Learn more about your biological clock: 

https://www.bioinfo.mpg.de/mctq/core_work_life/core/introduction.jsp?lan...

http://www.heute.de/ZDFheute/inhalt/10/0,3672,8364234,00.html

”The 24-hour society, shift work, and frequent travel over many time zones all challenge the daily programme of our bodies.. most of us now live between rather than with the external and the internal clocks with consequences for our health and quality of life”.

We are very proud to announce that, on the 31st of March, B-Society Nederland launched their website!

http://www.b-society.nl

Dear member of the B-Society,

As promised here comes the two last brochures in our FABS Campaign:

The B-society’s FABS Campaign – Flexible and Balanced Society

Summer is more or less over and we are going back to school or to the office. Why not grab a brochure and put it in your school bag or bring one along with you to work?

1) A brochure to primary and secondary schools – organise teaching in several time intervals
2) A brochure to corporations – work places of the future are flexible

Be the change that you want in the world!
- download and print
You will also find the brochures on our website at b-society.org and we hope that you will e-mail them to your network and print and distribute them in different relevant locations. Spread the word and we’ll change the world: All change begins within ourselves.

We believe that schools and work places need to be in functional harmony with different human biological rhythms, simply because of the many obvious advantages in considering our biological differences. To name just a few, these include: less sick leave, less traffic during traditional rush hours, better learning capabilities, enhanced productivity and better life quality for all. Energy efficiency and enhanced happiness are some of our by-products, or B-products, for the 21st century Earth.

On behalf of the board of the B-Society
Camilla Kring
Chairperson

At the B-society we are not only enjoying lazy days in the sun. We now launch our new FABS Campaign – a campaign for a Flexible and Balanced Society.

As the months fly by, still more international research is being published on biological rhythms. Fortunately, this research supports the mission of the B-Society – to expand the rigid time frames of our society, enhance, educate and promulgate the flexible options that have been shown to work for the benefit of all, and thereby create additional happiness.

With this background of research and purpose, we have developed four brochures, and today we have the pleasure of presenting the first two of them:
- A general brochure on the B-Society – about facts and research (click and download)
- A brochure on health – good health begins with living according to your own rhythm (click og download)

Be the change that you want in the world!
- download and print
We hope that you will e-mail these brochures to your network, and print and distribute them in different relevant locations.

Why not bring one to your doctor’s waiting room, to your sports association, or give them to your loved ones? Spread the word and we’ll change the world: All change begins within ourselves.

We believe that our social environment, especially the health care sector, ought to support and consider our different biological rhythms in treatment, as well as in other services of social support.

Research and applications show that there are major advantages in considering these biological differences, and that these advantages lead to better individual health related to better life quality, as well as a healthier society that benefits everyone, regardless of personal rhythmic orientation.

In the next news letter you’ll get a brochure on schools and childcare institutions and another on corporations.

Download B-Alive Magazine 1-2009 (PDF)

Folks, soon to come: the Google B-map, where you can enlist and find B-institutions, B-companies, B-shops and services, as well as local B-organizations near you.

Start researching in your neighborhood (or country) which places offer flexible open hours (day care from 8am-10pm, 24-hour services, late open cultural attractions, evening lawyers and dentists, etc.)

Help us create the vastest map of B-happy support institutions!

Ah, bliss - the fulfilment of our revolution....

sophie, editor

As you probably can tell, this is not a rhetoric question. However, it does seem as if today's industrial and institutional focus on work/life balance is not only part of our regular company mission statement - and an almost overused recruitment strategy - but the cornerstone of action towards achieving the elusive quality of life.

It is, I admit, a fairly simple and logical deal; you need some balance in your life between working and relaxing, in order for you to enjoy both. Who wants to eat ice cream all day long anyway? (well, maybe I do..but that's another story.) Somehow the ice cream will envitably loose its value down the line (and give you stomach problems too), and thereby its (life) "quality", so to speak.

So balance is good, check. Great. But is that all there really is to it? Don't we already have loads of people who work and have "free time" equally as much, and still do not feel that meaningful existence? This sounds like an industrial idea coming back in full force with the "8-hour rule" (8 hours work, 8 hours spare time and 8 hours rest; in that order).

According to the UN Human Development Index (HDI), national rankings of quality of life is determined by your life expectancy (health), educational attainment (social welfare, I suppose), and your "adjusted real income" (financial status), and so if work/life spells life quality, it shouldn't only cover the hours you put in, but more importantly, what you get out of them, financially, personally, intellectually, etc. Check today, which countries are considered qualitatively liveable at the moment:

http://www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/mostlivable-leastlivable-coun...

So, quality of life means getting the full value of each of our 24 hours. If this holds any bearing, then we are much closer to a major part of the B ideology: the flexibility factor. We currently rank institutions and companies as B, if they exercise flexibility in hours, activities and individual work preferences. Quality in life is thus not a question about how many hours you spend on work (or lack of it); it's through a flexible approach that you ensure that the hours are spent well, not only for our cognitive health, but also for our social and financial well-being. You want to be able to feel ready to pick up the kids, to feel fully focused when you produce that client report at work, and not forcing these feelings out, based on what your watch indicates instead of what your inner clock says.

So, let's return to the simple, logical outlook again: how do you spend your hours? Where? With whom? How flexibly can you shift unqualitative hours, to qualitative hours? What will it take to consistently uphold your quality of life, from a B-point of view?

sophie, editor