Tis the Season to Take Care of Your Peeps

Remember those bright yellow little marshmallow candy chicks covered with sugar called Peeps?

Well, I’ve been noticing the Peeps company has been expanding their reach in recent years from just Easter to all the major holidays. Now, they have the little white and red sprinkled peeps complete with ecards apologizing for any wrongs you may have committed against any of your own “peeps.” Funny.

I’ve included three of their little cards in this post (and if you find yourself guilty as charged, you can go directly to the Peeps website and send your own note of apology in a sweet, sort of funny form.)

On a more serious (and helpful note), I always get mixed up when someone (I care about) asks me when it’s okay to exercise while they’re sick. So, how happy was I this morning when I read some guidelines on Dr. Mercola’s website.

Here you go…some tried and true principles for knowing when it’s helpful (and healthy) to keep exercising while you or your favorite peep is feeling under the weather.

When is it OK to Exercise While Sick?
If your symptoms are above your neck, it’s usually ok to exercise, albeit at a lower intensity than you’re used to. This includes symptoms such as:

•Runny nose
•Nasal congestion
•Sneezing
•Sore throat
•Headache

When Should You NOT Exercise While Sick?
It’s generally advised that you avoid exercise if you have symptoms that are “below your neck,” such as:

•Fever
•Coughing or chest congestion
•Fatigue
•Widespread body and muscle aches
•Vomiting, upset stomach and/or stomach cramps

Here’s to keeping all your peeps (and mine) happy and healthy through this holiday season.

Smart Negotiations

Love this quote —

If you can’t go around it, over it, or through it, you had better negotiate with it. Barbara Johnson

I’d say most of life fits this description of having to negotiate with it.

You have to give to get.
Or give up to get.
Or get started in order to give out.
Giving and getting go hand in hand.

Work.
Relationships.
Money.
Health.

Health, especially aging. You just can’t get around it, over it, through it, without negotiating with it.

So here’s four good tips from the good, old faithful Dr. Mercola on aging well.

4 Key Strategies to Ensure Healthy Aging
New research has found four key behaviors that lower your risk of disability, chronic disease and mental health problems as you age.

•Not smoking
•Moderate drinking
•Exercising regularly (at least 2.5 hours a week of moderate activity or 1 hour a week of vigorous activity)
•Eating vegetables and fruits daily

Now here’s what’s interesting. While each of these was moderately beneficial on its own, increasing the odds of “successful aging” by up to 50 percent, the best rewards came from following all of them simultaneously. Those who practiced all four of these tripled their chances of avoiding disability and disease over a 16-year period, and experienced good cognitive, mental, physical, respiratory, and cardiovascular functioning.

As the world’s smartest bear says, “don’t be afraid, don’t be weak, and don’t be silly,” aging is just another deal to negotiate with in life.

Chocolate: Everyone’s Favorite RX

Tomorrow is National Chocolate Day.

As a chocolate fiend, I’m wondering why I never realized we had this particular, but oh so special, Hallmark holiday before?

My daughter mentioned it offhandedly to me yesterday and I thought, “Hmm, really?”

Yes, indeed.

Unlike most of the Hallmark holidays that I try to ignore (or hope they will pass quickly by) this one I just might celebrate.

If you don’t appreciate chocolate, then you might want to move on to the next task because this post is all about the wonders of how wonderful chocolate can make a person feel.

I know there’s a lot been written about the dangers of emotional eating but when it comes to this culinary treat…it’s actually good for you. The dark chocolate, that is.

Here’s some nifty good-to-know facts about the health benefits of indulging in a generous piece of chocolate every day…no guilt, it’s all good.

So say yes to chocolate today because…

Chocolate can reduce risk of stroke
Boosts heart health
Fills you up so you eat less
Increases insulin sensitivity
Protects your skin from UV damage
Can quiet coughs
Boosts your mood
Improves blood flow
Improves vision
May make you smarter

What are you waiting for?

