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Workplace stress reached an all-time high in 2022, according to a Gallup report. And a 2022 Work and Well-Being Survey from the American Psychological Association found that workers appreciate and seek mental health support in the workplace. Thats why its important for employees to learn and practice techniques that will help them lower their stress during moments when stress levels are high. One way to do this is by creating positive experiences during highly stressful situations, such as recalling times when we were confident, calm, and in control. These serve as emotional anchors that we can trigger at will. In my book, Emotional Intelligence Game Changers: 101 Simple Ways to Win at Work + Life, I share tips on how to increase our confidence. Here are several techniques for bringing ourselves into that state. 1. Identify the state we want to experience Take a moment to think of a time when you were in charge of the situation, relaxed and confident with the way things were working out. Remember the feeling that came to you. Think back to that time and try to replay the feelings and sensations in your body when that was happening. Focus on feelings such as confidence, calm, and joy you experienced. Ask yourself, what details can you remember that will bring you back to that place? 2. Find something that will trigger that state, time, and place Work on finding a physical action that will cause you to automatically think of the situation that brings you into a positive state. This could be a physical gesture, such as tapping yourself on a part of your body. Practice this gesture while bringing yourself into a positive state. And make sure you keep this gesture specific to this purpose, and try to avoid using it for anything else. 3. Check out the anchor in less stressful situations Instead of waiting to use it in a highly stressful situation, test out the anchor in moments when you aren’t feeling stressful. If it works effectively, then it should be able to work when stress is more prevalent. If the anchor isnt working as youd expect or want it to, revisit the anchor technique by intensifying the emotion around the event, and modify your trigger accordingly. 4. Keep practicing and strengthening the anchor Look for situations throughout the day when you can practice using your anchor. Any situation that increases your stress, even in small levels, is an opportunity to use and solidify the effects of the anchor. Youll find that if you practice this technique over time, it will become easier to access when you most need it. Youll no longer need to think of the anchor because it’ll become your natural response in stressful situations. 5. Put your body into it Another way of strengthening the anchor is to align our physical state with the feelings of confidence. When you straighten your body, put out your chest, and pull back your shoulders, you encourage your body to amplify readiness, strength, and confidence. Add this posture to your anchor. 6. Add an inner mantra Repeating a mantra over time can also add strength to the anchor. Personalize it to make it more uniquely yours. You’ll want to use words that are powerful, that deeply resonate with you, and that are true of how you felt during the time when youre experiencing the feelings. 7. Think of situations where the anchor will be helpful The best way to strengthen the anchor is to anticipate situations where you know it can be useful, then practice using it during these times. Any place, time, or circumstance that brings you out of your comfort zones is a great time to practice. As you begin to experience the benefits of using this in various situations, youll find it more and more natural to practice these anchors, and youll also embed it in your habits and memories.
