The reaction to this series by women of all ages via social media has been really amazing. When EcoSalon introduced it two weeks ago, launching with Americana Couture designer and author Natalie Chanin, fashion writer and textile artist Abigail Doan, Owyn Ruck of Brooklyn’s Textile Arts Center as well as occupational therapist and FiftyRX3 writer Jill Danyelle, many people either wrote to us at the site or commented via Twitter and Facebook. Among some of the reactions, the series is being used as reading material for knitting groups; while others have expressed that without the ability to sit quietly and use their hands, they’d need to jump back on anxiety medications.

Maybe there’s something to all this handiwork?

How it all began: When I came across this blog entry from sustainable designer and writer Natalie Chanin, it not only piqued my perception of the positive effects of “women’s work,” but it brought to light a real aspect of how using our hands to do meaningful tasks can benefit our overall health and well being.

Chanin cites neuroscientist Kelly Lambert, author of Lifting Depression:

“Lambert shows how when you knit a sweater or plant a garden, when you prepare a meal or simply repair a lamp, you are bathing your brain in feel-good chemicals and creating a kind of mental vitamin. Our grandparents and great grandparents, who had to work hard for basic resources, developed more resilience against depression; even those who suffered great hardships had much lower rates of this mood disorder. But with today’s overly-mechanized lifestyle, we have forgotten that our brains crave the well-being that comes from meaningful effort.”

With the sustainable stretching out of the fashion movement, there’s been a serious harking back to the glory of heritage and craft and designers with good ears are listening. And well they should with generations strong of everything from indigenous artisans to Depression Era stitchers coming out of the woodwork to teach, inspire and pass on before the knowledge is lost. Designers are listening and incorporating these aged techniques and making them fresh, new and revolutionary.

A designer with those aforementioned “good ears,” is the last member of our series. Titania Inglis designs a line of minimalist-inspired clothing made of experimental constructions and functional details. Her third collection “References vintage glamor via geometric forms created through bias cuts, origami pleating, and ingenious seaming. A sleeveless dress reverses from a prim suit dress to a low-backed mod frock, while diagonal-seamed dresses approach the ideal of zero waste.”

Titania Inglis in her studio

Inglis lives and designs and rides her vintage bicycle everywhere in Brooklyn, and chronicles her adventures and misadventures in the fashion world on her blog, Fade to Green.

Regarding the importance of using her own hands to design, to communicate and ultimately, to achieve sharp mental clarity, she has much to say.

“A lot of people outside the fashion industry don’t seem to realize that all clothes are made by hand, to varying degrees. Yet from the initial sketches, to selecting fabrics, to draping and cutting and sewing and fitting a garment, every step requires the human touch. Sewing machines don’t run themselves, as anyone who’s ever tried to use one can attest!

It was the hands-on nature of clothing design that drew me to it, for reasons I couldn’t fully articulate as a young woman. I set out to become a graphic designer, but within weeks of starting design school, I realized that I found infinitely more satisfaction in creating a physical object with my hands. Fabric, with its drape and heft and texture, and clothing, so intimately interacting with the human body, were perfectly tactile, and perfect for hands-on work.”

Swatches from dye tests for the Titania Inglis collection

The designer continues: “For me, design begins with the materials. I drape most of my pieces by hand as a way to explore what the fabric wants to do, what directions it wants to go and what shapes it can make. In my designs, every seam needs to justify its existence, every cut in the fabric serves a specific purpose, and I find my way there by hand, by draping and pinning and snipping and marking each pattern piece, one at a time until I have a complete garment.”

Inglis says there is rich satisfaction in every step of the process: “When I’ve successfully draped a piece so it sits just so, when a pattern is beautiful in and of itself, and finally in seeing the finished piece and how it moves on the body. I often go through three or four muslins per piece, pinning and re-fitting and sometimes re-draping an entire garment until I’m satisfied that everything is right with it: the fit, the proportion, the details.”

Titania Inglis’ Studio

One showroom rep commented recently told Inglis her line was “so simple and yet so complex.” Reflecting upon this, Inglis observes, “I think that’s a reflection of the work I put into refining each piece. My work process is almost meditative; I come into my studio, prepare myself a steaming mug of green tea, cut off a length of fresh muslin, and I’m ready to go, completely cut off from the world outside. When I really get going, I can work for hours on a piece, late into the night, snipping through the fabric and feeding lengths of fabric into the eager sewing machine to create a muslin, then fitting and pinning and re-working it until it’s perfect.

I love clothing design for its communicative and aesthetic possibilities, but also very much for the craft of it. Many designers prefer to simply hand off sketches to a pattern maker, but for me, the process is the design. It feels a bit pompous to talk about the integrity of the piece and purity of form, but those are qualities I strive for, and I really can only get there with my own two hands.”

