Through her teachings of etiquette and charm, Ms. Ascroft stressed one thing:  no woman, no matter how beautiful or clever she may be, can live her life fully without utilizing charm.  The good news, of course, is that every woman is born with charm; it’s our birthright.  Today’s society, however, doesn’t necessarily lend itself to charm, and this is quite unfortunate.

With a little guidance and patience, tapping into charm can be quite easy.

The first step is in getting to truly know ourselves.  Too often, we merely say to ourselves, ... Read More »]]> A flower without perfume is like a personality without charm (Eileen Ascroft)

Through her teachings of etiquette and charm, Ms. Ascroft stressed one thing:  no woman, no matter how beautiful or clever she may be, can live her life fully without utilizing charm.  The good news, of course, is that every woman is born with charm; it’s our birthright.  Today’s society, however, doesn’t necessarily lend itself to charm, and this is quite unfortunate.

With a little guidance and patience, tapping into charm can be quite easy.

The first step is in getting to truly know ourselves.  Too often, we merely say to ourselves, “I’m this…” or “I’m that…” without taking the time to reflect in silence our likes, dislikes, beliefs, and ideals.  Most of us spend precious little time in the mirror determining ways in which to enhance and improve our outer beauty.  We allow magazines and television to guide us, and as a result end up in unflattering outfits and displaying unflattering behavior.

We spend an outrageous number of hours flitting from one bad relationship to the next, hoping to find our new best friend or soul mate.  This futile endeavor leads us to frustration and trust me, there’s no charm in that.  Spending our time wisely with positive, uplifting people is certainly a better route, don’t you think?

Poise has certainly gone by the wayside these days.  Many women proudly display the diva or bitch (pardon my language, please) badge and honestly feel that their loudness, their rudeness, and their overall bawdiness is endearing.  It’s not. (A side note:  these seem to be the same women who complain incessantly about not having a man…hmm…I wonder if there’s a connection.)  The charming woman is the woman who knows how to enter a room gracefully, turning every head as she does so, without having to say a word.

The charming woman is also the one who is looked upon favorably because she’s kind, speaks ill of no one, and smiles genuinely.  She’s dressed conservatively yet spectacularly.  She stands up straight and sits like a lady.  She dances like a lady, too – no rumpy pumpy pole moves for her!

You’ll discover, too, that the charming woman has a wonderful sense of humor.  She’s witty, and would never resort to cruel or crass jokes.

Most importantly, the charming woman enjoys her own company and feels truly happy on the inside.

I firmly believe, as Ms. Ascroft did, that every woman wants to get the best from life and make the most of her opportunities, appearance, and abilities.  Charm is the magic key to happiness and success.  Every woman possesses the seeds of charm within her.  She has only to learn to liberate it.

Beth Newman is an Image Consultant and Life Coach based out of Houston, TX.  Her book, Become a First Style Fashionista, is available through Amazon.  For more information about Beth, she invites you to visit her website, www.newmanimage.info

Photo Credit:  Laura Vogt Photography

Inside each of us we have, what I call the ‘Greek chorus’. This term comes from the theater tradition of ancient Greece. At that time actors wore masks to portray their characters and emotions and they basically mimed their role. Behind the actors were a group of people who sang or spoke for them, hence the term ‘Greek chorus’.

We all have the many voices of the ‘Greek chorus’ in our head. We have an adult, a parent, a grandparent, a child, a teacher and so forth. When we are dreaming there is an opportunity for these parts of ourselves to ... Read More »]]>

Inside each of us we have, what I call the ‘Greek chorus’. This term comes from the theater tradition of ancient Greece. At that time actors wore masks to portray their characters and emotions and they basically mimed their role. Behind the actors were a group of people who sang or spoke for them, hence the term ‘Greek chorus’.

We all have the many voices of the ‘Greek chorus’ in our head. We have an adult, a parent, a grandparent, a child, a teacher and so forth. When we are dreaming there is an opportunity for these parts of ourselves to ‘reach’ us, to make us pay attention when we are a ‘passive’ audience if you will, to what needs to be considered or acted upon in our waking lives.

Dreaming is referred to as a ‘primary process’ because generally, your ‘executive functioning’ or logical part of the brain is not very active at this time. This is why dreams can have unusual elements like flying sheep or talking bears. You can, however, ‘train’ the more rational parts of your brain to work during dream states. This is a very useful skill because you can control the outcome of a dream, induce creativity, resolve conflicts or solve problems.

