<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" Swine flu, recession, health care reform\u2014it&amp;#039;s enough to make you feel off-kilter. To counteract the negative vibes and regain balance, look for what you can control, says MJ Ryan, author of AdaptAbility. You can&amp;#039;t fix the economy, but you can change\u2026   1. How You Look Sound frivolous? Then consider this: A small update in your appearance can go far beyond skin deep. &amp;quot;Making one change enables you to see the possibility for more significant change in other areas of your life,&amp;quot; points out Ryan. And it gives you the confidence to go after it, no matter what life throws your way. So go ahead\u2014cut your hair, try a bold new shade of lipstick, buy the sexy dress you&amp;#039;ve been eyeing. That one little action just may lead you to bolder moves.   2. Your Daily Environment If each day feels like the same old grind, it&amp;#039;s time to sweat the small stuff. &amp;quot;Probably 80 percent of what we do every day is routine,&amp;quot; says Mark Stibich, PhD, longevity expert at About.com. Before you know it, you&amp;#039;re stuck in a rut\u2014not just in what you do, but what you see, the things you use. &amp;quot;So choose something you spend a lot of time doing daily, and give yourself an upgrade,&amp;quot; says Dr. Stibich. Even a small improvement can have a big payback. Always in the kitchen prepping meals? Invest in a chefquality knife. Have a long drive to work? Listen to audio versions of juicy beach reads you never got around to last summer. Soon, something that&amp;#039;s ho-hum becomes more enjoyable.   Conversely, Dr. Stibich also suggests periodically going on a &amp;quot;negative energy scavenger hunt&amp;quot; to eliminate something that brings you down. &amp;quot;Start at your front door and pay close attention to what makes you frown as you walk in,&amp;quot; he says. Is it the weed growing in your walkway that you haven&amp;#039;t stopped to pull? The pile of mail on the counter that never seems to completely disappear? Zeroing in on an item that trashes your mood\u2014and getting rid of it\u2014gives your spirits and surrounding environment an instant lift, says Dr. Stibich.   3. Your Outlook Here&amp;#039;s something neuroscientists know: Our thought patterns create neural pathways in our brains. Like making a trail in the woods, the more often you walk the same path, the easier it becomes to go that way. The good news, says Ryan, is that you can train your brain to think positively.   If you listen closely, she says, you&amp;#039;ll notice a tape playing in your head, and often the message it sends is negative. Say your company is awash in layoffs. Your inner voice may be telling you that you&amp;#039;re next. When those gloomand- doom tapes start playing, it&amp;#039;s time to push the reset button. &amp;quot;Change the message to an optimistic yet believable one,&amp;quot; says Ryan, like I probably won&amp;#039;t get laid off, because I do a great job. But if I do, I can take my skills to another company. Repeatedly switching negative thoughts for positive ones creates new pathways in the brain that become your natural, go-to way of thinking. The result: a happier attitude and increased opportunities.   4. Your Shade of Green You can&amp;#039;t singlehandedly stop carbon emissions, but did you ever think about what one green choice can do? Small changes can make a big impact: If just 1 in 5 households switched to online bills, statements and payments, it would save 151 million pounds of paper and 8.6 million bags of garbage. If a family of four opted for reusable sandwich containers when brown-bagging lunch, it would mean 1,040 fewer plastic bags in landfills this year. Simply fixing that persistently leaky sink, toilet or showerhead can save tens of gallons of wasted water a day. So ask yourself, What one thing can I do? Now do it.   5. The Odds a Life Will Be Saved It&amp;#039;s easy to do: Just give blood. The Red Cross reports that one donation can save up to three lives. Another way to potentially save lives? Register to be a bone marrow donor at BeTheMatch.org/Join. Every year, life-threatening diseases such as leukemia or lymphoma affect more than 10,000 Americans, and their best or only hope of a cure is a transplant from an unrelated donor. Currently, 1 in 200 people who register actually get to donate, but the more people who sign up to be donors, the more chances for a match.   