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E-Commerce
The color of your house matters beyond aesthetics. An extensive body of research shows that painting buildings white (which reflects heat) can make them cooler, and painting them black (which absorbs heat) can make them warmer. This is the reason why most houses in Greece are white, and many houses across Scandinavia are black. But what about the rest of the world, where temperatures often shift with the seasons?Industrial designer Joe Doucet has developed what he calls a climate-adaptive paint that can change colors based on the temperature outside. The patent-pending formula, which is known as thermochromic paint, follows the same principle as 90s mood rings. Except instead of jewelry changing color, its the entire facade of a building. If the temperature outside is below 77F, the building will be black. If its above 77F, it will turn white.The formula can be mixed with other tints, so if you want a blue house, it would simply look light blue in the summer and dark blue in the winter. Its phenomenal to think about the built environment changing with the seasons as nature does, says Doucet, who estimates that painting a building with this climate-adaptive paint could save an average of 20 to 30% on energy costs.The power of paintMany cities have turned to paint to alleviate urban problems like the heat island effect. In 2019, teams across Senegal, Bangladesh, Mexico, and Indonesia painted a total of 250,000 small household rooftops with white reflective pain as part of the Million Cool Roofs Challenge. In 2022, the city of L.A. covered 1 million square feet of streets and sidewalks in Pacoima, a low-income neighborhood, with solar reflective paint. Surfaces cooled instantly by 10 to 12F, and a year in, studies showed that the ambient temperatures throughout the entire neighborhood had dropped by up to 3.5°F.[Image: courtesy Joe Doucet and Partners]A climate-adaptive paint could make a difference for houses and apartment buildings, but also large industrial facilities like climate-controlled farms and warehouses that would otherwise turn to AC or heating to maintain a desired temperature. It costs to heat and cool a large structure so anything you can do mitigate that cost makes sense commercially as well, says Richard Hinzel, partner and managing director at Joe Doucet and Partners.Doucet first had the idea for a climate-adaptive paint while renovating his own home in Chappaqua, New York. I put off what color it should be because I wanted to have an understanding of what color did in terms of energy use, he recalls. The designer, who recently gave wind turbines a much-needed design makeover, built two scale models of his house, with the same kind of insulation material he used in the actual house. He painted the first model in black and the second one in white. For a year, he measured the surface outside and inside both models, and found that, in high seasons like summer and winter, temperatures between the two varied by as much as 13F. More specifically, in the summer, the white house was 12F cooler inside than the black house, while in the winter, the black house was 7F warmer inside. He says the opposite was also true. The black house was 13F warmer inside in the summer, while the white house was 8F colder in the winter. [Image: courtesy Joe Doucet and Partners]Doucet obtained these measurements from a scale model, not a full-sized house, but he notes the only difference between the two would be the time it takes for each space to heat or cool. A smaller pan heats up and cools down faster than a larger one, but it does not get hotter or colder, he says by way of example.At the end of the experiment, it occurred to him that the answer to his original questionwhat color to paint his housewas to paint it black in the winter and white in the summer. But that wasnt a practical solution.The more practical solutiona paint that can be both at oncetook two years to develop and about 100 more models to get the formula right. The team used commercially available latex house paint as a base, then mixed in their own proprietary formula. But crafting a formula that can sustain the transition from light to dark without degradingand therefore ending up greyproved difficult.If youve ever had transition glasses that got stuck on dark and never returned to clear, you understand the problem. If the paint degrades too fast and you have to repaint your house every month, then nobody will buy it.The first few formulas were degrading too fast, but the team eventually concocted a secret sauce that helps the paint last at least one year with zero degradation. This number reflects how long Doucet has been testing the paint in his studio. The final number could be even higheror it could not.The paint is yet to undergo rigorous lab tests, so many unknowns remain. Were not starting a paint company, says Doucet. Instead, his team wants to license the formula to paint manufacturers who would then take the climate-adaptive paint to the finishing line and launch it themselves.If the idea resonates and paint companies jump on the bandwagon, they will have to develop a competitive product that is both durable and priced accordingly. For now, Doucet estimates that theclimate-adaptive paint will cost about 3 to 5 times more than a standard gallon of paintthough he says youd quickly make that back in energy savings. Im confident that if theres a positive response, this could do very well on the market, he says.In the meantime, Doucet finished renovating his house and opted for black. I couldnt wait, he says with a laugh.
