Author Archive | Jennie Lyon

Spring is the perfect time of year to welcome wildlife into your backyard. Even if you only have a small outside space, such as a balcony, you can still attract local birds and critters. In order to create the perfect eco-friendly wildlife garden, use recycled materials where possible to build feeders and habitats. You could also stock your outside space with local plants and flowers for pollinating insects. This way you can help maintain the ecosystem while encouraging some wild visitors. Here are a few tips on how to create an eco-friendly wildlife garden. 

Provide a water source

All animals, birds, and grubs will appreciate a water source. If you have space, you could consider building a pond. This will also make a stunning feature for your yard. Keep the water clean using filters or Tsurumi pond pumps in order to provide a healthy environment for fish and amphibians. Alternatively, you could DIY a small birdbath from recycled materials or upcycle old household items and fill them with water.

Local plants and flowers

For an eco-friendly garden, you should be mindful of the plants you choose. Opt for local plants and flowers that will grow well without disturbing the natural ecosystem. Avoid invading or non-indigenous plants. Colorful pollen-rich flowers will attract the right insects such as bumblebees and butterflies. Here are few tips on how to attract pollinating insects with native flowers. If you want to avoid other unwanted visitors always opt for organic pesticides rather than harmful chemicals.

Build homes for critters

As well as building sustainable exterior features for your home, why not add a few for visiting critters as well? You could DIY a bee hotel out of old bits of untreated wood. Simply drill a few holes in a log for a mini version, or you could go all out and build a bigger structure with different pieces of wood and bamboo. Set up a rock garden for grubs and small mammals. With a few small plants, this can also make an attractive feature.

Create a lawn for nature

Many gardeners overlook the lawn when it comes to wildlife, but it’s actually an important feature. Create a wildlife-friendly lawn by adding patches of meadow. Pollinators will like these. Let your lawn grow long and more flowers will start to appear. Longer grass makes a nice home for beetles and smaller animals. It gives them a place to hide and forage.

DIY feeders

Put out food for your wild visitors. Try making feeders using recycled materials and leftover food from the house. A simple bird feeder can be made from a recycled plastic bottle or mason jar, for example. Check out these DIY bird feeder ideas. You can even make a butterfly or hummingbird feeder with an upturned glass bottle filled with sugar water. Fill your wildlife garden with these upcycled creations, and you’ll soon get plenty of visitors. If you help encourage the ecosystem in your backyard, you can enjoy spotting local animals and birds.

If there’s one thing that humans are incredibly admirable for, it’s striving to constantly be better. We all stray off track every once in a while, and this could be due to personal stress at home, the loss of a career, or even problems with the world like coronavirus that lead you astray. However, every step you take in your life is part of the journey you’re creating, and you can reroute it! If you feel like you’ve fallen away from the person you’d like to be, or you’d like to improve who you are as a person, then you’re in the right place! Take a look at these tips on how to get yourself on the right path to be a better person in 2021.

Do something selfless

Doing something selfless is incredibly empowering but most importantly, you’re taking time out of your day to help someone or something else. There are plenty of things you could do, whether it be donating to a charity close to your heart, volunteering at a women’s refuge, or even adopting an abandoned animal, you’ll be killing two birds with one stone – doing something for nothing and improving who you are as a person!

Take care of yourself!

One thing many people neglect to do without even realising it is taking proper care of themselves. It’s too easy in this day and age to cram junk food and drinks into our bodies and in turn, we suffer from it! Bad food and drink can not only cause weight gain, acne breakouts and ruin your teeth, but it can also have a tremendous effect on your mental health too. If you’ve been feeling anxious lately, it’s time to do something about it! Sleep well, eat nutritious foods, and enjoy feeling calm with CBD products from websites like baysmokes.com. Once you feel better in your own skin, you can concentrate on becoming the best version of yourself.

Take the leap with your career

Taking a step forward in your career can be extremely daunting, especially if you’re comfortable with what you’re doing. However, a step forward could lead to a higher salary, meaning you can get yourself on the path to financial freedom. Speak to your boss about extra work you could pick up, earn the money, and alleviate those financial worries!

Declutter your home

We’re all guilty for letting things gather up around the house from time to time, but many of us don’t realise how much clutter we actually have until we try and sort through it. Use the 6 month rule – if you’ve not used it in the last 6 months and won’t use it in the next 6 months, either donate it to charity or put it into storage elsewhere. You’ll be surprised how great it feels!

Go green as often as you can

Finally, if there’s one thing that’s going to make you a better person, it’s helping the fight against global warming. Go green wherever you can with things like reusable bags, eating vegan, sustainable and compostable products, and fairly sourced ingredients to help contribute towards saving the planet.

The rise of the pandemic in early 2020 hit everyone hard. From being forced to stay inside during lockdown, to millions of businesses and jobs at stake, the entire world has battled through a crisis that many of us have never had to experience. Understandably, being inside all day and unable to see friends and family has taken a toll on many people, and if you feel like your overall well being has dipped, you may be looking at how you can make positive changes in your life. Well, you’ve come to the right place! The idea of change in life can be daunting, but small changes can make the world of difference! Take a look at how these small changes could have a huge effect on your overall well being.

Take a social media break

Social media, especially at the moment, can be an extremely toxic place to be. With fake news and different opinions being shared here, there and everywhere, it can be difficult to differentiate what’s worth reading and the things you need to ignore. Give your mind time to heal by taking a break from social media. That doesn’t mean shutting off from the world completely, but simply allowing yourself time away from the millions of opinions and clickbait titles you see on social media every day. 