6. Your Daily Dose of Peace The search for serenity shouldn&amp;#039;t be a &amp;quot;sometimes&amp;quot; affair, says Marianne Williamson, author of A Return to Love. &amp;quot;Just as you wouldn&amp;#039;t leave the house without taking a shower, you shouldn&amp;#039;t start the day without at least 10 minutes of sacred practice: prayer, meditation, inspirational reading.&amp;quot; First thing in the morning is the best time. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s when the mind is the most open,&amp;quot; explains Williamson. &amp;quot;If you flip on the news and immediately put the fear-based thinking of the world into your mind, you&amp;#039;ll be depressed by lunchtime!&amp;quot; Starting with a daily dose of peaceful practices will set a much better tone for your day.   If you already have a daily spiritual ritual firmly in place, Karen Barber, founder of PersonalPrayerPower.com, suggests freshening up what you do with a change of scenery. If you normally meditate inside, go outdoors. &amp;quot;When you&amp;#039;re outside looking up at the sky, you see something bigger than yourself,&amp;quot; says Barber. &amp;quot;It gives you a different viewpoint.&amp;quot;   7. How You Spend Your Time Texting, e-mails, Facebook, TV\u2014so many mediums clamor for your attention it&amp;#039;s little wonder that you often feel overwhelmed. The first step to changing it is to turn down the noise, says Stephen R. Covey, PhD, author of Great Work, Great Career. Choose to watch less television. Don&amp;#039;t feel compelled to open every e-mail the minute you get it.   Once you&amp;#039;ve cut back on the technology stream taking over your life, make some deliberate choices about what is really important to you, says Dr. Covey, whether it&amp;#039;s eating family meals together, finding more time for yourself\u2014whatever will make you happier. &amp;quot;Then write it down, because writing bridges the subconscious and the conscious,&amp;quot; he says. In other words, when you put it on paper, what you think comes that much closer to being what you do. &amp;quot;Clearly defining your &amp;#039;yesses&amp;#039; makes it relatively easy to say no to what&amp;#039;s not important,&amp;quot; Dr. Covey says.   8. Your Charitable Contributions Make giving a habit\u2014even if it&amp;#039;s just a few bucks. It&amp;#039;s not how much that matters, but how often. &amp;quot;In these tough economic times, you may think the best thing to do is tighten your belt and not share, but the opposite is true,&amp;quot; says Jonni McCoy, author of Miserly Moms and founder of MiserlyMoms.com. Giving can actually increase your bottom line. How? You get a better perspective on what you already have, which leads to a greater sense of contentment and less spending, says McCoy. &amp;quot;Giving is the magic bullet that quiets our own insatiable desires.&amp;quot; Better still, helping others leads to a feeling of community, a sense that &amp;quot;we&amp;#039;re all in this together,&amp;quot; says McCoy. If you want to donate some of your time as well, check out &amp;quot;The Perfect Fit&amp;quot; (below).   9. Your Age OK, so maybe you can&amp;#039;t change your chronological age, but you can change your biological one. At RealAge.com, the brainchild of Michael Roizen, MD, you can take an online test that calculates the age your body thinks it is (your &amp;quot;real age&amp;quot;) based on how well or how poorly you treat it, which may turn out to be lower or higher than your actual age in years.   Fortunately, if you have the body of a 60-year-old even though you&amp;#039;re only 45, you can still reverse the damage. &amp;quot;Your body is truly amazing in that respect,&amp;quot; says Dr. Roizen. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s much simpler and quicker than you think to recover from bad habits.&amp;quot; For example, if you smoke, he says, stopping for two months adds one year back to your biological age; five months nets you two years, and so on.   10. The People You Meet  Next time you see someone in the neighborhood whom you&amp;#039;ve never spoken to before, stop and say hello. Bringing new people into your life, even if they don&amp;#039;t become your BFFs, leads you to new experiences and new ideas. And that&amp;#039;s invigorating. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s also like good insurance,&amp;quot; says Ryan. &amp;quot;You never know who might be a help to you in the future.&amp;quot; Switch up your routine\u2014run your weekly errands on Friday instead of Saturday, or sign up for a class at the Y\u2014to see some new faces. Then enjoy the journey, wherever it leads! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/a4505/10-things-you-can-change-right-now-101421/?src=shelter_footer>