Image: supersonicphotos

Women have innately basked their brains in feel good juices since time immemorial to get through tight economic and emotional times. Though dovetailed as woman’s work and not really discussed, for centuries women have enjoyed the calming properties of knitting, sewing, embroidering or even just rhythmically folding or ironing clothes.

When I came across this blog entry from sustainable designer and writer Natalie Chanin, it not only piqued my perception of the positive effects of “women’s work,” but it brought to light a real aspect of how using our hands to do meaningful tasks can benefit our overall health and well being.

Chanin cites neuroscientist Kelly Lambert, author of Lifting Depression:

“Lambert shows how when you knit a sweater or plant a garden, when you prepare a meal or simply repair a lamp, you are bathing your brain in feel-good chemicals and creating a kind of mental vitamin. Our grandparents and great grandparents, who had to work hard for basic resources, developed more resilience against depression; even those who suffered great hardships had much lower rates of this mood disorder. But with today’s overly-mechanized lifestyle we have forgotten that our brains crave the well-being that comes from meaningful effort.”

I asked Chanin myself, with all the women working for her, has she ever heard a remark about how working with their hands helped get them through hardships or that their disposition changed the moment they picked up needle and thread?

“We have had several stitchers remark that they just don’t ‘feel good’ when they don’t have a project to work on. I remarked in Alabama Stitch Book that I sometimes use sewing when I have a difficult decision to make or when I need to brainstorm and find ideas,” says Chanin.

So does the physical act of using your hands to “make,” increase some sort of chemical reaction that basks your brain in feel good, all-natural cocktails that can enhance your sense of well being?

I caught up with a few reliable sources to see what they thought about it.

Abigail Doan, Ecco Eco Founder and Textile Artist

I have always linked crafting with one’s hands to agricultural activities. Having grown up on a small family farm, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with the soil, build fences, spin wool, and learn a variety of fiber-crafting skills. My mother was a self-taught hand spinner, and there is no doubt that the activities that we performed as a hands-on household curbed depression and day-to-day boredom.

I believe that people are currently drawn to these activities as they allow one to feel environmentally grounded and connected to a place, despite all of the uncertainty that presently surrounds us. Understanding the start-to-finish process of any craft-based activity mirrors life cycles and the rhythms of nature. For urban dwellers specifically, this is a great way to stave off the depression that comes from prolonged anxiety and a lack of centeredness. Keeping one’s hands moving also mimics activities like plowing, raking, weeding, or milking. We can lose ourselves in the patterns and textures created, and this for me is extremely therapeutic and restorative. It creates a one-to-one relationship that makes everything else simply fade away. It’s a healthy sort of addiction that replaces other forms of disease.

Jill Danyelle, Occupational Therapist and Founder of FiftyRX3

We are typically more motivated to engage in an activity that has some meaning, enjoyment, or purpose.

As a therapist, I work with children and tend to accomplish a lot under the guise of play, but I am also responsible for handwriting, which is often a dreaded task for my clients. I find the kids are most motivated to write if they can also draw and color pictures and tell a story. This year, I have had two boys collaborate on writing a story, which has motivated them to practice writing for the last two months, as they were excited to add a new phase to the story every session. We just ended it – although they keep trying to add more and more details – and now they are finishing all of the illustrations. They have a real sense of pride about the work, which I am going to publish in book form so they can share it with friends and family.

On the other end of the age spectrum, years ago I worked in a geriatric rehab facility every other Saturday. The clients were not motivated to do rote exercise, so I had to disguise it in activities. I would take all the neatly folded towels that were delivered from laundry and dump them in a pile on the table. Then I’d get two or three clients around the table and ask them to stand up and help me fold the towels. In the process they would start making small talk, so they were socializing, working on standing balance, bilateral coordination, upper extremity strengthening, etc.

In one of my internships with an Adult Mental Health Day Treatment program, I ran several groups including a kind of “talk therapy” group and a crafts group. Interestingly, nobody said too much in the “talk” group, but when they were busy crafting I think they felt less pressured and all sorts of things would come out.

Image: Mr T in DC

I’ve just discovered this satellite radio channel called 1st Wave. It plays alternative ’80s rock that’s mined right out of my undergrad years. The Cure, REM, The Smiths, Pretenders, The Clash. I guess it’s kind of like my oldies station. (I can’t believe I even have an oldies station.) I drive around listening to this stuff and the memories pour in. Not just where or when I heard a song (read: what party, with whom and how wasted), but deeply visceral sensations, echoes of entire swaths of time and their accompanying gestalts - i.e., that summer of love or that winter of discontent. It’s about memories, yes, but it’s more than that. These songs actually reproduce a mood. It’s an odd sensation that I’ve chalked up to some kind of clinical nostalgia.

But maybe not. My editor just sent me this story from the BBC: “Study to develop ‘musical prescriptions’ for patients.”