And, check out this cool gourmet chocolate site I found. I’ve never seen such beautiful packaging before (sorry Godiva…yours doesn’t come close.) Imagine giving someone a real box with real chocolate….what a treat!

Zchocolat

Chocolate – it does a body good.

The Science of Sweet Slumber

It wasn’t too long ago that I would have done just about anything to get a good night’s sleep. Seriously.

I can’t remember any period of my life when I felt so exhausted and out of sorts. And, the worst part was I saw no end in sight.

Every single night, I’d get ready for bed, eye my comfortable mattress with affection, position my favorite pillow just so, and pull back the blankets…then just stand there. Internally, as much as I longed for sleep, I knew I wasn’t going to get much of it during the night.

It became a battle of the wills to lay down and try to sleep.

Eventually, after more battle of the wills, I stepped back and decided I needed something to help me sleep better, sounder, longer…and it wasn’t sleeping pills.

I finally opted for a short-stint on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) and of course, this was yet another concession I had to make in my muddled mind because I always swore I would never go on this “stuff.”

I guess I can just add this choice to the long list of “nevers” I’ve already had to eat my words on in the past few years…aging does some mighty strange things to us.

Back to the sleep issue. Thankfully, within days I was sleeping again. AMAZING. I felt like a new woman inside and out…and when bedtime arrived I wasn’t hem hawing around anymore, I jumped into bed pulled the blankets up to my neck and drifted into sweet slumber.

I can tell you firsthand that when you’re not sleeping (for whatever reason)…you lose your ability to reason well.

It’s an awful reality to know that sleep is just beyond your grasp…and so allusive, but oh so needed for good health (mental/emotional/physical.)

Which is why when I ran across this book by author David K. Randall, Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep, I was intrigued.

A few of the stranger facts this author uncovered regarding sleep include this one. Did you know that before we had electricity that people went to bed when it got dark, stayed asleep until about midnight, then got up for about an hour before going back to sleep for the rest of the night? They call it the first and second sleep. Since none of us lives without artificial light, they tested this pattern on a group of individuals over a period of weeks and no kidding, after awhile the test participants began adopting this strange nocturnal habit. Interesting.

As the book’s subtitle suggests, there is so much scientists don’t know or understand about how the brain works during slumber but they’re watching and observing through sleep studies which is a good thing since one out of four people now uses sleep aids at night. Some people sleepwalk, sleep and drive, sleep and eat, or sleep and get violent.

If you’re interested in the study of sleep, this is a fascinating look at the science of sleep…and guaranteed…the reading won’t put you to sleep once you get started. Maybe that last part isn’t such a good thing for the sleep-deprived among us?

Bringing a Private Battle to the Public – Denise’s Breast Cancer Story

I sat waiting in a doctor’s office this week and did something I never do…looked around for the latest issue of a woman’s magazine.

Ladies Home Journal, October 2012, to be exact.

Why?

Because in an amazing turn of seemingly incidental (at the time) events, my dear friend, Denise McCroskey, who now blogs about her breast cancer journey, tells her story on pages 124-126 of this issue.

How often is it that someone you love is featured in a national women’s publication and their story is displayed for millions to read and learn from?

Amazing.

Ever since my good friend Denise was diagnosed with breast cancer last year she’s been blogging about her experience…and doing a fantastic job of detailing the highs/lows and every emotion/fear/setback/triumph in between.

I read her accounts of whatever aspect of the breast cancer fight she’s feeling especially passionate about sharing and consistently think to myself…so our small bookclub was right after all….Denise is a writer like the rest of us…she just didn’t know it yet!

Second, I have an intellectual/educational response because Denise is informing readers with an insider’s look at the various procedures/processes/treatments/side-effects of cancer treatment from a real woman’s perspective…not simply a clinical one.

Third, because I love Denise dearly, my emotions seem to run riot whenever I read her accounts and that means some tears fall with each and every story she shares.

Finally, by the end of her storytelling/account giving…I feel a burst of pride that this amazing and courageous woman is my friend and she’s committed to helping educate/encourage other women across our country…while she’s still in the battle.

Amazing.

So, if you’re out running errands or will be sitting in a waiting room this week, please do buy/borrow and then read Denise’s story in Ladies Home Journal…oh, and have a tissue handy.

Weighing In On the Wheat Controversy

I don’t know about you but I get weary of hearing this phrase, “New scientific evidence shows…reveals…proves….”

Whatever. (And whenever I say whatever I’m not suddenly demonstrating an attitude of anything goes, easy-breezy, everything’s just fine with me.)

What I’m really saying is… “I give up. Do it your way because clearly I have no say in the matter.”

So when someone told me about the newest health book rising to the top of the charts, I was a tad skeptical. Then a good friend told me she was reading it and shared how much she was discovering about the history of wheat/its genetic engineering/and how wheat today isn’t really “wheat” in the truest definition anymore. That got my attention.

The rest is history. I got the book and felt slammed with medical/chemical/biological information from the first page onward. Mind you, I’m not a medically trained person, so I have to carefully wade through technical info like this book holds or I fail to grasp everything the author is attempting to communicate.

That said, I finished the book over the weekend and then promptly ordered two copies (one for myself and another to pass around to people I love dearly.) If you haven’t heard of this book yet, it’s called, Wheat Belly, and I recommend that you run, don’t walk to order it. Filled with lots of scientific data/case studies/clinical tests that support the author’s premise that our current day wheat (because it has been genetically altered) does us more harm than good.

The author, who is a cardiologist, described countless illnesses/conditions that result from eating our modern day wheat bread and other products with wheat as a partial ingredient.

For sure, it sounds blasphemous to stop eating wheat (because it’s supposed to be healthy, right?)

I’ll let you decide after you read Wheat Belly for yourself.

I’m on day eight of being completely wheat-free and committed to staying that way for as long as I can (or until someone can prove this doctor wrong…which in our county could be next week.) Whatever.

Have a Little Heart – Showing Compassion for Your Caregivers

Recently I was reading about the newest studies on the importance of Vitamin D in our diets and somehow I ended up on the mailing list of one particular research company.

When I received their newsletter, I clicked on the link intending to unsubscribe, but an article title caught my eye so I kept reading.

Am I ever glad I did.

The author of this article is a medical doctor with over twenty-five years of experience so I paid attention to his thoughts and his findings.

Did you know that over 1/2 of doctors feel burned out?

Maybe you did, but do you know why?

A substantial portion of U.S. doctors suffer from burnout on the job, according to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Of the nearly 7,300 doctors who participated in the survey, nearly half had at least one symptom of burnout; 38 percent had high emotional exhaustion scores; and 30 percent had high depersonalization scores (viewing patients more like objects than human beings) – twice the rate of the general population of working adults.

Burnout was most common among doctors at the “frontline of care,” such as those working in emergency rooms, general internal medicine, or in family medicine. Nearly 60 percent of doctors in these specialties reported high levels of burnout.

Doctors also report being dissatisfied with work-life balance more frequently than other working adults, with more than 40 percent of doctors reporting dissatisfaction compared to 23 percent in other professions.

The main complaint was excessive work hours – on average, doctors worked 50 hour weeks, with nearly 38 percent of doctors working 60 hours a week.

According to this physician (as he recalls his own experience in medical school), the whole medical training system is rigged for failure and more upsetting…abuse of doctors in training.

A recent article in The New York Times discusses the bullying culture of medical school, stating:

“For 30 years, medical educators have known that becoming a doctor requires more than an endless array of standardized exams, long hours on the wards and years spent in training. For many medical students, verbal and physical harassment and intimidation are part of the exhausting process, too.

