Make Saturday a Red Kettle Day!

Omaha’s Salvation Army has scheduled a 5K Run/Walk for 9 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 25 at Zorinsky Lake. Join in the fun for a good cause. The run helps stock pantry shelves during a time of overwhelming need.

RedKettleLogoNo pre-registration is required, but if you want to save time the day of the run, you can get more information at www.redkettlerunomaha.org or send an e-mail to RedKettleRunOmaha@gmail.org for additional participation information.

There are some great prizes, including an Apple iPad mini 16GB, Creighton Men’s and Women’s season basketball tickets, Men’s season baseball tickets and more. Dino’s Storage will be handing out water bottles to the first 300 finishers.

The entry fee is just 10 non-perishable food items or $10 for The Salvation Army pantry. The run location is at the 156th & F Street entrance to Zorinsky Lake.

Think Again: You’re Not Good at Multitasking

You might want to rethink texting while trying to hold a conversation. Multitasking actually makes you less productive than doing one thing at a time, and may even damage your brain, according to a study conducted by Stanford University researchers. Forbes.com recently highlighted a series of research studies that show multitasking is not a skill to boast about.

In the Stanford University study, research participants who regularly multitasked and were bombarded with several sources of electronic information failed to pay attention, recall information or switch from one job to another as well as those who just focused on one task at a time. Those who tend to be “heavy multitaskers” – who do it a lot and believe it helps their performance – were found to pay the biggest price.

multitask“They’re suckers for irrelevancy,” says Clifford Nass, one of the researchers and a communication professor at Stanford. “Everything distracts them.”

Indeed, researchers found that “heavy multitaskers” tend to struggle more at organizing their thoughts, filtering out irrelevant information and are slower at switching from one task to another.

Besides just slowing you down, multitasking has also been linked with lower IQs. In a separate study conducted by researchers at the University of London, researchers found that those who multitask during cognitive tasks had IQ scores similar to what you’d expect if they had smoked marijuana or didn’t get any sleep the night before. In fact, multitasking men were found to have IQ drops of 15 points, which put many in the average range of an 8-year-old child.

Some researchers using MRI scans even suggest that multitasking on multiple devices – like texting while watching TV – can damage your brain, although more research is needed to confirm. Researchers at the University of Sussex in the UK found that high multitaskers had less brain density in the anterior cingulate cortex, an area of the brain responsible for empathy and cognitive and emotional control.

“I feel that it is important to create an awareness that the way we are interacting with the devices might be changing the way we think and these changes might be occurring at the level of brain structure,” says Kep Kee Loh, a neuroscientist and the study’s lead author.

Kermit Got It Wrong – It IS Easy To Be Green

You need not wait for St. Patrick’s Day, nor fear that “they’re hanging men and women there for Wearing of the Green”. And you can disregard Kermit the Frog’s advice that “it isn’t easy being green”.

greenshadesThis fall and into the coming winter, the color is definitely green.

For your pumps, your tops, your car, your furniture. For your walls, your handbag, your sweaters. For your coats, your boots, your jewelry. For your furniture, accessories, cars and interior paint. Green is the in color.

And you can use any green you like from linden to wheatgrass, from kale to emerald, from forest to lime. And put extra emphasis on emerald.

Black is no longer the be all, wear all. Couple your greens with a splash of gold, milky white, pastels and even orange. You are also in style with reds, plums, bright blues, purple and fuchsia. Grey and black and white combos also are in vogue.