguided conviction among some news people that happy endings and serious journalism don’t mix.

But I’d lay some of the blame with audiences too. There’s more good news out there than some of you have recognized.

Let’s start with one of the most basic tenets of journalism — that “news” is what we don’t expect. We pull out our notepads for the unexpected: Man bites dog. Plane cartwheels off runway. Jon Stewart goes Mike Wallace on interview subject.

To that old rule most big outlets apply a corollary: A complete paper or newscast must include a “mix,” of breaking news and features, of photos and words, covering subjects both trifling and transcendent.

Most networks, cable outlets and big newspapers try to cover the entire spectrum, but their hearts really soar for the weighty, heavy stuff. That means lots of focus on dark stories, regardless of whether they hint at a resolution, or even much hope.

Prize-winning investigative reporter Frank Greve of McClatchy newspapers talked about the queasy reaction he got from some colleagues a couple years ago when he announced he would start a “good news” beat.

“Some of my old friends, when I told them what I was doing, reacted as if I’d told them I had cancer,” Greve told the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit school for professional journalists. “Most, but not all” of those reporters encouraged Greve when they saw that he still reported and wrote with rigor.

Greve has noted how delayed licensing of drivers has driven down the teenage accident rate. He’s written about how many old people remain sexually active. He’s raised doubts about whether we should really need to worry about pharmaceutical contamination in drinking water.

That list of topics might seem like a hodgepodge, but there’s a common theme. Bad news grows out of conflict or loss. Good news often means just following the conflict through to a resolution.

When was the last time you saw live theater? It seems to be a dying art form, in this highly televised, rapidly edited lifestyle we’ve created for ourselves. But nothing replaces theater - live, visceral, deeply human.

This couple has certainly done their part supporting the arts. What can we do to support the arts this week? Check your paper for a local show or listen to a classical piece of music (really listen to it.) Do your part to support the arts. It matters.

Ever since they helped found Primary Stages in 1985 and took seats on its board of directors, Marvin and Anne Einhorn have also volunteered five days a week as the receptionists manning the phones at the Off Broadway theater’s offices. On Friday, Mr. Einhorn, 89, and Mrs. Einhorn, 86 — who have been married for 67 years — will receive an honor that usually goes to a millionaire donor: Primary Stages will name its theater school on their behalf in recognition of their longtime commitment.

Source: NYTimes