LIVING, THINKING + BEING

GO SLOW: THE ANTIDOTE TO FAST FASHION

According to Statista, retail sales of apparel and footwear are globally forecast to top three trillion by 2030. Behind these figures lie the tangled threads of excess production and waste, opaque supply chains, and mindless consumption that embody fast fashion.

Slow fashion is the opposite of – and a reaction to – fast fashion. It’s a philosophy that aims to evolve the textile and fashion design industries to be better for the planet and for the people who grow, make and wear clothes.

The hallmarks of slow fashion are slower production schedules, small-batch collections, and zero-waste designs. Slow fashion brands often produce clothing in-house or locally, giving them greater control over quality and waste. Supply chains, processes and labour conditions are more transparent, and materials have sustainable benefits themselves: organic cotton or hemp, traceable merino, or repurposed vintage textiles.

SEVEN WAYS TO START GOING SLOW

Do some research – Find out how clothing brands’ practices and products align with values of quality, circularity and longevity. Their website should have transparent details about their processes, as well as their philosophy.

Understand the benefits – Remember: by embracing slow fashion, we can learn to buy more thoughtfully while saving money and building a better more wearable wardrobe.

Take a breath – Phone a friend before splurging on a new pair of shoes, or consult your current wardrobe before purchasing an item that won’t work with anything you own.

Buy less (but spend more) – This means potentially spending more money per garment, but also spending more time looking for each item. When you kick the fast fashion habit, you’ll have more space in your wardrobe, and your weekend.

Take a capsule (wardrobe) – Only a select number of pieces can fit in a capsule wardrobe – an incentive to choose carefully. Each garment needs to earn its place in terms of quality, style and practicality.

Old is the new new – The world is not going to run out of clothes anytime soon. Learn to discover the joys of buying (or selling) pieces at your local designer resale stores. The other principles of choosing well made, timeless pieces still apply.

Be a proactivist – Get in the habit of asking brands about their practices and supply chains, both in store and on social media. While you may not get immediate answers, you’re letting them know these topics matter to their customers.  PN

ECOSTORE, 1 Scotland Street, Freemans Bay, T: 09 360 8477, www.ecostore.co.nz

TADHG STOPFORD: SEXY HEMP: STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

It's winter! I hope that this finds you well and happy with life.

Bed is often the warmest place to be in Ponsonby, so with that in mind let's pull back the sheets on sex, and cannabis.

Did you know that hemp/cannabis can lower inhibitions, increase your libido, decrease your anxiety, and increase your perception of pleasure?

This can greatly aid healthy sexual relationships, according to Stanford University School Of Medicine, with evidence from 50,000 Americans recently proving that cannabis improves sexual function.

"I am definitely hornier with hemp/cannabis. It really makes my sex drive better," says health care professional 'Amanda'. Finding hemp/cannabis improved her libido, orgasm, and reduced pain was a bonus, because 'Amanda' was only looking to improve her sleep and appetite.

"Frequent hemp/cannabis use doesn't seem to impair sexual motivation or performance. If anything, it's associated with increased coital frequency," says Michael Eisenberg MD, assistant professor of Urology at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

More specifically, people who use cannabis have about 20% more sex than those who don't. www.med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2017/10/ regular-marijuana-use-linked-to-more-sex.html

In women, sexual function is improved; including prolonged and multiple orgasms, with regular connoisseurs having twice the likelihood of a ‘satisfying orgasm’.

Non cannabis using men were more likely to reach orgasm too quickly, too slowly, or not at all.

Anecdotally, just between you and me - both hemp (low THC) and cannabis (high THC) have been celebrated for thousands of years as aphrodisiacs. For centuries it has also been a well established treatment for impotence and erectile dysfunction in Africa. A herbal viagra if you will.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1831906/

Most of New Zealand thinks it should be decriminalised, and the benefits of supporting your cannabinoid system far exceed the horizontal rhumba. Why don’t you grow your own? (TADHG STOPFORD)  PN

www.thehempfoundation.org.nz

NEXT ISSUE SEPTEMBER

SEPTEMBER FEATURES: ART + DESIGN + THE REAL ESTATE MARKET

COPY DEADLINE: Friday 20 August PUBLISHED: Friday 3 September

Escape to the haven that is The Life Centre, a new multidimensional wellbeing centre offering a range of treatments for clients in beautiful surroundings and a calm, peaceful environment.

Refurbished with love, the tranquil sanctuary will provide a drop-in haven for clients seeking respite from everyday stressors. With a pyramid meditation room for quiet contemplation, and green spaces filled with unique exquisite crystals, clients will enter a new realm of calm centredness and peace.

Based on the ethos, ‘Restore the spirit and the rest will follow’, their 14 highly experienced practitioners offer a wide array of complementary, herbal and energy healing modalities, including kinesiology, massage, fascial release therapy, naturopathy, energy balancing, holistic life coaching, Reiki and much more. The practitioners and modalities have been carefully selected to guide clients back to their fundamental wholistic nature, clearing negative belief systems, replacing fractured energy fields with unified coherent ones, and restoring spiritual, mental, emotional and physical balance for wellbeing.

