Thanks to all who are blogging during the launch of Navigate This! We have a few weeks to go and a lot of amazing resources for any young person who is interested in learning more about how to serve as a health resource for their community. If you are in Ontario, Canada, check out the rules and guidelines for our contest and consider entering! We have a great group of prizes, but more importantly, we want your ideas and to see your creativity.

Check Monica and Andrea's posts below for more information or visit NavigateThis.org .

So here it is: Navigate This!

After almost a year -- a year!! - of hard work and development, the Youth Voices Research Group, working with the PHI Group and a whole team of community partners and some truly amazing young leaders are ready to celebrate the launch of a toolkit aimed at helping youth anywhere -- but particularly our friends in Ontario, Canada -- navigate their peers, family and communities through the health system.

Navigate This! gives Ontario TiG members and any of their friends a chance to tell a story about how they might use navigation to support health promotion in their community. Over the next few weeks, we'll be bringing on board a panel of remarkable judges who will be looking at the work of youth -- that's you -- that reflects artistic, writtten, or actionable content ideas for how they might navigate the health system.

We're also looking for your ideas on how to take the idea of youth-led navigation into new places and keep it sustainable. How might young people turn their skills at navigation into a job opportunity? a new business? or something else to support their community and themselves?

The next six weeks is a huge celebration and we hope you'll join us in Navigating This! Watch this space, comment, blog and contribute your ideas to http://www.navigatethis.org starting next week!

Here in Southern Ontario, we are expected to get hit with a huge snowstorm that may end up cancelling classes and closing places of work. What a great time to take advantage of the slower pace that this affords and do something that is a little different in terms of health: be quiet.

So much of health and health promotion is tied to "doing" something: eating better, exercising, going places. But there is a lot of evidence that wellness is promoted by also doing a lot less. Sleep (for example) is about not doing something and there is a lot of evidence that says we need to sleep more - about 7-8 hours is optimal - rather than less. Getting between 3-5 hours of sleep is actually quite harmful.

There is also a lot of research that looks at the concept of mindfulness and health and how meditation (the act of simply quieting the mind and attending to thoughts -- it need not be tied to any particular religious perspective) helps hypertension, stress, and improves mental dexterity.

So if you're sitting at home wondering what to do today, maybe tuning out for a little and enjoying the quiet is a healthy option.

Happy 2011 to all of the Y4H team and our TiG community. It is the time of year when most of us take a little time out to reflect on what happened the year behind us and look forward to what the new year is bringing ahead of us. For many, this means creating New Year's Resolutions, those promises and commitments to the world for change.

This might mean eating better and exercising (particularly after a season where we eat a little more and exercise a little less), devoting more time to friends and family, maybe being a little more devout in our faith or committed to our community -- lots of really good things.

The problem with New Years Resolutions is that they put a LOT on us to be better RIGHT NOW. While that is possible, it isn't always reasonable or fair to expect such massive change so quickly. As it turns out, its also not that healthy. Our lives are what could be called a complex system, which means that there are a lot of factors influencing us every day and they mix and match with our activities in ways that are different each day.

Think about studying for an exam or going to work. Despite everything being pretty much the same, you have good days and bad days, days when you're super-energized and those when you're a little down. These could to be due to small shifts in diet, a memory, a look or a word from a friend or stranger, and while these are all small, such small things can have gigantic impacts on how we experience our day, depending on lots of things.

When we make plans, what we do is make the assumption that we can control our days and influence how we will react. For the most part that's true, but those areas where we can't can really make life difficult for our plans and sometimes means that maybe we won't keep to that diet we set for ourselves (which aren't really healthy to begin with) or maybe we'll miss going for a run or to the gym.

But that's all OK. The secret isn't to quit, it's to keep going. Try again.

So do we not plan for change? No way. The intentions are good, but the way to make things work is to try some small things. Do a very small change every day. As you do that, and succeed, you get some confidence and momentum and can add to that. If you don't succeed, evaluate what worked and didn't and try again or try something else. But as you do this, bit by bit, you'll find that your success rate will increase and so will your sense of accomplishment.

It's simple, but not easy. But it's also making things a little more fair to you as you go forth with your plans. If you're interested in more of this discussion, I have another blog where I've posted some further tips:

http://bit.ly/iaw9Qi and

http://bit.ly/dWcsJN

A happy and healthy New Year to everyone!

Imagine knowing where to go for good health information when you needed it and with support from a peer or neighbour? That is one of the ideas behind the concept of the "health navigator" experience that we are creating with the Youth4Health initaitive. The Youth Voices Research Group working in partnership with the People, Health Equity and Innovation (PHI) Group based in Toronto, want to help young leaders make a difference in the wellbeing of their communities by providing them with skills, knowledge and opportunities to connect their interests in helping with resources to help them do it better.

We're really hoping to grow this group into something special and, in the spirit of TiG, take it GLOBAL. If you're interested in Youth4Health or learning more about the idea of navigation, watch this space for a series of toolkits that will be coming online in early 2011. To keep up with us, we have lots of spaces to share things and to get engaged, check out the update from our social media coordinator, Andrea Yip, as she explains what we're up to and what to expect in the next few months.

Check this out >> http://www.youthvoices.ca/node/152

It should be exciting times for any youth wanting to learn more about how to help themselves and others navigate their way to health.