It was a pediatrician, a pioneer in work with abused children, who first noted the problem. And early studies found that abuse of medical students was most pronounced in the third year of medical school, when students began working one on one or in small teams with senior physicians and residents in the hospital. The first surveys found that as many as 85 percent of students felt they had been abused during their third year.

They described mistreatment that ranged from being yelled at and told they were ‘worthless‘ or ‘the stupidest medical student,’ to being threatened with bad grades or a ruined career and even getting hit, pushed or made the target of a thrown medical tool.”

Now factor in the debt accumulated to get through medical school, the challenges of patient care, and the ever-escalating cost of malpractice insurance.

Does it make you feel like quitting?

It would me.

I suppose the reason why this article affected me so deeply is that I think the world of my caregivers and to imagine their ongoing challenges to serve patients well when confronted with such obstacles makes me want to “make it all better.”

What can I say, I’m a woman (and a mom.)

Given that I can’t eradicate all of the above injustices and pressures, I want to do what I can by verbalizing appreciation and demonstrating gratitude to each of my physicians by:

Thanking them each and every time I enter their office.
Listening to their counsel when they give it.
Follow their instructions after we’ve agreed on the best course of treatment.
Demonstrate graciousness when I have to wait longer than I’d like or expected.
Always, always see the person behind the professional demeanor.
Give them room to have a bad day and not judge them for it (or speak poorly of them afterward.)

I think about that simple adage, “There’s always more to the story…” and try to see people (all people) as 90% mystery and 10% understood. Which means, I rarely understand why a person says/does what they say/do unless they tell me.

So having a little heart and showing a lot of compassion just makes sense to me. I know it’s how I want to be treated. How about you?

Would You Pass the PONS Test?

PONS (Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity) is a test that scores individuals on how well they guess what’s going on emotionally from seeing a two-second snippet of a given scene. Test subjects may be given only someone’s body, their face, or possibly only their voice.

Daniel Goleman writes…

Interestingly, those who score higher on this test tend to be rated as more interpersonally sensitive by their peers or supervisors. Clinicians and teachers get higher job performance ratings. If they are physicians, their patients are more satisfied with their medical care; if they are teachers they are seen as more effective. Across the board such people are liked more.

I find this interesting.
And true.

I thought back to when I accompanied my now deceased father in law to the surgeon who would be operating on his throat. This doctor was said to be one of the best in the country, renowned for his technical skill.

I believe it.

I also believe that with every strength there is an accompanying weakness because no one is strong in every area.

From the first visit with this surgeon, I realized we would have our work cut out for us getting him to stay in the room long enough for our questions to be answered.

At the time, my father in law was already dying and in no condition to advocate for himself, so I did it for him.

And no, I didn’t use brute force to make the doctor stay in the room until I was finished questioning him…nor did I stand in front of the door blockading his only exit (tempting, yes, but I resisted the impulse.)

Rather, I did some assessing the first time around and prepared myself for our next meeting knowing that I had only five minutes tops to express my concerns and get questions out of the way.

I can’t really explain what happened in our next meeting, other than I applied some elements of this PONS approach and cued in on this surgeon’s every move, his facial expression, and what he said.

I acted in response to his mannerisms by asking this physician appropriate and empathic questions about him.

That’s right. I didn’t open our conversation with statements about my father in law’s health.

Instead, for a brief few seconds, I traded places so to speak with this doctor and queried him with caring questions.

To say my approach, “worked” would sound callous and manipulative.

And I’m neither.

From one human being to another, I offered honest words of concern, listened to his replies, and it changed everything.

After that meeting, this doctor genuinely seemed to care more about my father in law and most important, my father in law felt it.

I’ve thought about those brief encounters many times in the past five years and I’m always reminded that no matter what position we hold professionally, we’re always, always real people living and breathing and struggling through life personally.

Lest anyone think I’m being critical of this doctor, I’m not. From where I sat, it seemed to me that over time he grew so overtired, so overworked, so overstressed, that he forgot how much a few good words to a patient can mean to them.

And don’t we all need to be reminded of this important truth?

