P owerful I deas , P ractical A ctions
SECRETS TO A LONG LIFE: THE LATINO PARADOX STRONG FRIENDSHIPS DEFYING DEMENTIA WHY “MANNING UP” IS THE WORST THING TO DO
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IT’S OK IF WINTER MAKES YOU SAD
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winter
2016
HOW TO CREATE A CULTURE OF
GOOD HEALTH
THE ANTIDEPRESSANT, ANTI-ANXIETY BACKYARD GARDEN
MIND + BODY + COMMUNITY
+
ONE TRIBE STANDS IN THE WAY OF THREE PIPELINES THE DEAL THAT RETURNED THE COLORADO RIVER TO MEXICO
US $6.50 Canada $6.50
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WINTER 2016 | No. 76
CONTENTS
IN DEPTH Good Health HOW TO CREATE A CULTURE OF GOOD HEALTH
18 Mind + Body + Community = A Better Health Equation
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Dr. Gabor Maté
22 Strong Friendships Defying Dementia Marcus H. Green
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26 Why Manning Up Is the Worst Thing To Do Mark Greene MIND-BODY CONNECTIONS
29 The Antidepressant, Anti-anxiety Backyard Garden Dr. Daphne Miller
32 Science Says It’s OK If Winter Makes You Sad Jason Marsh
34 VISUAL POETRY
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Healing From Trauma Changes Us Forever Leela Corman
ON THE COVER
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YES! photo by Kristin Little
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IT’S WHERE YOU LIVE
36 6 Cities Designing for Health Anna Clark
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My Year of Magical Tidying
SIGNS OF LIFE 6 5 REASONS
CULTURE SHIFT 50
Essay by Erin Sagen
Historic Deal Brings Water to Parched Colorado River Delta
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Diondra Powers
What Our Breasts Are Telling Us
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PEOPLE WE LOVE
Help Wanted: Young Farmers
One Clan Holding Off Three Pipelines
Kim Eckart
Interview with Florence Williams
42 Who Lives Longest—and Why? The Latino Paradox Jasmine Aguilera
46 Tribes’ Traditions Keep Their Youth Drug-Free Yessenia Funes
Tony Manno
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Will Global Trade Deals Kill Grassroots Activism? Commentary by Sarah van Gelder
BOOKS + FILMS + MUSIC
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Waging Life in a War Zone
The Lost Language of Natural Places
Jen Marlowe
Jack Turner
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Democracy Can Feed the World
As Rich Cities Adapt to Climate Chaos, a Moral Question Lurks
Commentary by Frances Moore Lappé
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Robert Jensen
THE PAGE THAT COUNTS Joe Scott and Tony Manno
62 YES! BUT HOW?
Tips for Bad-Weather Bicycling
ALSO 1 :: FROM THE EDITORS
Miles Schneiderman
4 :: CONTRIBUTORS 5 :: WHAT’S MORE
64 The Honorable Harvest
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Commentary by Robin Wall Kimmerer
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Mind-Body Connections
The Curious Case of the
Antidepressant, Anti-anxiety
Backyard Garden yesmagazine . org
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Mind-Body Connections
WHETHER IT’S MICROBES IN THE DIRT OR FRESH AIR—OR BOTH—RESEARCHERS DO KNOW THIS: GARDENING IS STRONG MEDICINE
Daphne Miller collecting late-season parsley, tomatoes, and pineapple guavas for her backyard compost pile in Berkeley, California.
