Welcome to NUMI's Friday Five – I don’t know about you, but with a week of errands, work and a jam packed schedule we often find it difficult to keep up with anything (even the Kardashian’s). With Friday Five, we give you quick reads to catch up on right before the weekend, and a quick 5 minute break!
How Dangerous is That Blue Glow from Our Smartphones?
On average we spend about 90 minutes a day starring at the screen of our smartphones, averaging up to 23 days a year. Thats 23 days we spend starring at a small rectangular screen trying to catch up on social lives and global news.
The impact of this time has a bigger toll on our health then we'd like to think. The main result of the smartphone addiction is the blue glow the screens emit. This impacts our sleep patterns, confusing our brains to think it is daytime after reading these screens. Repeated on a daily basis, we become exhausted and lack the energy to complete daily tasks. 
If you have teens around, this glow can be even more harmful to their bodies. As they are more vulnerable to the light exposure, if repeatedly used before bed, it can push their sleeping back hours resulting in groggy mornings before school.
If you find you can’t be without your phone an hour before bed, there are some apps on the market that change the blue glow on the screen, to a red glow – eliminating the brain tricking all together.
Struggling to Keep Your Plants Alive? Find out what You’ve Been Doing Wrong
As much as we love the outdoors, sometimes inside is just a little cozier, so we are constantly trying to bring the outside in, filling our homes with fresh flowers and green plants.
But how much do you really know about these plants; their origin, the type of environment they prefer, or their feeding and watering habits?
Without this crucial knowledge, it often leads to a short life for the plants. So brush up on the facts of the plants and do a little research before buying your next house plants.
- Marketing trick–We know about the marketing tricks in the fashion and media industries, but believe it or not its also done with plants! The craze of succulents did’t just come out of nowhere, the “easy to care for” plants can be a little more tricky then you think.
- Give them too much love–At an early sign of a plants withering we often turn to love. Tending to over water in efforts to bring it back to life and regain some colour. But *public service announcement* this isn’t helping your plants what so ever! Instead try and really understand what isn’t working; is it the sun exposure, does it need nutrients, does it just not like the other plants its near.
- Making excuses–The worst you can do for your plants, is blame anything and everything… but yourself. We are so quick to blame the air in our homes or the house pet from damaging it, but more times then not, the reason is lack of attention to the plant and its environment.
A Beauty Brand Doing Good for the World
The beauty industry is most known for its influence on negative self esteems, unethical production methods and the overload of chemicals in products. However Josie Maran Cosmetics is changing this standard with each product and collection she delivers to stores.
Josie Maran uses Argan Oil as a base for most of her beauty products, resulting in natural makeup that you won’t feel bad about putting on your skin each morning. Not only is this helping you out, it has also created employment opportunities for women in Morocco. Josie chose to source her oil from Morocco, creating Women only co-operatives and providing a place of work for many women that otherwise wouldn’t. This has resulted in steady incomes and education opportunities for these women, as well as the chance of freedom and independence.
Its exciting to see women empowering women, and when it comes from a brand that is part of a $50+ billion dollar industry, it hopes that things are changing for the better!
Happy Friday! 
