Diane Ladd's ADD to Life CoachingFinding Focus and Fun

I’ve returned from a wonderful conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s called the Learning and the Brain Conference: Using Emotions Research to Enhance Learning. I was honored to be invited to attend and co-exhibit at this conference by my friend and collegue Tara MacGillicuddy at www.addclasses.com.

Wow! What a fabulous weekend! I met wonderful people from around the world. Doctors, researchers and neuroscientists who are making giant strides to bring together what we know about biology, cognitive science and education.

I came accross an article in National Geographic magazine that you may enjoy. It talks about how Paris is going green! The article is written by Jennifer Ackerman and it says:

That we should find nature rejuvenating is hardly surprising. After all, our tribe arose not in cinderbelt but in wild forests and grasslands. Our ears are made not for the stinging scream of sirens but for the sly scratch of a predator’s paws and the whistle of wind that warns of impending weather. Our eyes evolved to tease apart not the monotonous grays of cityscapes but the subtle gold, olive, and burgundy hues that signaled ripe fruit and tender leaves, and our brains to reward our sensory efforts with feelings of deep pleasure.

Could this be why the citizens of Paris work so hard to reinvent dead urban space and neglected squares of hardscape as places of vibrancy and green? Consider Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in the city’s crowded 19th arrondissement. Once this patch of land held an old gallows, then a gypsum quarry, then the city dump. Now the big bucolic park of grassy slopes and grottoes is alive with bloom and birdsong and a healthy jumble of people who spill onto its hilly lawns: kickboxers, musicians, university students perusing their notes or memorizing lines for a play, lovers rolling over one another like tumblers, and old men who have settled themselves on the grass to rest.

 It goes on to tell about the study by Frances Kuo and her colleagues at: http://lhhl.illinois.edu/

Read the entire National Geographic Article here:  http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0610/feature3/index.html

 These days, “going green” is where it’s at. Companies are quick to boast about their eco-friendly and energy efficient products; architects are designing green buildings; and we all want to be phosphate free, recyclable, refillable, ozone friendly and environmentally safe!

So, hopefully you know by now that green is good for our environment and can (I’m hoping) save us from global warming. But what you may not know is “going green” can save us from being inattentive and easily distracted.

Frances E. Kuo, co-director of the Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and her cohorts, Andrea Faber Taylor and William C. Sullivan, conducted many studies about the effect of environments on concentration.

The studies prove that children with ADD function better if they spend time in nature. They show that the greener the environment, the greater the result. Sure, we all know that kids are calmer when they spend more time outdoors. Bike riding, shooting baskets and playing tag can help children to be calmer and more focused. This is the result of exercise, not environment. But studies showed that exercising in “wilderness-like” settings has the greatest effect on children’s behavior. For example, playing outside in forests calmed ADD children more than playing in a city park, or on paved surfaces.

Dr. Kuo says, “We knew from our own studies and those of other scientists that in general, green is good. For ADHD kids however, green is great.”