10 Ways to Green Your Mind and Give Our Planet a Future

Have you signed up for a yoga class, gone veggie, and shopped at the health food store to avoid toxic cleaners? If so, watch out: Too much chatter about taking responsibility for one's own mental and physical fitness just might get you labeled a "health nut." Human beings can eat junk food till their arteries scream for mercy without ever running the risk of being called a "disease nut." Or perhaps you've started a home compost bin, set up a rain barrel, and switched to soap nuts in your laundry. Uh-oh...sounds like you've become a "treehugger." Feel free to forego recycling; no one will call you a "tree killer" (or add you to a no-fly list). As a certain Mr. Zimmerman sings: "Now everything's a little upside down, as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped. What's good is bad, what's bad is good; you'll find out when you reach the top, you're on the bottom."

This is the topsy-turvy culture we're trying to transform and such a transformation often begins by changing our own and other peoples' minds. Better yet: greening our minds. This is a two-part effort. First, we lay the foundation of de-cluttering our minds and then we begin the process of re-programming, if you will. As some guy named Proust once said: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Toward that end, we offer 5 basic and 5 not-so-basic pathways to a green-friendly state of mind.

10 Ways to Green Your Mind:

Part I: Take care of your mind:

1. Sleep: Sleep, of course, is crucial to brain development, but it is also now believed that sleep is necessary to help consolidate the effects of your waking experience.

2. Exercise: Your workout does more than pump your biceps--it also facilitates the creation of new neurons in the center of learning and memory in the brain.

3. Eating habits: "The brain is perhaps the most vulnerable of all the organs simply from the hazards of modern living," notes cell biologist Dr. Parris Kidd. Dr. Kidd recommends antioxidants like lecithin, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and Coenzyme Q10. A good balance of Omega 3 and 6 oils is also essential. A diet rich in plants will help you get these essential brain foods.

4. Take tech breaks: Step away from the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and the video games to stimulate your own creativity.

5. Hobbies and interests: Find something to do on a regular basis...simply for the love of it.

Part II: Reprogram your mind:

6. Practice mindfulness: Mindfulness, in the Buddhist/meditation sense, is defined as "concentrated awareness of one's thoughts, actions or motivations." In greener terms, it might be best described as recognizing and accepting accountability. You see, being mindful is more than just having the oft-discussed "awareness." As Noam Chomsky reminds us, we are "responsible for the predictable consequences of our actions."

7. Recognize interdependence: As the folks from the ID Project tell us: "We do not exist in separate bubbles. The products you use, the foods you eat, and the way you interact with the environment (whether intentionally or not) all have a far-reaching nuanced effect on everyone and everything around you." As they suggest, "Be aware of your choices. Pay attention to your actions. Examine your lifestyle not from a place of guilt, but from a mindset of creative curiosity."

8. Demystify the media: Whether you label them liberal or conservative, most major media outlets are large corporations owned by or aligned with even larger corporations, and they share a common goal: to make a profit by selling a product--an affluent audience--to a given market: advertisers. Therefore, we shouldn't find it too shocking that the image of the world being presented by a corporate-owned press very much reflects the biased interests of the elite players involved in this sordid little love triangle. That's why every major daily newspaper has a business section, but not a labor section. Why at least once a week those same newspapers run an automobile section, but no bicycle section. This is why when the Dow Jones Industrial Average drops, it makes headlines. But if the rate of forest clear cutting increases, it won't even make the papers. Whether or not you agree with all this, it's worth looking at the interests of the folks we get our information from, don't you think?

9. Learn to speak out: How many times have you bitten your tongue rather than appear like an eco-zealot to a mainstream? Don't impose your beliefs on others, we're told...it's not polite. However, I'm wondering, when does it become more rude to be polite? The planet is going to hell in a hand basket but we're nervous about offending? On the grand scale of offensiveness, being forward about eco-change displays far more green manners than ignoring, say, 90% of the large fish in the ocean being gone. Let's speak out and wake up.

10. Stand up to naysayers: To those who challenge the premises behind green activism, I once again offer my Seat Belt Supposition: While some of us fasten our seat belts to avoid getting a ticket, many more do so as a safety measure (what some might call a "preemptive strike"). We don't wait until we see another vehicle spinning out of control to snap the seat belt into place. We fasten it upon entering a car. It can be a little uncomfortable to wear, but if we arrive at our destination without needing that seat belt, we typically don't regret using it. To apply this same mentality to climate change-to be unconcerned whether or not the human role in global warming is overstated-would be to live with a vision for the future. The only players with a vested interest in the status quo are those who profit off our indifference and our conspicuous consumption, so why not alter our lifestyle as if our very existence were hanging in the balance? There's much evidence it is.