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “why don’t you sleep on it”. This is because the dream state can help you deal with issues in many areas of your life. Sleep is a state of deep relaxation for most of the body but even in sleep, the brain never stops working. During sleep your brainwaves, or the electrical activity in your brain, change such that your brain can rest and refresh itself before resuming its daytime functioning levels. However, it is in this state of ‘rest’ that many people have had major ‘Ah ha!’ moments, especially if they have learned to remember, interpret and pay attention to their dreams.

Many people think that they don’t dream, or don’t dream very much. Actually we all dream every night, we just don’t always remember it just as we don’t always remember every thought we had during our waking lives. We are most likely to recall two types of dreams, the really scary, intimidating or unpleasant ones or the amazingly fun and exciting ones. Again, just as in waking life, we are most apt to remember things if they have a big emotional ‘charge’.

To learn how to remember your dreams it is important to ‘set expectations’. To do this, each night before you go to sleep you need to say to yourself things like, “I will find a solution to my problem”, or, “I will remember what I dream”, or, “I will remember the dreams that are most relevant and useful to me at this time”. You need to be sure that you have something next to your bed to write with and on. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just a pen and paper will do.

If you wake up in the night for any reason immediately write down anything you remember dreaming, even if it’s only a fragment. And when you awaken at the end of your sleeping time be sure to again record any dream or part of a dream that you can recall. And don’t forget, like any other newly learned skill it will take time to perfect.

Dreams focus on what ever happens to be on your mind at the moment, but not necessarily your conscious mind. For example, you may dream about something that happened yesterday or something that has been plaguing you for many years, like an unresolved conflict with a parent. The real value of dreams is in their interpretation.

There have been many books written on the interpretation of dreams. Usually these sorts of books assign meanings to certain dream symbols. In truth, the meaning of a symbol is unique to the dreamer. For example, two people may dream about being naked. For one person the dream is about liberation, freedom and releasing the shackles that bind them. For another, it’s terrifying, shameful and intimidating. Each of these dreams is dealing with different issues and each dreamer has different associations about being naked. So, depending on your given associations your brain will choose the symbol needed to induce the appropriate mindset for problem solving in your dream.

People are often confused and intimidated by the dream interpretation process. One of the most productive ways to look at dreams is to remember the ‘Greek chorus’ idea we talked about earlier, when you look at your dreams understand that each of the characters in it are parts of yourself attempting to communicate with you. For example, you have a dream about finding yourself standing on a shore looking out over a horizon with beautiful, but impossible to scale looking mountains, in the distance. Suddenly, you realize that in front of you is flowing a river of molten lava. Somehow you know that you must get to the mountains, but how? And then a kayak appears, brought to you on a sled pulled by a team of Huskies. The dogs bark at you until you finally take the kayak off the sled and then the dogs are gone and you find yourself in the kayak paddling through the molten lava. But you realize you’re terrified of boats and falling into fluids of any kind, you’ve always been scared of drowning and yet here you are paddling away, fearlessly! And so you reach the other shore and find yourself at the foot of the mountain. You know with all your being that you must scale it, but you are horrified at the thought because you know you don’t know how to climb mountains and you’re afraid of heights! But there you are climbing along, inch-by-inch going higher and higher until you reach the pinnacle, and you feel such joy and elation that you begin to cry. In fact, you wake up crying, your pillow wet with the tears of your dream, and you’re thinking, “What was that?” So being the wise and wonderful person that you are you ask yourself, “What if I were all the things and creatures in that dream?” Considering the dream in this way, it would be a dream about you realizing that all the things you are afraid of are illusions and you have within you the power to conquer anything and achieve your loftiest goals. All you need to do is move forward with confidence and the answers you need to overcome your fears and achieve your goals will come to you just when, you need them and just as, you need them.

See how very clever you are? Save yourself the $14.99 you might have spent on the dream interpretation book and learn to pay attention to yourself and your own symbols.

Night, night, sweet dreams!

Dr. Margaret Cochran has been an educator and professional therapist for more than 28 years. With graduate degrees in Education, Social Work and Transpersonal Psychology she has worked with a wide variety of clients, both individual and organizational.

Dr. Cochran is the host of the internet radio show, ‘Wisdom, Love and Magic!’, which is number one on iTunes for mental health programming. She is also the author of ‘Sylvia and the Magic Power Sticks’ a fairy tale about how shame is often an integral part of everyday life.  For more information please visit www.drcochran.com

Written by Betty Doyle

University of Montpellier scientists demonstrate us how depression is related to cholestrerol levels and gender

Do you know the Institute of Medical and Health Research (INSERM) and College of Montpellier funded scientists suggested that regulating ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol levels may help avoid mood conditions among aging population?

