If your new year's resolution is to get healthy, here are some quick and easy ways to boost your health in 2018. Whew. It's been quite a year, hasn't it? While things like money issues, work-life balance, health and healthcare, sex in the workplace (or out of it), aging parents, children, siblings and other significant others have always been a concern for us in this so-called midlife, this year, pardon the pun... trumps all others. That's why it's especially important to pay attention to our health, now more than ever. Because with all this stress, health often is neglected and/or suffers. While { Read More }
What I Did on My Summer Vacation
Remember going back to school as a child, and being asked to write "What I Did On My Summer Vacation?" Being a child that loved to write more than talk, I always looked forward to that particular assignment and the opportunity to express myself on paper. I don't recall much of what I wrote, but I'm confident some of it was filled with details of family vacations and times like when my two siblings and I would pile into the rear of our Plymouth station wagon (so early in the morning that our eyes still had not yet fully adjusted to the light) and devour our lunch sandwiches (bologna on white bread { Read More }
5 Easy (and free!) Ways to Be Happier
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what makes us feel happy. Maybe it’s because it’s summer – something that always made me unequivocally happy – and right now, I’m not feeling that familiar adrenaline-fueled kind of euphoria happiness. Really, when you think about it, that’s perfectly normal, isn’t it? I mean, how can one thing – summer- erase all the other so-called stresses that enter our lives? And who is happy all the time, anyway? For one thing, there’s work. I’ve been slaving over an assignment that is keeping me up nights and taking up immeasurable hours every day. Don’t get me wrong – I’m { Read More }
Is Bruce Jenner Having a Midlife Crisis?
Yesterday at the gym while stretching post-workout, I overheard two women talking about Bruce Jenner's recent announcement that he was transitioning into a woman. (I wasn't exactly eavesdropping; if you saw the small area devoted to stretching, you'd understand why it isn't easy to ignore nearby conversations.) "Why do you think he waited so long to come out with that?" asked one. (I had often wondered that myself, but was pretty sure I understood the possible answer.) I was already getting annoyed. She lifted one leg effortlessly into a yoga-like pose, adjusted her stance slightly, then { Read More }
What Wake-Up Calls Teach Us
Not to be all depressing and morose, but this past week has been kind of sad. I've heard one bad story after another. A friend's 17-year-old daughter diagnosed with ovarian cancer; a cousin's 28-year old son's thyroid cancer diagnosis; a co-worker of my husbands with a blood disease so rare I've never heard of it nor can I pronounce it or understand just how the body can turn on itself that way. I've had my personal share of cancer-at-an-early-age, and with that, there's always that jolt, otherwise known as a wake-up call: it spurs you into action to do something, change something, make promises to { Read More }
Menopause and Anxiety
Why do some women going through menopause feel like they're out of control, irritable, short- fused and just plain crazy? And why do others pass through seamlessly with nary a hot flash or mood swing? Back in 2005, when blogging was still fairly new, I created the blog, Midlife Matters. As a health writer, I was excited about sharing accurate and timely health information in an intimate setting which fostered a dialog with other like-minded midlife women, something that’s not possible via standard print magazines and websites. To date, my most popular post was about Menopause and Anxiety { Read More }
What Does it Take To Be Happy?
Happiness is such a loaded emotion. Some days I wake up feeling happy. Others, not so much. Especially in this so-called midlife, when so many things around me are in flux. But since it feels so much better to feel happy than to feel unhappy - not to mention the health-enhancing effects of happiness - throughout "those" days when I am inexplicably cranky, moody or just plain unhappy, I try to remind myself of a few things: This is not permanent. Happiness can, and does, fluctuate. Force a smile, even if you don't feel smiling. A study bears this out. Smiling may actually influence our physical { Read More }
When Nothing is Sure…Everything is Possible
Yesterday, I eavesdropped on Dame Judy Dench and Maggie Smith. “How many new lives can we have?” asked Ms. Dench. She answered her own question with the best five words I’ve heard in a long time: “As many as we’d like.” Lest you think I hang out in such royal company, I don’t. That question comes from the movie, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Have you seen it yet? I haven’t – my efforts yesterday were thwarted by some circumstances beyond my control – but I can’t wait. In preparation for sequel, Alan and I watched the original, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, on Netflix last Friday night. I { Read More }
Gotta Dance!
Do you like to dance? If you do, when is the last time you danced? Dance was a childhood passion that came to a pause long ago. As a young child, I was passionate about ballet dancing. The more lessons I took, the more I loved it and the more I excelled until my local teacher, Judy, recommended that I pursue more serious dancing at a more serious-type dance studio in New York City. I guess I was that good. That's not to say I had the chops to become a professional dancer; though I suppose I'll never know, will I? That's kind of where my ballerina dreams ended. My mother worked full time and { Read More }