Therapy rooms are themed around rare and beautiful crystals alongside artworks featuring mandalas and sacred geometry. The Life Centre is also an educational facility, with rooms for hire for workshops such as meditation, yoga and breathwork.

For more information and bookings, please visit their website or call in to see the team at The Life Centre.  PN

THE LIFE CENTRE, 88 Jervois Road, T: 09 869 4430, www.thelifecentre.nz

T H E L I F E C E N T R E

M U L T I - D I M E N S I O N A L W E L L B E I N G

a s a n c t u a r y f o r t h e s o u l , m i n d a n d b o d y

R e i k i - M a s s a g e - N a t u r o p a t h y - R e n X u e - Y u a n G o n g Q i g o n g - T h e r a p h i - K i n e s i o l o g y - E l e c t r o m a g n e t i c F i e l d B a l a n c i n g - H a r m o n y u m - E n e r g y & S p i r i t u a l H e a l i n g - P a s t L i f e R e g r e s s i o n - E m o t i o n C o d e - V e n u e H i r e a n d m u c h m o r e t h e l i f e c e n t r e . n z 8 8 J e r v o i s R o a d , P o n s o n b y , A u c k l a n d

LIVING, THINKING + BEING JOHN APPLETON: MORE MONEY WON’T NECESSARILY RESULT IN A HEALTHIER NATION

I have written about this in the past, but I remain very concerned that the goal of having a healthier nation continues to elude us.

When it comes to our health, the dollar figures become ever larger as we hold on to the view that more must be better. While our rapidly expanding population does create additional demand, any sage observer must surely be wondering if the current ‘model’ is in need of some new thinking.

Back in 1998 taxpayers forked out $6 billion for health, but now just over 28 years later in 2021 we are spending four times that amount $24 billion. This colossal sum amounts to nearly $68 million every day. Despite this massive expenditure, the waiting lists for surgery grow and demand for health care services is outstripping our ability to keep paying. It seems to me that our health system itself is sick. I wonder how anyone could think that we could anticipate a different outcome by simply doing more of what we have always done. The reason that our hospitals are filled to overflowing is that we have ever increasing numbers of sick people.

Quite plainly if our objective by spending $68 million every day is to have a healthier nation, the statistics certainly don’t suggest that we are even close to achieving this objective. The problem is that instead of promoting health and everything that is involved with keeping people out of the health system, we keep pouring money into the treatment of sickness.

As many a Grandma said, ‘an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure’. Currently we are spending $24 billion on the ‘cure’ side of the ledger and almost nothing on prevention. Rather than a health care system, what we have is little more than a disease care system.

Years of study and reading of the medical literature has convinced me that the goal of having a healthier nation will continue to elude us until we implement preventive measures, and we give people the freedom to choose the type of health care that they want. This would necessitate allowing doctors to use treatment options that they believe would achieve the best outcomes for their patients.

The Declaration of Helsinki 1964 (of the World Medical Organisation) states, “It is the mission of the physician to safeguard the health of the people. His or her knowledge and conscience are dedicated to the fulfillment of this mission. A physician must be free to use the most appropriate treatment if in his or her judgment it will result in the alleviation of suffering or the restoration of health or saving the life of the patient”.

Sadly today, doctors who choose to practice along these lines using their knowledge and skill to find the best way to help a patient, can risk ridicule and censure by the Medical Council. In New Zealand we have some of the finest doctors and specialists in the world but until we give them freedom to look beyond what they were taught in medical school and learn more about nutrition, and how to prevent the onset of disease, we will almost certainly continue on the path we are on.

With an aging population. the need to consider preventive healthcare options becomes even more important. Nutritional interventions for heart disease, arthritis, diabetes infectious diseases and respiratory illnesses already exist and are based on simple biochemistry. Given that end of life care is so massively expensive one would think simple inexpensive interventions would be welcomed. Unfortunately, they are not.

When it comes to our health, we should not see the need for change as a threat, but as a challenge that can be embraced in the best interests of all New Zealanders. (JOHN APPLETON)  PN

appletonassoc@xtra.co.nz www.johnappleton.co.nz

Photography: Everall Deans, Ponsonby Business Association

HOMESICK FOR PONSONBY?

If you, your friends or family are missing Ponsonby, why not subscribe to New Zealand’s BEST read community magazine?

An annual subscription is only $49 and can be posted anywhere in New Zealand.

Visit ponsonbynews.co.nz or email jay@ponsonbynews.co.nz for more information.

NEWS + LOCAL POLITICS + FASHION + STYLE + CELEBRITY + EAT, DRINK + BE MERRY + TRAVEL + LIVING, THINKING + BEING + PETS + FUTURE GENERATION + SPORTS + HOME + REAL ESTATE + ARTS + CULTURE