In a recent issue of the academic journal Biological Psychiatry written in July 2010, leading researcher Dr. Marie-Laure Ancelin of INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale) reported that gender specific regulation of cholesterol can aid reduce depression symptoms in the elderly.

French doctors followed a significant group ... Read More »]]>

Written by Betty Doyle

University of Montpellier scientists demonstrate us how depression is related to cholestrerol levels and gender

Do you know the Institute of Medical and Health Research (INSERM) and College of Montpellier funded scientists suggested that regulating ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cholesterol levels may help avoid mood conditions among aging population?

In a recent issue of the academic journal Biological Psychiatry written in July 2010, leading researcher Dr. Marie-Laure Ancelin of INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale) reported that gender specific regulation of cholesterol can aid reduce depression symptoms in the elderly.

French doctors followed a significant group of women and men aged 65 and older for 7 years.

They discovered that depressive disorder in women was linked with lower levels of “good” high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), which puts them at higher risk for coronary disease, including heart stroke.

On the other hand, depressive disorder in men was related to low levels of “bad” low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). This association was strongest in men with a hereditary vulnerability to depression related to a serotonin transporter gene.

Therefore, proper regulation of HDL-C and LDL-C levels can help stop depressive disorder in the aging adults, the researchers concluded.

The analysis was published in the July 15 issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.

Major nutritional sources of cholesterol include cheese, egg yolks, beef, pork, chicken, and shrimp. Plant products such as flax seeds and peanuts have cholesterol-like compounds called phytosterols.

Total cholesterol is defined as the sum of HDL (High-density lipoprotein), LDL (Low-density lipoprotein), and VLDL (Very-low-density lipoprotein). Usually, only the total, HDL, and triglycerides are measured.

It is recommended to have cholesterol tested more frequently than five years if someone has total cholesterol of 200 mg/dL and up, or if a man over age 45 or a woman over age fifty has HDL (good) cholesterol less than 40 mg/dL, or occur other risk elements for coronary disease and stroke.

So…exactly what can you do to increase your HDL (good) and decrease your LDL (bad) levels?

1. Exercising can substantially raise HDL cholesterol while lowering LDL cholesterol.

2. Smoking has been shown to lower HDL while raising LDL cholesterol.

3. Highly processed, trans fats simultaneously raise LDL cholesterol and lower HDL cholesterol.

4. Monounsaturated fats such as those found in essential olive oil and avocados increase HDL and reduce LDL.

5. Fatty fish like salmon and sardines contain omega-3 fats that raise HDL and lower LDL.

6. Whole, intact cereals contain dietary fiber and niacin, both of which raise HDL and may lower LDL.

Now it’s all to you…

Betty Doyle gives advice for the depression pills effects blog. It’s a nonprofit website focused on her personal depression journey. The blog is focused on presenting energy and hope to any individual who is suffering from depressive disorder and promotes those people to find the energy to fight against the effects of depression. This way she would like to aid alleviate some of the stigma mental illness depression can cause and help the general public perception of mood difficulties.

Photo Credit © Alexander Raths | Dreamstime.com

Author of Life Over Cancer: The Block Center Program for Integrative Cancer Treatment From time to time a study comes across my desk that validates a long-held belief This happened this past week.What interested me the most about this study was that it strongly contradicted what the mighty marketing arm of the food industry wants us to believe; that is, that one of their key ingredients, high fructose corn syrup – or HFCS – is harmless – “So enjoy!”

In the study, published in the August 1 issue of Cancer Research, researchers at ... Read More »]]>

• Bread and other baked goods: muffins, doughnuts, cookies, cakes, pies.
• Tomato products: pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce,  ketchup and  BBQ sauce
• Processed foods: macaroni and cheese, lunch meat, nutrition bars, candy
• Sweetened yogurts
• Salad dressing
• Fast food
• Cereal
• Canned fruit
• Baked goods & desserts
• Soft drinks, fruit punch and sports drinks
• Beverages:  bottled juices, drink pouches, frozen concentrates, lemonade and sweetened iced teas
• Most sweetened yogurts
• Most salad dressings
• Ice cream
• Cough medicine

Read Food and Beverage Labels:

• HFCS can be found in foods that don’t even taste sweet
• The word “natural” is not regulated by the FDA, so this term on a product package does not guarantee that it is free of HFCS
• Only if labeled 100% organic will the food be free of HFCS, because there is no organic HFCS available. Yet.