Go vegan for one day a week

Eating well is essential at the moment, and many people are using this time in lockdown to improve their eating habits. However, the eating habits of the general public are extremely harmful to the environment, not to mention the additives that are in many food items. Choosing to go vegan for at least one day a week will give you an enormous sense of satisfaction, as well as doing your part to reduce your impact on the environment. You can read here about how No Evil Foods have taken the initiative to become a completely plastic-free company, and how you can do your bit to support the vegan community in creating a greener earth.

Utilise online video conferencing

Being away from your loved ones is difficult, but we’re lucky enough to live in an age where a total blackout from one and other is a thing of the past. There are hundreds of free choices you could use to chat to your friends and family such as FaceTime, What’s App, Teams, Zoom, or even Google Hangouts. Video your loved ones on a regular basis to keep your social levels, and your mental well being intact.

Do some home improvements

Finally, with all of this time on your hands that can’t be filled how you normally would, it’s no wonder you’re feeling a bit lackluster! Spend your free time making improvements to your home with a lick of paint here and there, or even an upcycling project to get your teeth into. Not only will it fill your time wisely, but it will help raise your well being and leave you with a fabulous looking home!

For a lot of people, getting into the right workout routine is challenging. Let alone ensure that it is eco-friendly. However, creating an eco-friendly workout routine can be done with less trouble. There are various daily changes that can be made to our workout routine to make sure that we are keeping the earth fit too.

From enjoying the magnificence of the outdoors to working out at home, here are other ways to improve the environment with your exercise:

Cardio Outdoors

Utilizing the right equipment for weight training can be challenging for some people, however, missing your gym sessions for a cardio session can help lower the electricity usage every day. It is completely harmless to power up the treadmill, however, have you considered hitting the pavement to walk, run while enjoying the outdoors?

Additionally, you can consider compound exercises; do a 3-day push-pull routine to target various muscle groups simultaneously. The good news is that you definitely won’t need to power up any gym equipment for that.

Utilize Reusable Water Bottles

Every day, more than 60 million plastic bottles are thrown away in the US, and most of them end up in landfills, waterways, and parks. Picking up a plastic bottle of water or using a disposable cup when in the gym can be very easy. However, did you know that you can significantly reduce your footprint by using reusable water bottles?

Carry a reusable water bottle and refill it anytime you need more fluid. Besides, it is always advisable to have a bottle of water with you always.

Rethink your Trip to the Gym

How do you get to your gym or studio? Do you walk, ride a bike or take public transport? Or do you drive to the gym? Finding alternative ways to the gym can greatly help reduce carbon emissions. You can consider how to lose fat with Coolsculpting fast.  If you can walk or ride a bike to your gym or studio, then you should probably do that.

Reduce your Shopping Footprint

Your diet is a significant part of staying fit. But, it is advisable to be more eco-friendly when shopping to lower the wastage of food. Doing your shopping, while putting the environmental effects in mind is an excellent way to save money.

Consider using reusable shopping bags, and also avoid buying foods packaged in plastic. You can also reduce the amount of food wasted by freezing the leftovers and preparing foods that are close to their expiry dates.

Be Sustainable in Style

Various brands utilize eco-friendly mindful and sustainable manufacturing processes. You can opt for those gears. Additionally, try to clean out your closet. Many companies can recycle your old sneakers.

Instead of disposing of your old sneakers, consider giving them out as donations. Take, for instance, a company like Nike that has reprocessing programs that reuse old shoes and turn them into playground equipment. Besides, you can consider buying old shoes and other gym accessories.

Bottom Line

With the world’s population growing at a fast rate, there is a need to adopt an eco-friendly lifestyle. Being eco-friendly with your workout routine is easy. Add the above tips to your routine and make your workouts better not only for you but also for the environment.

As the recent opioid epidemic has shown, people from all walks of life are susceptible to addiction. The good news is that help has never been more available. There are now even types of therapy that integrate a more eco-friendly ethos. A topic you can read all about below.  

Rehab 

First and foremost, getting into Detox Treatment For Drug Abuse is essential if you want to recover. Indeed, while the other suggestions you will find here and online may help you rebuild your life, getting professional support is one of the most vital and effective things you can do. 

Remember too that it doesn’t matter whether you have been to rehab before, or whether it’s your very first time. What matters is taking things as they are right now, and working day by day towards your goal of being clean. 

Indeed, it is only once you have established your sobriety you can then go on to enrich your life by pursuing your other goals such as working to protect the environment. 

However, it is vital to bear in mind that offering ‘CPR’ to other good causes or people, when you are struggling to breathe yourself, just isn’t sustainable. Instead, you have to choose to put your own well-being first, to get well. 

Hiking

Please, don’t get us wrong here, and mistakenly think that going hiking will cure your addiction, as it is won’t. After all, addiction is a complex physical and psychological issue that requires treatment from trained professionals. Instead, hiking needs to be seen as an adjunct therapy, one of many strategies you use to enhance your life once you have successfully completed rehab. 

The critical benefit of hiking for those that have had issues of addiction is that it encourages them to get out into nature. This means they get access to plenty of fresh air, vitamin D, and can move their body. The great thing about all these actions is that they naturally boost mood, and a better mood can make the struggles of staying clean day to day a lot easier to handle.

Gardening

Another life-enhancing activity that may help former addicts maintain their recovery is taking up gardening. Many of the benefits of getting your hands dirty in the garden are similar to those of hiking such as being out in nature and the fresh air and plenty of vitamin D. 

However, there is one major difference and it’s being able to tend to and grow your own crops. This is something that can be beneficial in several ways, the first is that it can be very emotionally satisfying to grow things from the ground up, and your plant’s growth can be a very visual and poignant reminder of your own progress. 

Secondly, by choosing to grow fruits and vegetables, gardeners will have crops that they can harvest and eat, and a healthy one at that. Something that can further help to support their recovery both physically in terms of diet and psychologically in terms of making healthy choices regarding the things they consume.