February is here so it’s the start of Dry Feb—a fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society where participants pledge to give up alcohol for a month. Read on to learn why I decided to participate and how you can help.

Welcome to the 51st edition of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a decluttering challenge for the week. In addition to Dry Feb, this week I look at the positive health impact of Ikigai, the brain-based benefits of writing longhand, Norway’s success in electric vehicle adoption, and closet decluttering.

On my mind this week: Dry Feb is underway!

In 2023, an update to Canada’s Guidance on Alcohol and Health shocked a lot of people when it revealed the risk of several types of cancer increases after two drinks a week. This was a drastic reduction from the 1 to 2 drinks a day outlined in the previous guidelines.

The Canadian Cancer Society reports that drinking any amount or type of alcohol raises the risk of nine types of cancer, including including head and neck, breast, esophageal, stomach, pancreatic, colorectal, and liver cancers.

As a cancer survivor, I’m very aware of the role of lifestyle in overall health. Since my breast cancer diagnosis in 2011, I have worked hard to adopt healthy habits. I’ve reduced my alcohol consumption significantly. These days, it’s pretty rare for me to have more than a drink or two, even on special occasions.

From Dry January to Dry Feb

Over the years I had heard of people starting the year with Dry January, so in 2023 I decided to give it a try. It was surprisingly easy to go without alcohol for a month. When January 2024 rolled around, I thought I’d instead go alcohol-free for the month of February to support a good cause. Since 2016, Dry Feb participants have pledged to give up alcohol for a month to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society.

Money raised by over 14,000 individuals participating in Dry Feb this year will fund life-saving research and the Canadian Cancer Society’s support programs for those facing cancer. Participants also report personal benefits: better sleep, a clearer head, more energy, a sense of accomplishment and improved overall wellbeing.

As I sit down to write this post, I am literally pennies away from my fundraising goal of $500. If you’d like to support me in this great cause, please visit my fundraising page.

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Three highlights of the week

It’s important to celebrate big milestones and simple pleasures in life. Keeping the trend going, here are three highlights and simple pleasures of the week gone by:

• On Wednesday I attended a free workshop presented by Revel Eleven, featuring the wonderful Wynne Leon and Vicki Anderson. Cultivating Resilience Through Creativity was thought-provoking and informative. I’ve shared one of my takeaways below.
• Yesterday, I did a dry run of my Second Life Vision workshop with three of my high school besties. It was a fun day, and I got some great feedback to incorporate into my pilot in April.
• The sun finally shone on Saturday. It feels like it has been weeks since it has made an appearance. I took advantage of the opportunity to get out for a nice walk.

Three things I learned this week

Life is all about learning. Here are three things I learned this week:

Positive health benefits of Ikigai

I’ve written before about Ikigai, the Japanese concept that loosely translates to your life purpose or reason to get out of bed in the morning. New research indicates Ikigai can reduce your risk of functional disability by 31%, and dementia by 36%. That’s powerful! (Source: The Lancet)

The benefits of writing longhand

A few years ago, I tried to embrace digital note taking during work meetings. After a few weeks, I ended up going back to pen and paper because I found it more effective for me. One of the key learnings from the Cultivating Resilience Through Creativity workshop is there’s science to back up my preference for old-fashioned paper and pen.

A 2014 study, The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard, found there are brain-based benefits to writing in longhand. Online note taking results in shallower processing and students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand. You can learn more about the study here.

Thank you to Wynne and Vicki for validating what I always suspected!

Norway leads the way with electric vehicle adoption

Many naysayers claim the Canadian government’s goal to end the sale of gasoline and diesel cars by 2035 is too aggressive. Is it, though? Norway—a country with a climate very much like Canada’s—is well on its way to doing just that. In 2023, 82% of vehicles sold in Norway were electric vehicles (EVs). In fact, Norway is on track to end gasoline and diesel car sales by 2025. That’s a full 10 years earlier than the Canadian target.

How did Norway do it? They put policies in place ten years ago to waive import duties on EVs. They also exempted EV owners from paying road tolls and allowed them to use bus lanes in busy city centres. (Source: CBC News)

This week’s decluttering challenge – Closet Clutter Part I

In 2024, I’ve been revisiting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge I completed in 2021. This week, I moved on to week one of closet decluttering. This is a big job for many so I’m spreading the task across several weeks. To kick things off, I started with the bottoms: skirts, shorts, pants and dresses. In total, I decluttered 5 items. You can find the details, along with my tips and learnings, in this week’s decluttering post.

If you’d like to join the challenge, visit this post to download your free checklists and jump right in with this week’s task.

I’d love to hear what you think about any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas.