LOCAL EARTH DAY EVENTS

Green Ossining 13th Annual Earth Day

This free festival will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., April 22 at Louis Engel Waterfront Park. Green Ossining founder and Chairperson Suzie Ross says, “Learn how to live a more sustainable life, visit artisan vendors, and enjoy food and live music on the banks of the Hudson River.” With as many as 4,000 attendees expected and more than 100 vendors, this community-run Earth Day festival has grown from its initial 300 attendees and 20 vendors in its first year. The zero-waste event aims to upcycle, repurpose and divert to compost as much as possible.

There will be hands-on activities and educational opportunities for everyone, as well as a full day of great live music and entertainment. “We remain keenly aware of the great challenges affecting our natural environment, our planet and life as we know it,” says Ross. “We are also of the belief that there is much we can each personally do to affect positive change through the everyday choices we each have the power to make. You’ll find many things you love about festivals—food, music, artisans, and activities—but we hope you’ll also join us in our recognition of the urgency to action that is needed.”

Highlights include arts and artisan vendors; eco-demonstrations and hands-on activities; focused kids’ activity zone; food foraging with The Rewilding School; environmental advocacy organizations; E-waste drive/textile recycling drop-off; delicious local food, including vegetarian and vegan fare; craft beer; local “green” services/products/solutions; eco-friendly products and how to save money by reducing our carbon footprint; community organizations in our own backyard; live music all day; and more.

Location: 25 Westerly Rd., Ossining, NY. For more information, visit GreenOssining.org/ earth-day-festival. See ad, back cover.

Earth Day Everyday Festival

The Friends of Pound Ridge will host their third annual Earth Day Everyday festival downtown from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., April 23. It is twice as big this year, spreading from the courtyard in Pound Ridge Square to include the Barnwell outdoor space directly across the street.

Dropseed Native Landscapes (DropseedNativeLandscapesLI. com), a New York-based retail native plant nursery and consultation service, will have a full line of potted flowering perennials, grasses and shrubs for sale, along with landscape plugs and bare root options.

Earth Day brings together community and education with the collaboration of local and regional organizations, groups and businesses to foster continued awareness that instills better environmental practices and reduces our carbon footprint. There will be local organic, plant-based food and family activities for all ages. Volunteers are welcome and anyone that can’t make the event is still encouraged to contribute to the Earth Day Everyday initiative online where a reusable stainless steel water bottle or countertop compost bin for local Pound Ridge pick-up or drop-off are available to donors.

Location: Pound Ridge Square, 57 Westchester Ave., Pound Ridge, NY. For more information, email friendsofpoundridge@gmail.com or visit EarthDayEveryday.co.

Volunteer to Pitch In For Local Parks

The Westchester Parks Foundation and Westchester County Parks Department’s Pitch In For The Parks community cleanup effort runs from April 17 through 22. It is their biggest volunteer event of the year. Preregistration is required so that organizers can plan for the correct number of volunteers. Once registered, volunteers will receive day-of information, meet up location and insurance paperwork for minors by email one to two days before the event.

Volunteers will paint, rake, prepare and plant flower beds, clear trails and shorelines, restore wildlife habitats and remove invasive vines from trees. All tools will be provided, but BYO water. Volunteers should wear clothes that can get dirty and closed-toe shoes.

Locations include Marshlands Conservancy (Rye), Willson’s Woods Park (Mount Vernon), Edith Read Wildlife Sanctuary (Rye), Ward Pound Ridge Reservation (Pound Ridge), County Center East Parking Lot (White Plains), Glen Island Park (New Rochelle), Tibbetts Brook Park (Yonkers) and Blue Mountain Reservation, (Peekskill).

The Westchester Parks Foundation engages the public to advocate for and invest in the preservation, conservation, use and enjoyment of the 18,000 acres of parks, trails, and open spaces within the Westchester County Parks system.

Registration is required at Tinyurl.com/ WestchesterPitchIn. For more information, email volunteer@thewpf.org or visit thewpf. org/pitch-in-for-parks.

De-Stress With Sauerkraut

A new study published in Molecular Psychiatry has shown that eating more fermented foods and fiber daily for just four weeks significantly lowered perceived stress levels. Forty-five participants with relatively low-fiber diets were split into two groups.

One group met with a dietitian that recommended a psychobiotic diet, which included six to eight daily servings of fruits and vegetables high in prebiotic fibers, such as onions, leeks, cabbage, apples, bananas and oats; five to eight daily servings of grains; three to four servings of legumes per week; and two to three daily servings of fermented foods like sauerkraut, kefir and kombucha. The control group received only general dietary advice based on the healthy eating food pyramid.

The group following the psychobiotic diet reported feeling less stressed compared with those in the control group. Moreover, significant changes in the level of certain key chemicals produced by gut microbes were found in these participants. Some of these chemicals have been linked to improved mental health, which could explain why the participants reported feeling less stressed. The quality of sleep improved in both groups, but those on the psychobiotic diet reported greater sleep improvements.

Screening Children for Anxiety

After a systematic review of 39 studies to evaluate the benefits and harms of screening for anxiety disorders in children and adolescents aged 8 to 18, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a group of disease prevention and medical experts assembled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, now recommends that primary care physicians perform such screenings, even if there are no signs or symptoms of anxiety.

A common mental health condition in the U.S., anxiety disorder involves excessive fear or worry that manifests as emotional and physical symptoms. In children and adolescents, it is associated with impaired functioning, educational underachievement and an increased likelihood of a future anxiety disorder or depression. The 2018-2019 National Survey of Children’s Health found that 7.8 percent of children and adolescents aged 3 to 17 had a current anxiety disorder.

USPSTF recommended using screening questionnaires to identify children at risk, noting that studies show that children with anxiety benefit from treatments that may include cognitive behavioral therapy or psychotherapy. They also concluded that there is insufficient evidence to assess children 7 years old or younger.

Exercise for the Brain

Researchers in the UK compared the effect that different types of daily movement had on overall cognition, memory and executive function. Their study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, reported that replacing sitting, sleeping or gentle movement with less than 10 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity (brisk walking, bicycling, running up and down stairs, aerobic dancing, jogging, running or swimming) can protect the brain and improve working memory and executive processes like planning and organization. The intensity of the exercise matters, and study participants that engaged in light physical activity, rather than more vigorous activity, saw declines in cognitive performance. However, light activity is still more beneficial than sitting, the scientists found.

The data for these findings was taken from the 1970 British Cohort Study, an ongoing survey that tracks the health of a group of UK-born adults. The group of nearly 4,500 participants consented, at age 46, to wear an activity tracker and complete verbal memory and executive functioning tests, and they were followed from 2016 to 2018.