upworthy

Maz Ali

Democracy

Where's the freest place in the world? A London think tank has the answer.

The answer was pretty surprising.

via Global Panorama/Flickr

Where's the freest nation in the world?

This article originally appeared on 11.05.15


Which country best represents the "free world"? That was one question at the heart of a report by a London-based think tank.

Each year, the Legatum Institute ranks countries on their Prosperity Index by measuring performance on eight subindices.


Among their most notable findings for 2015 is a new global leader for personal freedom.

They rate countries' personal freedom according to surveys covering tolerance for immigrant and minority communities, civil liberty and free choice, and citizens' satisfaction with their freedom of choice.

study, research, welfare, health

A mapping out of what creates personal freedoms.

Image by the Legatum Institute.

So which country is our new beacon of freedom?

liberty, happiness, Canada, universal rights

Dancing Canada.

assets.rebelmouse.io

That would be Canada.

The Canucks ascended five places since the previous year to take the #1 seat for personal freedom.

They took the top spot because over 92% of survey respondents said they believe Canada is both welcoming to immigrants and "tolerant" of ethnic minorities, and 94% feel they have the freedom to shape their own futures.

Canada ranks sixth overall for prosperity and holds the second highest rank for education. Their lowest score was in the subindex for entrepreneurship and opportunity, which could change under the leadership of Canada's newly-elected prime minister, Justin Trudeau.

Others in the freedom top 10 include New Zealand, Norway, Luxembourg, Iceland, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, and Uruguay.

What about the United States?

It is the self-proclaimed "land of the free."

America, freedom, countries, rights

All-American Benedict Cumberbatch.

Happy Bbc GIF/Giphy

You're not fooling anyone, Cumberbatch.

The U.S. climbed seven spots from its 2014 rank, just barely squeezing into the 90th percentile for personal freedom at #15. And though it remains the world's richest country, it ranks 11th overall for prosperity.

The U.S. was the subject of another one of Legatum's top-line findings for becoming less safe, sliding down three places to #33 for the safety and security subindex.

The world's highest-ranked country for overall prosperity is Norway. But that's old news. The quasi-socialist Scandinavian state has held the post for the last six years.

Today, the maple leaf is a global symbol of freedom.

Let's let it ring to a tune by one of Canada's most iconic sons, Neil Young:

Here are the full 2015 Legatum Institute Prosperity Index rankings:


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Family

A guilt-free, doctor-approved guide to indulging when you need it.

Seriously. Doctor's orders.

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Cigna 2017

Self-care is a term for the things we do for ourselves to manage stress and to maintain or improve our health.

But we're diverse people from all walks of life, so self-care naturally means something different to each of us. In recent years, the self-care conversation has attracted everyone from fitness trainers to spiritual coaches to activists.

But what might an actual health expert have to say about self-care?

Meet Stuart. That's short for Dr. Stuart Lustig, M.D., M.P.H.

Lustig harvests greens from his backyard garden on a sunny day in San Francisco, California. Photo by Maz Ali/Upworthy.

Lustig is a psychiatrist for children and adults and supports doctors all over the country. Self-care, as you might guess, comes up in his work pretty frequently, for all sorts of reasons and for both patients and health care professionals. Over the years, he's stood by one piece of advice when it comes to self-care and stress management: "Have a PLAN for yourself."

PLAN is an acronym representing the most basic components of a sound self-care strategy.

P is for a period of time.

Image via iStock.

"It should be regularly planned time that's yours alone to do what you want with it," he says. On most nights, for example, Lustig knows he can count on at least 30 minutes of relaxation once his kid's tucked in and his wife starts her own self-care rituals.

L is for a location.

Image via iStock.

Think of it as your "happy place." Have a few locations in mind that put you at ease and that are easily accessible and reliably there for you, whether it's your bedroom, your favorite café, your gym or yoga studio, or the nature trail just beyond your fence. One of Lustig's go-to places is his backyard, amid the beauty and abundance of his garden.

A is for an activity.

Lustig also happens to be a beast on the piano. Photo by Maz Ali/Upworthy.

"When we ask people, 'What's your activity?' we'll get responses like, 'brushing my teeth,'" he says. "Sure, that's good hygiene, but it's not long enough, and we kind of have to do that. Or we hear things like, 'going on vacation.' But how often can you do that?" Instead, he says, choose activities you want to do and that you can integrate into your regular schedule. As for Lustig, he finds escape in the intricacies of classical compositions right from his piano bench.

N is for the name of someone you can count on.

Image via iStock.

"For some people, it’s their mother or their best friend. For some, it’s a therapist," Lustig says. The idea is to have that someone who will listen to what you’re going through, empathize with you, and share with you in that moment to help relieve stress.

How will you know if your self-care practices are actually working?

According to Lustig, to commit to better self-care is to acknowledge that you deserve time to yourself, to accept that it's OK to indulge a little — so long as it doesn't engender too much guilt — and to "turn off" the parts of your brain that are overworked.

