Consider how much time we spend sitting. We sit while eating breakfast, driving to work, answering emails, reading, watching television, and relaxing in the evening. Even when we consider ourselves reasonably active, there may be long periods when most of our muscles are doing very little. A person might enjoy a vigorous morning walk and then spend the greater part of the day seated, believing that their exercise requirements have been taken care of until tomorrow.

Have you ever stopped to think about what keeps you from becoming someone else’s lunch? I don’t mean the bear in the woods. I mean the microscopic troublemakers that would find parts of you a very comfortable place to settle down and raise a family.

Our bodies encounter microorganisms throughout the year, and our immune systems respond to those encounters continuously. Some exposures result in infection, others are successfully contained, and many pass without our ever becoming aware of them. Previous immunity, the particular microorganism, and the amount of exposure all influence what happens. But our overall health and the conditions in which our bodies are functioning are also worth considering.

Being “in a mood” isn’t necessarily a character flaw. Our moods are influenced by what is happening around us, what we are carrying emotionally, and what is happening inside our bodies. Sleep, food, daylight, and our health all have a part to play.

There is something about Prince Edward Island that invites you to loosen your grip on the day. Red cliffs, rolling farmland, fishing boats, and stretches of beach make a persuasive argument for taking the scenic route. Even the landscape seems to suggest that whatever you were rushing to do might wait until after lunch.

We often think about changing our moods through positive thinking, changing our circumstances, or finding something enjoyable to do. Yet there is another avenue available to us, one that works through our senses and doesn't require us to reason our way into a different emotional state.

Have you ever finished a day feeling completely exhausted, even though you've spent most of it sitting? You've answered messages, solved problems, made decisions, worked through unexpected difficulties, and spent a considerable amount of time worrying about things you cannot immediately change.

This week, our journey across Canada takes us to a province with more variety than its prairie reputation suggests. Southern fields give way to lakes, ancient rock, and boreal forest, then farther north to tundra and the shores of Hudson Bay. Somewhere between the wheat fields and the beluga whales, any simple picture of Manitoba begins to grow considerably more interesting.

Have you ever walked into a room and immediately recognized a fragrance before identifying where it was coming from? The unmistakable smell of freshly brewed coffee may bring a sense of anticipation, while the scent of a forest after rainfall can change our experience of the surroundings almost immediately.

if food provides our body with energy, why doesn't eating more always leave us feeling more energetic? The answer begins with understanding that the energy contained in food and the energy our bodies can actually use are not quite the same thing. Food supplies the raw materials, but our bodies must digest, absorb, transport, and transform those materials before they become useful to our cells. Every part of that process depends on a remarkable collection of nutrients, enz

Before we can become more discerning about what we experience in the presence of another person, it is valuable to become familiar with how we feel when we are comfortably centred within ourselves.

We began by noticing how a person or a place can affect the way we feel. Perhaps the next question is what others experience in our presence.

There is always more to a conversation than just words. Understanding energy exchanges, personal boundaries, and the part we play in how we feel. Most of us have experienced it. We spend an hour with someone, sometimes considerably less, and afterward feel as though we have worked an entire day. Our body feels heavy, our thoughts are scattered, and the enthusiasm we had before the encounter seems to have disappeared. Nothing particularly physical has taken place. We may have

Each of us views the world from a unique vantage point. Our perspective is an amalgam of our genes, experience, current emotional state, and, perhaps, that little spark of something that is as unique as our fingerprint – that internal, unchanging character that is ours alone.

This week we travel north in Canada to visit the Yukon. I think of mountains, gold rush stories, northern lights, and wilderness stretching farther than I can quite imagine.

Most people first meet aromatherapy through the nose. They smell lavender and decide whether it appeals to them; they recognize peppermint almost immediately, and they often have a much stronger reaction to something like patchouli because it carries such a distinctive personality. One person may love it, another may associate it with a particular decade or person, and someone else may decide instantly that it is not an aroma they want anywhere near them.

We spend a great deal of time thinking about whether we are moving our bodies enough, but there is another kind of inactivity that receives much less attention. We can be surrounded by stimulation all day and still use a surprisingly narrow range of our senses. A television can give us colour, movement and sound. A phone can give us photographs, voices, music, maps, conversations and entertainment without requiring us to move more than our eyes and a finger.

There was a time when feeding a family involved a great deal more than deciding what to pick up on the way home. Meals were planned around what was available, what could be afforded, what was growing, what had been preserved, and what could be made from the ingredients already in the house. Cooking was not treated as a special interest or hobby because, for many families, it was part of running a household. The person preparing the food learned through repetition.

The question worth asking is not whether convenience has been good for us. In many ways, it clearly has. The more interesting question is what may have disappeared alongside the effort, waiting, sensory involvement, and decision-making we worked so hard to remove.

What Happens When Kindness Doesn't Stop With You? Gratitude recognizes that something good has reached us. Generosity decides it doesn't have to end there.