G
Dr. Daphne Miller ardening is my
P r o z a c . The time I dedicate to
training tomato vines or hacking at berry bushes seems to help me stave off feelings of sadness or dread and calm the chatter in my mind. My vegetable beds have even buoyed me through more acute stressors, such as my medical internship, my daughter’s departure for college, and a loved one’s cancer treatment. I’m not alone in appreciating the antide-
pressant and anti-anxiety effects of gardening—countless blogs are dedicated to this very subject, and a rash of new studies has documented that spending time around greenery can lead to improved mental health. “How does this work?” I asked Jill Litt several years ago when I first became interested in what I call gardening’s “bio-euphoric” effect and was wondering whether to prescribe this activity to my depressed patients. Litt, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Public Health, was studying gardening’s impact on a variety of health outcomes—including mood disorders. She rattled
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off a list of possible explanations, including that gardens create community, encourage physical activity, offer a bounty of nutrient-rich food, and expose one to Vitamin D-producing sunshine, which helps regulate serotonin, the “happiness” neurotransmitter. But then Litt surprised me by adding, “Also there are the microbes themselves. We have no idea what they are doing.” The idea that microbes in our environment might impact our health was not new to me. It’s well-established that the microbes in soil enhance the nutritional value of food and, as found in studies of farm children in Bavaria and among the Indiana Amish, improve immune function. (Researchers were finding that exposure to a diversity of microbes early in life led to fewer allergies.) But garden microbes acting as mood enhancers—well, this was news to me. I soon discovered that there is, in fact, evidence to back up this idea. It’s a smattering of data, and most of it has been collected on our distant cousins, the mice, but it is still compelling. This investigation into the soilmood connection began, like much of science, quite serendipitously. British researchers were testing whether immune stimulation with Mycobacterium vaccae, a harmless microbe found in soil and water and potentially on unwashed vegetables, might help treat lung cancer in humans. While they discovered unchanged life expectancy in the subjects treated with the M. vaccae, they were surprised that these patients scored much higher on a standard quality-of-life questionnaire than the controls. Somehow the bug had enhanced their mood. This finding inspired another researcher, Chris Lowry, a behavioral endocrinologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, to inject heat-killed
YES! PHOTOS BY KRISTIN LITTLE
No. 76
IN DEPTH PHYSICAL WELL-BEING DEPENDS ON MORE THAN KEEPING OUR BODIES FIT. EMOTIONS AND THE PEOPLE WHO COME INTO OUR LIVES MATTER JUST AS MUCH.
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YES! ILLUSTRATION BY PABLO IGLESIAS
HOW TO BUILD A CULTURE
of
GOOD HEALTH
Dr. Gabor Maté
“I
never get angry,”
says a character in one of
Woody Allen’s movies. “I grow a tumor instead.” Much more scientific truth is captured in that droll remark than many doctors would recognize. Mainstream medical practice largely ignores the role of emotions in the physiological functioning of the human organism. Yet the scientific evidence
abundantly shows that people’s lifetime emotional experiences profoundly influence health and illness. And, since emotional patterns are a response to the psychological and social environment, disease in an individual always tells us about the multigenerational family of origin and the broader culture in which that person’s life unfolds. We human beings are biopsychosocial creatures whose health or illness reflects our relationship with the world we inhabit—including all the variables of family, class, gender, race, political status, and the physical ecology of which we are a part. A recent article from the National Institutes of Health called for a new foundational theory for medicine, based on a “biopsychosocial-ecological paradigm.” Given the ideological limitations of mainstream medicine, this forward-looking initiative is not likely to be heeded soon. As early as the second century, the Roman physician Galen noted the connection between emotional burden and illness, an observation repeated by many other clinicians over the centuries. The pathway from stressful emotions, often unconscious, to physical disease was often driven home to me as a family physician and palliative care practitioner, although nothing in my medical
education even remotely hinted at such links. People I saw with chronic disease of all kinds—from malignancies or autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or ulcerative colitis to persistent skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis, and neurological disorders like Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS), multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and even dementia—were characterized by certain unmistakable emotional life patterns. Among these was the chronic repression of so-called negative emotions, especially of healthy anger, as in the Woody Allen character’s wry confession; an overriding sense of duty, role, and responsibility; an undue concern for the emotional needs of others while ignoring one’s own; and, finally, a core belief—again, often unconscious—that one is responsible for how other people feel and that one must never disappoint others. The expression “the good die young” has—sadly—more validity than we sometimes appreciate. Exemplifying the characteristic of an overwrought sense of duty, role, and responsibility, New York Times contributor Julia Baird recently reported her diagnosis with ovarian cancer. “I have always been healthy and strong,” she wrote in a recent column. “I regularly do hot yoga and swim a two-kilometer stretch in a bay teeming with fish near my home in Sydney, all while caring for my two little kids, hosting a TV show, writing columns and making the final edits on the book I am writing.” Inadvertently, Baird depicts precisely the “I can do anything, I’ll be everything to everybody” multitasking persona I found in everyone I ever met with her particular malignancy. People are unaware, and their physicians rarely know to inform them, that such self-imposed stress is a major risk factor for disease of all kinds. But is it purely self-imposed? It is not accurate to see it that way. A materialistic culture teaches its members that their value depends on what they produce, achieve, or consume rather than on their human beingness. Many of us believe that we must continually prove and justify our worthiness, that we must keep having and doing to justify our existence.
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Mind-Body Connections
FOUR SCIENTIFIC STRATEGIES FOR AN EMOTIONALLY AUTHENTIC HOLIDAY SEASON
IT’S OK IF WINTER MAKES YOU SAD
W Jason Marsh
hoever wrote “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” never had to endure a night of Hanukkah listening to their right-wing cousin rail against communism. Or had to make dinner for two dozen family members, who each has his own unique set of food (and family) intolerances. Or had to spend an entire Christmas alone while cheers and laughter erupted from the apart-
ment down the hall. No doubt the holidays can foster joy and goodwill. But we all know they also can usher in a season of sadness, stress, and disappointment. Extended time with family can stir up painful memories and difficult emotions, and it can be hard for us to know how to handle those feelings. Watching our friends flaunt their seemingly blissful holidays on Facebook can make us feel worse. Fortunately, psychological research suggests some effective strategies for the holiday blues—and flags some especially unhelpful ones. The upshot is that sadness and other tough emotions are not afflictions that we should try to avoid or overcome. Instead, if properly understood, they can help contribute to a healthy—and happy—life. Here are four strategies to help you craft your own happiness recipe this holiday season (and the rest of your year).
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Don’t force cheer. At family gatherings with cousins you secretly can’t stand and in-laws who dole out backhanded compliments, it can be tempting to put on a happy face while you seethe inside. Indeed, that might even seem like the most mature response— no drama, no conflict. But a 2011 study by researchers at Michigan State University and West Point might make you think twice. They followed dozens of bus drivers for two weeks, looking to see when they flashed fake versus genuine smiles at their passengers. (Bus drivers do a lot of smiling, it turns out.) The results show that on days when the drivers tried to put on an act and fake a good mood, their actual moods got worse. This was especially true for women. Similarly, a 2012 study led by Maya Tamir of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found that people who wanted to feel happy even when a situation called for a different emotional response, like anger, actually reported less happiness overall. And research by Iris Mauss of UC Berkeley suggests that people who really want to be happy actually derive less happiness from positive experiences, apparently because their expectations are too high. Again and again, trying to force happiness seems to backfire.
Don’t suppress sadness. The results of the bus driver study can be explained by researchers Oliver John of UC Berkeley and James Gross of Stanford, who found that “negative” feelings like sadness or anger only intensify when we try to suppress them. That’s because we feel bad about ourselves when our outward appearance contradicts how we truly feel inside. We don’t like to be inauthentic. What’s more, when we suppress emotions like sadness, we deny them the important function they can serve in our lives. Sadness can signal that something is distressing us; if we don’t recognize that feeling, we might not take the necessary steps to improve our situation. Expressing our sadness can also elicit comfort and compassion from those who care about us, strengthening our bonds. By contrast, suppressing our emotions can actually undermine our relationships: A study led by Sanjay Srivastava of the University of Oregon found that college students who bottled up their emotions experienced less social support, felt less close to others, and were less satisfied with their social lives.
