Tips to Improve Your Focus

Wazzup Pilipinas!?


Many people struggle to focus during certain scenarios. Knowing how to improve your focus will result in a healthy lifestyle overall. When you can easily focus on important tasks, you become more organized and you’re able to achieve your goals. A high level of focus will lead to more tasks being completed faster and more efficiently.

While CBD products may be promising for focus, there are other ways to improve focus.

So, in this article, we will provide you with some essential tips that will help to improve your focus.


1. Exercise

Exercise is a great way to improve your focus and general well-being. Regularly participating in fitness programs helps increase energy levels, reduce stress, and improve focus.

Apart from helping the body, physical exercise can also help with blood circulation, which energizes your brain. Simply doing short and minor exercises every day can help improve the flow of blood to the brain.



2. Meditate

Another way to improve focus is by meditating for around 10 minutes every day. Mediation involves mental exercises which can go a long way in improving concentration. Another form of medication involves surrounding yourself in a comfortable atmosphere and planning the tasks. Meditation takes your mind away from the pressure of the work environment and helps you work with more focus and determination.



3. Get more sleep

Sleep plays a role in making our brains more productive, creative, and efficient. Individuals who don’t get sufficient sleep usually tend to struggle with focus and memory. If you are not getting at least six to eight hours of quality sleep every night, then you might find difficulties in thinking clearly.

Apart from blocking concentration, lack of sleep also confuses your brain, making you unable to think clearly. Therefore, to improve focus, you need to get enough rest.



4. CBD for focus

Regularly consuming CBD oil may enhance your general wellbeing. CBD also enhances sleep which leads to an increase in concentration and focus. CBD may also help decrease the anxiety that prevents you from doing daily tasks.

Some studies show that regular consumption of CBD may reduce the primary causes of lack of focus. Using CBD for focus and concentration helps balance the mind and the endocannabinoid system. CBD interacts with endocannabinoid receptors to help suppress stress, anxiety, and other factors that cause loss of focus.

CBD oil for memory is a noteworthy benefit of CBD. It has the propensity to improve your focus. CBD works to improve focus by binding with the endocannabinoid receptors in charge of memory and focus. This allows more serotonin to flow to the brain.

Bottom line: does CBD help with concentration?

Yes. CBD can increase your alertness, making you less distracted. CBD also sharpens the mind when doing office tasks.

There are several ways to take CBD for focus. However, if you want to feel the effects immediately, then CBD oil drops are the way to go. Dropping CBD oil under your tongue allows the body to absorb its essential properties leading to improved focus.

After Odette, climate adaptation is our only option

Wazzup Pilipinas!?

Typhoon Odette struck islands in Visayas and Mindanao on December 17 and 18, 2021, bringing utter devastation to not just one or two provinces, but to entire regions.

Atty. Angela Consuelo Ibay, Head of the Climate and Energy Program at World Wide Fund for Nature Philippines (WWF-Philippines), said:

“Just as 2021 is about to close, the country is once again scrambling to provide aid to towns and provinces that have been ravaged by a typhoon. Once again, we are left in a reactive stance rushing to the rescue after the catastrophe. The images of towns devastated by Odette (International name: Rai) in Siargao and Dinagat islands, Central Visayas, and all the way to Palawan are like recurring nightmares afflicting our national psyche.

“After Typhoons Rolly and Ulysses in 2020, Ompong in 2018, Lando in 2015, and Yolanda in 2013, the Philippine government should have learned one important lesson by now: climate change means no longer wondering if a stronger storm will hit the Philippines in the future, but when and where it will hit.”

Katherine Custodio, WWF-Philippines Executive Director, added:

“Preparing ahead of destructive typhoons requires long-term vision, commitment, and investment as the next super typhoon can come in 2 or 3 years or it could come next month. There is no way to know when it will happen, making it even more urgent to prepare while the weather is clear. Resources, financial or otherwise, have to be allocated in preparing towns, provinces, and islands from becoming the next disaster.

“WWF-Philippines has projects in some of typhoon Odette’s hardest hit areas and we have launched Oplan Pandamayan to help in the relief efforts. However, we emphasize the need to extricate our country from an endless cycle of relief efforts which are short-term measures against a climate that is changing in the long-term. Our call is for adaptive measures to be urgently implemented so concrete and permanent solutions can protect Filipinos moving forward.”

WWF-Philippines is calling for a clear and comprehensive government plan of action to adapt to the changing climate. With the country’s National Adaptation Plan yet to be finalised, this plan of action should include the following points:

1. Make “build back better” a reality through stronger climate-resilient infrastructure. Houses, evacuation centers, schools, bridges, power lines, and other basic infrastructure should be built to standards that can withstand typhoons so that people are protected from the impacts of storms. Lives can be saved with appropriate storm shelters that can supply the people with their needs during the strongest typhoons.
2. Comprehensive urban and environmental planning. Rebuilding towns flattened by Odette has to be done with a lot of thought and planning so that areas with high risks of strong winds, waves can be avoided. The development of cities and towns must take into consideration the extreme weather which can include typhoons or even drought.
3. Prioritize nature-based solutions. Forests are effective in cushioning strong winds while mangroves at the coasts are highly effective at dampening strong waves. If these natural barriers are destroyed for short-term profit, it reduces the long-term protection of the people. A nationwide rehabilitation and reforestation effort needs to be implemented in areas where tree cover has been severely degraded.
4. Increase the national budget allocation for climate adaptation actions. Though the national government has stated that climate adaptation is a national priority, the funding for adaptation has to reflect this priority. The government's climate budget increased in 2021 compared to the previous year, but this P282 billion is only 6.26% of the total national budget. A significant portion of the investments on climate change, P273 billion, were concentrated on climate change adaptation actions.