Choose Lower Glycemic Fruits:

• Cantaloupe
• Apples
• Oranges
• Pears
• Peaches
• Grapes
• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Blueberries
• Cherries
• Grapefruit
• Lemons
• Limes

Photo Credit © Ali Nishan | Dreamstime.com

As mothers, daughters, wives and leaders of households, women often steer the health care choices of families. Thus in the coming years, women will also be a major force toward implementing health care reform and the landmark Affordable Care Act.

Whenever we enroll a child into newly available health insurance, whenever we convince parents to get mammograms or colonoscopies that will be free under Medicare in 2011, each time we appeal an insurance company’s denial of care, or ... Read More »]]> By Dora Calott Wang, M.D.,
Author of The Kitchen Shrink: A Psychiatrist’s Reflections on Healing in a Changing World

As mothers, daughters, wives and leaders of households, women often steer the health care choices of families. Thus in the coming years, women will also be a major force toward implementing health care reform and the landmark Affordable Care Act.

Whenever we enroll a child into newly available health insurance, whenever we convince parents to get mammograms or colonoscopies that will be free under Medicare in 2011, each time we appeal an insurance company’s denial of care, or when we choose health insurance in new marketplaces beginning in 2014 — we will be helping to shape the future of health care in America. In fact, much of the ACA depends upon the actions and choices of patients, with women often taking the lead.

Many ACA laws are already in effect. For example, nursing mothers in most workplaces are now entitled to time and private space to pump breast milk for a child’s first year of life. Did you ever think the feds would mandate this? It’s a new era.

The ACA’s main goal is for nearly every American to have health insurance. New opportunities are already available, and uninsured members of your family may qualify. If someone in your family has been denied health insurance because of a pre-existing illness, check out the new “high-risk pool” insurance plans available now. Log onto Healthcare.gov to find local options, and get your loved one covered. Medicaid has been expanded, so someone in your family may be newly eligible. By September 23, you can insure your children under your own health plan until they are age 26, and insurance companies will have to accept all children under age 19 with pre-existing illnesses.

Patients (and the women often guiding them), might possibly exert the most influence on health care reform through two important ACA measures — appeals processes that should be in place by Sept. 23, and the new health insurance marketplaces in effect by 2014.

In the words of President Obama, the ACA aims to protect patients against the worst abuses of health insurance companies. The ACA provides many safeguards against insurance companies denying coverage. Yet the devil is still in the details when it comes to holding insurers more accountable toward paying for care. To fight against insurance companies taking our premiums, then trying not to pay for medical care, the federal government is cracking down on fraud, waste and abuse. The ACA eliminates life-time caps on health insurance benefits, while mandating that insurance companies now must spend at least 85 percent of their dollars on medical care, rather than on profit and administration.

We the public can do our part to keep insurance companies honest through new appeals processes which should be in place by Sept. 23 for new insurers. If you feel your new insurer is unfairly denying care, or is stalling on time-sensitive care, you will be able to appeal to the insurer itself, but also to an external review process. The ACA leaves it up to individual states to institute these appeals processes, but the federal government will hear grievances if state processes are inadequate.

These appeals processes will be an all-important aspect of health reform — which will be driven by patients making appeals, and therefore reliant upon all of us.

Another crucial step is that by 2014, we can shop for health insurance in new exchanges offering comparisons between different plans. So if we see an insurance company hiking rates by 70 percent in one year, for example, or if an insurance company has a reputation of not paying for care (yes, this will still happen under the ACA), the new exchanges will offer options. Collectively, by choosing insurance for our families, we’ll determine which insurers succeed or fail, and thus shape the landscape of American health care.

The lady of the house has always had a large role in steering the health care choices of her family. Now with the new Affordable Care Act, the actions of women on behalf of their families will collectively shape the future of health care in America.

For more information about the ACA and its timeline, log onto the excellent website, Healthcare.gov.

© 2010 Dora Calott Wang, M.D., author of The Kitchen Shrink: A Psychiatrist’s Reflections on Healing in a Changing World

Dora Calott Wang, M.D., is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. A graduate of the Yale School of Medicine and the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, she received her M.A. in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been the recipient of a writer’s residency from the Lannan Foundation. Her memoir, The Kitchen Shrink:  A Psychiatrist’s Reflections on Healing in a Changing World was published by Riverhead Books, The Penguin Group.

For more information please visit www.doracalottwang.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo Credit © Yuri Arcurs | Dreamstime.com