Respond mindfully. But none of this is to endorse drowning in melancholy or lashing out at our in-laws. Some ways of processing and acting on our emotions are healthier than others. Recently, scientists have been paying special attention to the benefits of mindfulness, the moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. A mindful response to an emotional trigger (e.g., overcooking the holiday turkey) means that you pause rather than react. Instead of berating yourself, you simply notice what you’re feeling without judging that response as right or wrong. Studies suggest that a mindful response to a negative event reduces the amount of sadness we experience after that event, is associated with less depression and anxiety, and may even carry physiological benefits, like lowering our heart rates. It’s a way to avoid suppressing your emotions without reacting hastily or getting consumed by rumination. And, fortunately, mindfulness isn’t something you’re simply born with or without; research suggests it’s a skill you can cultivate over time.
Enjoy your emotional cocktail. Inevitably, the holidays will bring a mix of highs and lows. Perhaps the most important lesson to keep in mind is that this variety of emotions might be the best thing possible for your overall well-being. That was the key insight from a study published last year by a team of researchers from Yale, Harvard Business School, and other institutions spanning four countries. Their survey of more than 37,000 people found that those who experienced more “emodiversity”—a greater variety and abundance of emotions—were less likely to be depressed than people who reported high levels of positive emotion. In fact, people with more emodiversity used less medication, visited the doctor less frequently, spent fewer days in the hospital, practiced better dietary and exercise habits, and smoked less. In other words, sadness, anger, and other difficult emotions are like so many other staples of the holidays, from egg nog to office parties: In moderation, they’re nothing to fear. Just make sure you’re balancing them with other, lighter experiences. And don’t forget to give yourself a break.
Jason Marsh is the director of programs at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and the founding editor in chief of Greater Good, the center’s online magazine. He is also a coeditor of two anthologies of Greater Good articles: The Compassionate Instinct (WW Norton) and Are We Born Racist? (Beacon Press). He has written for The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, the opinion section of CNN.com, and many other publications.
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CAN WE CURE THE TOXICITY OF MALE TRAUMA AND THE RESULTING MASCULINITY DISEASE?
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A Culture of Good Health
WHY
MANNING UP IS THE WORST THING TO DO
If you’ve grown up in the United States, then you’re familiar with the Man Box, the longstanding rules of how to walk, talk, and sound like a man in America: 1. Real men don’t express a wide range of emotions. They limit themselves to expressing anger or excitement. 2. Real men are breadwinners, not caregivers. 3. Real men are “alphas” and natural leaders. 4. Real men are authoritative and make all final decisions. 5. Real men are physically tough and sexually dominant.
These rules take hold early in our lives. Boys 4 and 5 years old are told to shake it off, man up, don’t be a crybaby, and, worst of all, don’t be a girl. This is because the Man Box devalues any form of emotional expression traditionally deemed to be feminine. A devastating result of this anti-feminine bias is that women, gays, and trans people face epidemic levels of bullying, rape, misogyny, homophobia, and violence. The Man Box robs our sons of a lifetime of opportunities to develop their emotional capacities. Instead, they grow into emotionally isolated men who wall themselves off from the social connectivity central to healing and creating community. The resulting health effects are undeniable. One in three men aged 45 or older reported themselves to be lonely or socially isolated, according to a 2010 survey conducted by AARP. The consequences of that social isolation can be fatal. Between 1999 and 2010, suicide among men aged 35–64 rose by nearly 30 percent, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although rates have been rising for both sexes, the study found that middle-aged men are three times likelier than women to end their own lives—27.3 deaths versus 8.1 (per 100,000). But the risks of social isolation are
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T Mark Greene
he traditional rules
about how to be a “real man”
in America are breaking down. Economic upheaval has shifted wage earning from men to their wives or partners. The rise of men as primary caregivers of their children is challenging our most fundamental assumptions about gender. The gay rights and trans rights movements are creating expansive new definitions of masculinity. Millen-
nials are leading a much broader acceptance of diversity. This generation is witness to a collision between traditional masculinity
and a new wave, one that values intimacy, caregiving, and nurturing. But many of us have spent our lives under immense pressure to stifle emotional expression of any kind. And we’re learning there’s a cost: Men are suffering higher rates of life-threatening disease, depression, and death. Simply put, the suppression of emotional expression in men is damaging their health and well-being.