Image via iStock.

If you're doing self-care well, you'll feel it. Your stress will become more manageable. You'll tackle the tasks and challenges of your day with greater ease. And you may even begin to feel better physically.

"When we’re stressed mentally, we have a lot of physical problems as a result," he says. "We have more headaches, we have more ulcers, we have more back and joint pain, and we go in for all sorts of other things."

Mental stress also triggers behaviors that can make matters worse, like eating more unhealthy foods or retreating into extended periods of inactivity. "As a result, your cholesterol goes up, your blood sugar goes up, and so on," he says.

Cigna's Go. Know. Take Control.℠ preventive health campaign educates people about their four health numbers: blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, and body mass index. Images by Cigna.

Self-care has the potential to make the world a better place — one person, one family, one community at a time.

"When we’re in a good space, we do a better job of communicating and understanding each others' perspectives," Lustig says, channeling his own experience as a husband and father. "When it’s been a long day and we’re exhausted, we are not terribly empathic."

Image via iStock.

"When we feel we have everything we need for ourselves, we’re more generous and willing to share what we have more openly and lovingly," he adds.

He then closed with a final doctorly reminder to take good care: "Get your needs met — your physical needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs, cultural needs, community needs, all of it — and we’ll all be much better off.”

Most Shared

This culinary wonder kid is cooking up something pretty special for his family.

It's not how you'd expect a kid to spend his Saturday morning. But what parent wouldn't love this?

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Quaker Common Threads

When you were a kid, how’d you spend your Saturday mornings?

Watching cartoons?

Obviously. Photo via iStock.

Playing outside?

Bring on the mud! Photo via iStock.

What about cooking? For your entire family.

C'mon ... really?

Cooking may not sound like your typical bag of weekend fun, but 11-year-old Evan Robinson just might convince you otherwise.

Seriously. This kid has skills. Watch and learn:

By teaching kids to cook healthy meals, Common Threads encourages children to make and share meals with their families.

Posted by Upworthy on Tuesday, October 11, 2016

"When I get older, I want to be a chef," Evan proclaims in the video, and it appears he's well on his way.

Even his parents learn new tricks from him, from basics like properly measuring ingredients to tips for creative and healthful cooking.

"Dad, enough with the laser eyes. You're overcooking my frittatas."

How did an 11-year old boy become such a kitchen savant? It all started with an after-school program.

Evan is a student of Common Threads, a nonprofit organization that teaches kids in low-income communities not just why and how to choose healthy foods, but also how to cook them up into beautiful and delicious dishes.

Image via Common Threads, used with permission.

Common Threads is the shared brainchild of celebrity chef Art Smith and artist Jesus Salgueiro, a kind-hearted couple and the adoptive parents of four sibling children who believe that "family and food have the power to nurture and strengthen us, to connect us to culture and community, and to teach and excite us about our world."

Art Smith (left) and Jesus Salgueiro. Image via Art Smith/YouTube.

Common Threads' mission is to create lasting change in people's lives through the art, fun, and utility of cooking.

And as we can see with Evan and his family, it works.

For the 2016-2017 school year, Quaker is partnering with Common Threads to fund its Family Cooking Classes so the whole family can learn about the importance of nutrition while cooking up some fun memories together.

"I am inspired by the unique impact that Common Threads classes make on the children and families who participate," said Becky Frankiewicz, senior vice president and general manager of Quaker Foods North America, "and look forward to empowering even more children to be agents of change for improving family eating habits."

Researchers have found evidence that highlights the importance of connecting food and family.

A 2014 report by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics notes that families that cook and eat together are more likely to eat healthier. But the benefits of family meals actually go beyond dietary health to also strengthen family bonds.

As Angela Ginn, a diet and nutrition expert with the academy, says in the report: "Beyond preparing the meal itself, we sometimes forget that mealtimes offer time to talk, listen and build family relationships."

The Common Threads model is poised to make a huge impact.

More than 23 million people in the U.S. live in food deserts — areas of extreme poverty with limited access to healthy and affordable food options and with higher rates of health problems linked to poor nutrition, such as diabetes and heart disease.

Photo via iStock.

Common Threads is on the front line of a huge social, public health, and even moral crisis. But you know what makes them especially promising?

While they remind us that changing the world starts with training our minds — which, to be sure, requires effort (sometimes in a kitchen) — they also show us it can still be fun.

Family

A musician's decades-long battle with the fear of inheriting his dad's incurable disease.

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Muscular Dystrophy Association

There are certain moments in our lives that are too important not to share with the people we love.

Singer-songwriter Eric Hutchinson is having one of those moments.

Photo by Ralph Arvesen/Flickr.

Hutchinson and his band recently embarked on a tour to promote his new album, which he was proud to have independently produced. They are set to perform in Hutchinson's home state of Maryland at Merriweather Post Pavilion, an over 19,000-seat outdoor amphitheater that has hosted some of the most famed musicians in modern history.