From one to another, we all need a good kind word.

Social Intelligence (What Think You?)

Did you know that emotions can pass from person to person silently, without anyone consciously noticing?

I did and I didn’t.

I’ve often wondered how I can be around certain people and just feel good, while when I’m with others, I just feel bad (anxious, uptight, on edge.)

This emotion contagion is so common and so widespreadly wired into us physiologically that most people aren’t even aware of why they respond in specific ways.

Author Daniel Goleman writes in his book, Social Intelligence, that humans create an emotional contagion when the brain is at work using the “low road.” The low road is the circuitry that operates beneath our awareness, automatically, and effortlessly, with immense speed.

The “high road,” in contrast, runs through neural systems that work more methodically and step by step, with deliberate effort.

The low road can be seen as “wet,” dripping with emotion, and the high road as relatively “dry,” coolly rational. The low road traffics in raw feelings, the high in a considered understanding of what’s going on. The low road lets us immediately feel with someone else; the high road can think about what we feel. Ordinarily, they mesh seemlessly. Our social lives are governed by the interplay of these two modes.

What this means is that we all have two operating systems happening simultaneously and just being aware of how innately we respond can help us act/react in socially intelligent ways.

I can’t number the times when I’ve commented about getting a “vibe” from someone and then later it was proved true.

So, for me, I think it’s a fascinating study of how our brains operate.

Goleman included a telling quote by Edgar Allan Poe about how simple it is to transfer an emotion to another person using facial expression.

When I wish to find out how good or how wicked anyone is, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my own mind or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.

The low road of emotions is our immediate, instinctive response to a set of events or to a person.

The high road of emotions is our thoughtful evaluation and response to our low road perspective.

And we need both to be socially intelligent.

Taking the Bite Out of Visiting Your Physician

Look at this guy’s teeth!

We did…up close.

Scary.

Thankfully, there was a huge and very thick glass-type barrier keeping this guy from getting close enough to do any damage.

Relief.

It’s one thing to get up close to dangerous objects and know for certain they can’t hurt you…can’t get close enough to do any harm…it’s quite another to invite frightening experiences into your own life.

Am I referring to personal relationships here?

Nope.

Earlier this week I read an article on the growing number of patients who claim to be afraid of their own physicians.

As I read the article, I shook my head in amazement.

Why would anyone go to a doctor they were afraid of?

I mentally thought about all of my physicians. These are people I respect, like and trust. I can’t imagine experiencing fear with any single one of them. (If I did…I’d be changing doctors pronto.)

I wondered why people are afraid of the very people whose job (and mission) it is to care for them?

Turns out, the answer is simpler than I thought.

Individuals fear being viewed as difficult patients( they fear mis-stepping with their doctors and then being labeled as non-compliant…thus, in their minds, endangering the level of care they will receive.)

They fear being viewed as ignorant or as having a lack of knowledge (it’s the old pride issue rearing its ugly head again…)

People view physicians as authority figures and if they’ve experienced the negatives of poor leadership (in any area of their lives) folks naturally bring that apprehension into their doctors’ offices.

Looking at these concerns from this perspective it makes a lot more sense to me now.

But it also makes sense for patients to start dismantling these same fears.

When I think about a doctor’s primary objective as to first do no harm…I am consoled (and put at ease.)

I walk into my physicians’ offices knowing they are for me…they care about me…they want to help me get better. Because they do.

I also enter my doctors’ offices knowing they know more than me….otherwise….why bother wasting my time and money consulting with them?

Last, as I noted earlier, I respect, like and trust my doctors…but, here’s the important part…I don’t revere them.

They’re people.

They make mistakes.
They have bad days.
They even might, on occasion, need a good word from me as much as I need their expertise.

Looking at our medical providers as real people with real needs as great as our own helps create a safer (more congenial) environment for everyone.

And that beats fighting off the fear of getting verbally (or emotionally) devoured by our fears every time.