At this point in the climate crisis, we are past the need to praise the resilience of Filipinos. We should also be past the point of hoping for a better future where strong storms will not hit the country. The ultimate lesson is an old one but one that is commonly taken for granted: prevention is better than cure. And to prevent death, disaster and destruction in the future, we must plan, fund, and implement effective adaptive measures and policies across the country now. We, as a people and as a country, deserve a better future. Let’s change the ending.

Christmas Trees: 900,000 Trees to be Planted for Christmas

Wazzup Pilipinas!?

What’s better than planting a tree? Well, you can plant 900,000 of them.

From 1900 to 2015, the Philippines lost two-thirds of all its forests, with its once-impressive coverage of 21 million hectares reduced to a mere seven million hectares.

Despite a government ban on logging, the war against our trees rolls on. About 52,000 of them are felled daily for timber, charcoal, mining, slash-and-burn farming and land development. This intensifies soil erosion, flooding, river siltation, storm surges and droughts.

But there’s good news for our forests this Christmas. As part of its GForest movement, GCash and its allies have pledged to plant over 900,000 trees before the year ends.

Together with the United Nations Development Programme’s Biodiversity Finance Initiative (UNDP-BIOFIN), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF-Philippines), Ramon Aboitiz Foundation (RAFI), Century Pacific, Ayala Land and Friends of HOPE, GCash will finish planting 120,000 timber trees in Bulacan’s Ipo Watershed, 26,596 timber trees in Pangasinan’s Alaminos Carbon Forest, 300,000 fruit and timber trees in Cebu’s Luyang Watershed and 500,000 coconut trees in the provinces of South Cotabato and Sarangani.

“With our current partnerships, we will be planting at least an additional 400,000 trees in 2022 to bring our total up to 1.3 million trees. We hope to further scale the positive impact of the GForest movement in 2022 as GCash continuously engages fresh and old partners to find new sites to reforest and farmer-beneficiaries to help,” explains GCash President and CEO Martha Sazon.


How to Use the GForest App

GForest was launched in 2019 to boost awareness and funding for Philippine forests by tapping users of GCash, the country’s top cashless service. The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically increased the number of people using GCash, which has reached over 51 million users in 2021.

Half of the country’s population currently have GCash accounts to conveniently send money, pay bills and more. In addition, GCash now has approximately four million merchants and social sellers, which is more than double its previous number of 600,000 business-solutions users in 2019. The app was also able to reach an average of 13 million log-ins per day, peaking at more than 15 million on June 16, 2021.

Over nine million GCash users have so far signed up for GForest, with over 1.2 million regular monthly supporters.

Upon logging in, GCash users are given the option to plant virtual trees, which generates funds to plant real trees around the country. Users earn green energy points by reducing their individual carbon footprints.

Since 2019, GForest users have generated over 16 billion green energy points by doing over 133 million low-impact paperless transactions. Paying bills online for instance, eliminates the need to drive to a bank and consume paper for receipts and forms. More points can be garnered for walking to work, taking the stairs and avoiding single-use plastic items. GForest interfaces seamlessly with existing mobile fitness apps to accurately measure not just energy saved, but exactly how much carbon emissions are reduced.

Each green energy point corresponds to a gram of carbon saved. Points are then used to nourish a virtual tree in GForest. After a user claims enough energy points by doing cashless transactions in GCash, they can use their points to "claim" a virtual tree in the GForest app. GCash and its allies will then plant a corresponding tree in one of its partner sites for each virtual tree claimed in this way. As of December 2021, users have planted well over one million virtual trees in GForest.

“Through GForest, we fully support our local farming communities not just by boosting their livelihoods through tree planting, but by empowering them through farm design and farm planting workshops plus educating them on our financial services which supports our vision of finance for all,” explains GCash Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Vice-president Chito Maniago.

For its part, RAFI conducts tree growing orientations and farm management sessions to help farmer beneficiaries take care of their trees.

“One to Tree is RAFI’s environmental arm that works with communities, for communities,” shares RAFI Partnerships and Portfolios Manager Miggo Bautista. “We work with partner farmers and provide them with technical trainings to ensure that their trees thrive, boosting their livelihoods while fostering their sense of stewardship. This way, we promote both community development and project sustainability.”

RAFI is just one of many GForest partners working to restore the glory of Philippine forests, one tree at a time.
"People talk a lot about innovative financing for biodiversity and GForest is one of the best examples to date of a how fintech can channel significant funds towards conservation protection. GForest has set an inspiring example to companies and organizations around the world to follow," concludes BIOFIN Global Manager Onno van den Heuvel.