This is one show Hutchinson doesn't want his family to miss. And he's especially excited for his dad to see him on the historic stage. But getting him there requires more than a VIP pass.

Before Hutchinson was big enough to pick up a guitar, his dad was diagnosed with an adult-onset form of muscular dystrophy (MD).

Photo from Eric Hutchinson, used with permission.

In the decades that followed, the disease progressively took away his father's control of his own body.

Though Hutchinson was too young to fully grasp the situation at the time, as his father's condition progressed, a frightening picture came slowly into focus.

"I don’t remember when I first found out about my dad’s disease, but I just knew that something was different," he said. "But the older I got, the more I understood, and the more I worried."

Then, in college, he learned more about MD that gave him concern for his own future.

Most muscular dystrophies are genetic. Hutchinson had a 50% chance of inheriting the gene flaw that caused his father’s MD.

"When am I going to wake up and feel something?" he wondered. "When my hands were tired, I worried that they were symptoms."

And as his creative interests became a full-time music career, he had a hard time facing the possibility that it could be taken away so prematurely.


"I’m a musician, and I rely on my hands to perform," he said. "So it wasn't just, 'Am I going to lose the ability to handle my day-to-day.' It was also, 'Am I going to lose the ability to do my job?'"

As his motor skills deteriorated, Hutchinson’s father had to let go of a lot of his passions. But he never stopped challenging himself.

“To my dad's amazing credit, he was always trying to do as much as possible and not allow it to limit him,” said Hutchinson.

Photo from Eric Hutchinson, used with permission.

When it would have been easy to withdraw, his dad went headfirst into parts unknown. MD made his woodworking difficult and dangerous, but he could still use a computer. So he earned a master’s degree and started a new career in web design.

Though he could no longer hold a guitar chord, he still had a voice, so he joined his synagogue choir. And, says Hutchinson, he walked for as long as his body would allow, falling often, but getting up just as many times.

While his father’s illness started as a fearful shadow to run from, his chosen life gave Hutchinson the courage to get tested.

In the winter of 2015, the day before he began recording his new album, Hutchinson met with a neurologist to give blood samples for the test. In a matter of weeks, he’d finally have the answer he’d been avoiding.

“I found my mind drifting while recording,” Hutchinson wrote in a personal essay once his work in the studio was done. “The sessions were colored by the anxiety that at any moment the doctor could be calling with results that could change my life.”

But, like his father, he chose to persevere. “I put one foot in front of the other, channeled the emotion into the songs, and kept talking to my therapist who helped me navigate it all. Slowly, I got stronger.”

Photo from Eric Hutchinson, used with permission.

Two days after he finished recording his album, he got a call from his doctor. Hutchinson tested negative for the genetic mutation for MD. But what he thought would be some of the most relieving news of his life turned out to be more bittersweet.

"I expected to have this celebratory, washing over me with elation. Of course it was a relief, but MD was still a part of my family, so I had a lot of complicated feelings around it."

For Hutchinson, an end to his fear of MD marked the beginning of a new mission to support the MD community. He's starting by simply talking about the disease.

This is something new for him, as his family tended to avoid open conversation about MD.

"It was like a secret I had to keep, which felt very isolating. So I’m proud of the fact that we’re having this conversation right now," he said. "Being able to talk about it takes away some of the fear. I can look at it more clinically and understand it for what it is."

And with his upcoming tour, he’s inviting his fans into the conversation through his music and a heartfelt open letter that speaks to his personal journey.

Photo by Ralph Arvesen/Flickr.

Hutchinson joins a long list of entertainers in that effort, dating back to 1951 with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin’s first televised appeal for viewers to support the Muscular Dystrophy Association on “The Colgate Comedy Hour.”

While a cure is yet to be discovered, MD research has led to potentially game-changing developments.

Among them are advancements in physical therapy, experimental drugs that could help control MD symptoms and gene editing using revolutionary CRISPR technology.

Image by Ernesto del Aguila III, NHGRI/Wikimedia Commons.

We can see the value of all that work in recent stories like those of 18-year-old Latondra Chappell, a teen with MD who worked hard in physical therapy to get out of her wheelchair and walk the stage at graduation; 23-year-old Jon Piacentino, an aspiring scientist who has benefited hugely from experimental MD drug treatment; and 14-year-old Devin Argall, who’s participating in an MD drug clinical trial and was named a "goodwill ambassador" in the state of Wisconsin for his advocacy.

For the first time in years, Hutchinson feels he's on the right emotional bearing, and he wants to spread good along the way.

Connecting with people through music is one way he wants to do that. And if he ever veers off course, he knows just where to look to get back on track:

"I reflect on my dad. I got to see his resolve and endless determination up close. He fell, but he got up. Now I fall, but I get up."

As for the big show in Maryland, Hutchinson and his manager were making door-to-door arrangements and ensuring there was wheelchair access every step of the way.

Because beyond his son's music success, hearing his newfound voice on MD — and on such a massive stage — would be too proud a moment for Hutchinson's dad to miss.

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