Turns out these scientists at Glasgow Caledonian University are using a “mixture of psychology and audio engineering” to see how music can elicit specific responses. The plan is to analyze everything from tone, to pitch, to lyrics and even “associated thoughts” to accurately chart listeners responses and perhaps one day create music regimens that can take care of emotional needs. The potential here is to write music prescriptions to “help those suffering physical pain or conditions like depression.”

It isn’t any secret that our environment affects our moods. And if you pollute your ears, your mind will surly follow (sorry). So, in some ways there’s a No Sh*t Sherlock factor to this story. The BBC itself reported not too long ago stories such as “Music therapy ‘restores vision‘” and “‘Music helped me recover from stroke.’” Of course, too, there’s the Washington Post reporting  just last month that “single French women were more likely to accept the advances of an average-looking man after listening to a romantic song.” And not to put too fine a point on it, there was another nifty story just the other day called “Five ways to have better sex through music.” Indeed.

The goal of the study is to “develop a mathematical model that explains music’s ability to communicate different emotions.” In the future, computer programs might be able to identify very specific sound packages that will have very specific effects on our states of mind.

“Music expresses emotion as a result of many factors,” says Audio engineer Dr Don Knox, who is leading the study. “These include the tone, structure and other technical characteristics of a piece. Lyrics can have a big impact too.” Indeed, the BBC story points out, some online music stores and services use terms like “happy” and “sad” to describe a piece of music objectively, like musicovery. Of course, memories also play a role, and our subjective perceptions also factor into a response.

What form could an Rx take? Of course, there would be the free prescription that costs a couple hundred an hour. “Listen to this and call me in the morning.” But programming presentation descriptors – think iTunes happy section or Pandora mellow music – could soon have a real scientific basis to them. Mood Music. No, really.

Next time you’re jamming to some tune, your mood swaying to and fro along with the rest of you, know that somebody’s looking into it. And who knows, maybe one day Pfizer will wonder why sales are slumping and there’s dancing in the streets. Maybe The Cure were, in fact “¦

Image: flattop341

Wanna be happy and kick Prozac to the curb? Start eating your fruits and vegetables, nuts, whole grains, beans, fish and olive oil. We’ve long known that a Mediterranean diet is good for the heart, but it turns out it’s also good for the mood.

In a study published earlier this month, Spanish researchers looked at the diets of 10,000 people and found those who mainly ate a Mediterranean diet had lower depression rates than those who did not. The study compiled data from Spanish people who reported their dietary intake on a questionnaire between 1999 and 2005.

After an average follow-up of 4.4 years, the overall incidence of depression for those who followed the diet was 30 percent lower than for those who mostly did not follow the diet. Even lower rates of depression were associated with intake of specific elements of the Mediterranean diet, such as fruits, vegetables and olive oil.

To be sure, specific foods contain components that make your body, nervous system and brain work better. From the dopamine in chocolate to the serotonin producing carbohydrates, to the healthy fats and antioxidants that can boost brainpower, there’s definitely something physiological going on here.

I’d like to see a study that includes sociological-cultural controls because I think there’s something else going on here as well.

Notice that all the foods listed are whole foods, meaning they require cooking and preparation. So the people in the study who followed the Mediterranean diet and experienced less depression were probably cooking.

If people take the time and energy to cook, it usually means they place some importance on cooking for others, sitting down in groups to eat and generally having unhurried, quality contact with friends and loved ones.

Of course, you can eat a Mediterranean meal in a restaurant, but you’d have to be frequenting restaurants that actually cook real food. These are the types of restaurants people go to with others to enjoy life and socialize. There it is again – human interaction over a meal.

What you cannot do is follow a Mediterranean diet eating fast food, eating in your car or heating up processed food in the microwave and scarfing it down in front of the television or computer. These eating behaviors are often engaged in while alone, when rushed or when stressed.

What I’m getting at is this:

The way you eat and how much you enjoy mealtimes might have just as much to do with mood as what you eat.

Whether or not depression causes social isolation, or vice versa, there is a strong correlation between the two.

One study showed that children who have regular family mealtimes are less likely to get in trouble as teens. Troubled teens are often depressed. Another researcher found that family mealtimes strengthen relationships. People with strong relationships are less likely to be depressed.

So here’s my Rx for depression prevention:

Invite some good friends or family members into the kitchen and prepare a meal of healthy, whole foods from scratch and then sit down and eat it together. Enjoy the following recipe with a moderate glass of red wine and some fresh, seasonal fruit for dessert and you should feel better by morning.