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SIGNS OF LIFE 5 REASONS
Research and text by Diondra Powers Photos by Nick Hall
A LITTLE BIT OF WATER GOES A LONG WAY Bringing life back to the Colorado River Delta
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For eight glorious weeks, from March 23 to May 18, 2014, the Colorado River flowed all the way to the Gulf of California, something it hadn’t done regularly since the 1930s. Minute 319, a 2012 amendment to the 1944 water treaty between Mexico and the United States, allowed water from the Morelos Dam to run through a 40-mile stretch of parched riverbed to the Colorado River Delta. Scientists designed a “pulse flow” to release 105,392 acre-feet of water to mimic spring floods and “base flows,” which will continue until the measure expires in 2017. The long-term goal of Minute 319 is to create a cooperative system whereby both nations can share the Colorado River for water storage and ecological restoration research. “We’re never going to get back to a condition where the delta was like it was in the 1930s before the Hoover Dam went up,” said Karl Flessa, a lead scientist on the binational research team. But if the project were extended to allow more flows, we could see “a whole series of narrow parks of native vegetation and native trees and native birds,” he said.
The effects of the Minute 319 water release
On its way to the Sea of Cortez, the leading edge of the Minute 319 Colorado River “pulse flow” ran through river channels that had been dry for decades. yesmagazine . org
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CULTURE SHIFT For each farmer under 35 there are six over 65. By 2030, one-quarter of America’s current farmers will retire.
HELP WANTED
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A Kim Eckart
gainst a backdrop
of lush
green mountains and swaying papaya trees, La‘amea Lunn readies his crop of carrots, kale, and eggplants for the weekly farmers market. He carefully tends his one-third acre
on Oahu, Hawai‘i, preparing produce for a market stall he shares with friends—young farmers like himself, a few of whom he met when they worked neighboring plots on this land owned by the University of Hawai‘i. At 32, Lunn has an office job with a career in restaurant kitchens behind him. He hopes to own a farm of his own, to be part of the local food movement, and to help transform the industrial food system. But taking that on now is a substantial investment, so Lunn is starting out here, in an agricultural incubator program called GoFarm Hawai‘i, where he can share resources, learn from experts, and, perhaps most importantly, join a community. GoFarm Hawai‘i and other programs, from California to Maine, aim to soften the start for young growers. By providing access to some or all of the farming fundamentals—capital, acreage, and training—these projects try not only to help the individual farmer, but also to sustain and grow a new generation that will allow the local food movement to flourish. “Doing it with other people helps you along in the hard times,” Lunn said. “I went into this not just for myself, but to network to help other farmers to make it easier to farm. It was a driving force.” Lunn is among the thousands of people nationwide trying their hands at a career that traditionally was handed down within families. It is a daunting prospect: New farmers often struggle to find affordable land, pay for equipment, pay down student loans, and develop the myriad skills necessary to farm as a career, not just a hobby.
F
has been graying steadily for more than three decades. In 2012, the average age of American farmers was 58, according to the U.S. Census of Agriculture. In the same census, one-third of farmers were age 65 and older; only 6 percent of farmers were younger than 35. And fewer new farmers are staying with it. In 2012, not quite 470,000 farmers had been on their land less than a decade—a 19 percent drop from the number of new farmers just five years before. About a r m i n g a s a n o c c u p at i o n
La‘amea Lunn, at left, on his Waimanalo farm along with neighboring new farmers Ikaika Rogerson and Adrian Liu.
YES! PHOTO BY PAUL DUNN
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