Health & Wellness Experts

Can meditation change your brain? That’s a question that neuroscientists have been seeking to answer for decades – and there appears to be some evidence that it can, in a positive way. In today’s New Normal, the pressure to perform can be overwhelming. The good news is that you CAN find tools to relax and release your tension and anxiety. Meditation is one of those stress-releasing tools. And one, I’d suggest, that could become your “secret weapon” to overcome personal or professional hurdles and challenges you may be facing.

This summer, I completed a 21-Day Meditation “Challenge” le…

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is marked by a number of quiet contradictions. Pink, a color which once connoted naïve girlie softness, was reclaimed and is the symbol of women on a mission to stamp out breast cancer by any means necessary. We laugh with newly made friends as we participate in walks or runs for the cure with others who are also honoring their loved ones who were stolen by breast cancer.

This month is also an aggressive campaign to encourage women to get mammograms and screenings that will lead to early detection of breast cancer. Usually, the earlier breast cancer is de…

As I write about in my “Three Generations of Breast Cancer Survivors” story, the experience of watching one female family member after another confront repeated diagnoses of breast cancer established a major and dark cloud of fear over my siblings and I. I had to push hard and long to convince all 6 of my siblings to undergo genetic testing for the breast cancer gene mutations, BRCA-1 and BRCA-2. When we received confirmation that 5 out of 7 of us were BRCA-2 carriers, I felt absolutely doomed and just could not live with that feeling. While potentially hard to understand from someone el…

On most days I write a to do list to keep the chaos of life manageable. I’m sure many of you do. It’s a good tool to use when you’re aiming for balanced in life.
The thing is that it could become a life changing tool if used properly.

Let me ask you, what’s on your to do list? I’ll venture a guess; doctor appointments, work deadlines, kid appointments. Take a second to look at it. Where do you fall on the to-do list? Are you #3, are you #10? Are you on the list at all? The point is that we usually use to do lists to manage taking care of the other people in our lives, our bosses, our…

At no other point in history has medical science included the tools, technology and pharmaceutical medicines that today not only prolong our lives, but allow us to survive in the face of life-threatening disease. Our doctors and nurses study long and hard to master the tools of modern medical science so that they can direct our medical treatments with the deeply valuable goal of preserving our lives. Such mastery often requires deep specialization, making Western medical specialists leading experts in their fields of specialization. But what have we given up in this quest for specializat…

If we can face life’s challenges feeling good about ourselves, we can often meet those challenges with more clarity, more determination, and more understanding. At no time is such love of self more important than when fighting cancer. And yet many women find their love of self to be compromised by the emotions stirred when they find a bald, “sick-looking” person staring back at them in the mirror. Even women who rise above self-deflating thoughts must guard against the public stares, looks of pity and unsolicited comments that remind them that they visually represent cancer simply becaus…

The kids are back in school! Now it’s time to focus on you!

You just dropped off the kids for their first of day of school. Thanks to you they had the right clothes, the right supplies and the right attitude. You’ve spent hours planning after-their school activities. For the next year they will have the opportunity to expend their minds, make new friends and reach new heights.

What about you? What are your plans for the year? What are you going to try and master? What goals are you going to reach before the end of the school year?

As women we are fabulous caretakers, so much so that m…

With the change of season, your skin and hair care routines should change as well to adjust to the warmer weather. These tips will help you to be glow naturally!

Hair: in summer, the sun may weaken hair by damaging its protein bonds. Use hair-specific sunscreen or, for product-free protection, use scarves, headbands, or head wraps. Also, a healthy scalp leads to healthy hair. Rinse hair as soon as possible after swimming and apply a deep conditioning treatment once or twice weekly, preferably one that helps hair to retain moisture and prevent dryness.

Facial skin: with warmer temp…