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E-Commerce
When plastic entered the design world in the 20th century, it was hailed as a wonder materialsomething strong, durable, lightweight, affordable, and malleable enough to sculpt into expressive, futuristic-looking forms. But the material lost its halo as the environmental consequences became apparent, plastic waste being one of them. The design industry has been figuring out what to do about this for years. Its tried recycling, reducing the amount of material in a product, developing bio-based compostable alternatives, or switching to something else entirely. But not all companies are able to easily switch up their production lines or find alternatives. Now, a growing body of research around plastic-eating microorganisms is reshaping how the industry is thinking about the material and its waste problem. Hellera furniture brand that produces high-end plastic furniture and home goods like Frank Gehry tables, Mario Bellini chairs, and Massimo and Lella Vignelli tablewareis now making all of its furniture with an enzyme that will accelerate the rate of biodegradation. The hope is that if its products wind up in a landfill or at the bottom of the ocean, that they wont be there for long. Ten years ago, we were all drinking out of plastic water bottles and nobody really cared, says John Edelman, the president and CEO of Heller. But we learned that plastics are bad for the world. The company began to make some products from recycled material, but we wanted to get to the next level and become more sustainable, Edelman says. How can we be good for the planet and create incredible design? He adds that the bioplastics and compostable plastics on the market now dont work for Hellers furniture because of performance requirements. Since everything is indoor-outdoor, it needs to withstand rain, snow, and the suns UV rays. [Image: courtesy Heller]Heres how it works: The powder enzyme, developed by a company called Worry Free Plastics, makes plastic more enticing for microorganisms to eat, essentially turbocharging a process that already takes place naturally. When the plastic is in a zero-oxygen environment, like a landfill, the enzyme activates and attracts anaerobic bacteria that break down its polymers. As they eat the material, they generate biogas and soil. If the plastic is exposed to oxygen, as it would be in everyday use, the material remains stable. According to Edelman, it will take approximately five years for a Heller product made with the enzyme to biodegrade.Philip Myers, the cofounder of Worry Free Plastics, says its enzyme works in fresh and salt water, commercial composting facilities, and soil. A third-party testing company using ASTM methods (which involve placing an item in a controlled environment for 45 or 90 days, measuring the material loss rate, then calculating how long it would take for the entire thing to degrade) found that Worry Frees enzyme could help a plastic bottle degrade, on average, in seven-and-a-half years and a plastic bag in five; the total time it takes depends on the density and thickness of the plastic and conditions in a landfill. Real-world environments are not as controlled as a labs and the actual degradation rate could be different. One landfill might be more potent than another one, says Stephen Andero, the vice president of science and innovation at Worry Free Plastics. After doing thousands of tests, no two are the same. That said, the estimated degradation time is significantly less than conventional plastic. A water bottle, for example, takes an estimated 450 years to decompose. The enzyme can also be added to all polymer plastics, including bioplastics like PLA, which arent composting as fast as manufacturers claim. Worry Free isnt the only entity to explore enzymatic technology and the role microorganisms play in accelerating the degradation of plastic. In 2016, a team of Japanese scientists discovered a natural bacteria that eats PET plastic, which changed how the industry thought of managing plastic waste. Some researchers are now trying to engineer extra-hungry, plastic-eating bacteria. A materials science professor at UC Berkeley recently developed an enzyme that can make plastic self-destruct when exposed to heat and water. All of this research is leading to a boom in the bioremediation business.Now, manufacturers are bringing this science into the products we use every day. To date, most of Worry Frees customers have been manufacturers of single-use plasticsitems like coffee cup lids and pallet film. Myers is just as eager to find more applications for his enzyme as Edelman is to address circularity at Heller.Most of Hellers furniture is rotationally molded, a process that involves putting a powder compound into a mold then heating it up. As it heats up, it coats the mold, and when it cools, it solidifies into the shape of the product. In order to make its furniture biodegradable, Heller mixes the enzyme into the power compound. Nothing else about its production line changes.Its a drop in technology, Myers explains. It doesnt require them to change their equipment, their processanything. Its plug and play. Heller began adding the enzyme to its production line in November last year. Its going to be in all of its rotationally molded LDPE products. As old inventory moves off the shelf, the biodegradable items will enter circulation. Theres nothing different aesthetically about the pieces, and the retail price is the same. Everybody talks a big sustainability game, but research shows they wont pay more for it, Edelman says. My goal is to do something that is sustainable and at the same price . . . We actually achieved our goal of not just using recycled products, not just being recyclable, but going back to the earth.While its not likely that people are buying $1,000 dining chair sets with the intent to throw them away, Edelman thinks that Hellers adoption of enzymatic tech can spark more brands to do the same. Sustainability is being applied to every product because the design firms are pushing it, he says. Theyre the catalyst.
Category:
E-Commerce
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