Depression Busting Mediterranean Grain Bowl

Serves 6

4 small to medium beets
1/2 cup (about 2 ounces) walnut halves, coarsely chopped
1 cup brown rice
Salt
1 bunch Lacinato or green or red kale
1 can sardines, drained, skin and bones removed and separated into filets
2/3 cup cooked and drained (or canned) chickpeas
2/3 cup homemade vinaigrette made with olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Trim the beets and wrap them in 1 or 2 foil packets, depending on their size, keeping like-sized beets with like-sized beets. Roast until tender and fragrant, 35 to 40 minutes. Use a small paring knife or skewer to check for doneness. Set the beets aside to steam in their foil packets. When they are cool enough to handle, peel them by rubbing the skins off with your fingertips, and cut the beets into bite-sized wedges.

Lower the oven to 300 degrees F.

Arrange the walnuts in a single layer in a small baking dish. Toast until brown and fragrant, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool.

While the beets are roasting and the walnuts are toasting, cook the rice according to package instructions. Set aside until you are ready to mix the salad.

Meanwhile, trim, stem, and wash the kale and put it in a vegetable steamer set over boiling water. Steam until tender, wilted, but still bright green, about 5 minutes. Remove immediately to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Drain and squeeze out excess moisture. Chop coarsely and set aside.

When all the rice, beets, walnuts and greens are ready, transfer them to a large bowl. Add the chickpeas and dressing and toss thoroughly. Taste and correct the seasoning with salt and pepper. Present each serving with a filet or two of sardines on top.

Image: ToastyKen

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Shop till You Drop, a dead end job mystery is a humorous detective novel about a woman who uncovers crimes while employed at an ultra-exclusive boutique in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. But there is much truth to the title of this fiction. It is also the real-life saga of more and more women during the recession.

Conspicuous consumption seems to be the remedy for what ails many money-strapped UK women, as found in a new survey by researchers at the University of Hertfordshire.

Some 700 women were asked about their emotional responses to their grim financial situations and almost half reported they were pretty darn scared. Nealy 80% said they were so concerned about their bank accounts, they would be making cutbacks on spending.

Yet 79% also confessed they would go the material girl route to cheer themselves up – splurging on clothes and other items to release those endorphins. Hey, chocolate only goes so far.

The survey results, published by Life Science, also found 40 percent of the women cited depression as an excuse to overspend, while 60 percent claimed “feeling a bit low” was a good enough reason.

Karen Pine, Professor University of Hertfordshire

“This type of spending, or compensatory consumption, serves as a way of regulating intense emotions,” observes Karen Pine, Aussie professor and author of  Sheeconomics (Headline Publishing Group, 2009).

Pine likens the splurge mentality to an addiction such as drug dependency in which people self-medicate, but instead of drugs, the high is retail therapy: a new dress, eye shadow and a few pairs of summer sandals. Ironically, it all adds up to more credit card debt and feeling even worse after from pangs of guilt.

“If shopping is an emotional habit for women, they may feel the need to keep spending despite the economic downturn,” figures Pine. “Or, perhaps worse still, if they can’t spend we might see an increase in mental health problems such as anxiety and depression.”

I guess it’s true. The shopping avenue has always served as a huge distraction for me, something that allows me to flex my creative eye, even if the wallet is not quite as limber. In fact, one of my favorite haunts is Retail Therapy, a designer outlet in San Francisco. I’m guaranteed to get my fix there when my bank book gets me down.

Who says affluenza ceases just because your portfolio goes south?

Apparently, women are not the only victims of the shopping addiction during hard times. A 2006 study by the Stanford University School of Medicine found 5.5 percent of men label themselves compulsive buyers.

So what is the cure for the cure?

In the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic, the compulsive shopper finds relief by attending a self-help group and purging her stuff. Maybe that also works in the real world. There sure would be a lot of takers among the most serious victims of the recession, those struggling just to buy food.

2008 Robert Zuckerman / Walt Disney Pictures

In an idyllic world, you could file your stress along with completed assignments when the clock strikes five. In reality, it tends to follow you home after a taxing day at work. If throwing on a pair of cozy pajamas and sinking into your sofa with a good book just isn’t enough to rid your mind of worries, try aromatherapy. This fragrant method of therapy can alleviate much more than just anxiety:

If humdrum routines have faded your passion into apathy, take a bath enhanced with peppermint essential oil to awaken your zest for life.

We all feel out of touch with the world sometimes, so combat those occasional sentiments of loneliness by mixing a little marjoram essential oil into your body lotion.

Have minor disputes caused you to fly off the handle lately? Well, you don’t need a counseling session to abate your heightened sense of irritability. Just burn some lavender incense and let the calm wash over you.

Whenever you’re feeling blue, add several drops of neroli essential oil to a bowl filled with steaming water, cover your head with a towel and inhale this uplifting scent.

You’re always up to speed on the latest trends, but scanning through all those fashion magazines is hardly a ticket for high self-esteem. Light a sandalwood essential oil soy candle and show your insecurities (and the magazine) the recycling bin.

Interested in around-the-clock relief? Make your own essential oil perfume with these aromas and soothe these emotions all day long.

Image: estrilda