WesWELL

We can see dandelions as a weed that invades the pristine beauty of our gardens.
Or, we can see it as a beautiful flower or a fluffy white ball to wish upon or as a source of nourishing food and drink.

We can see a mud puddle and see only dirty shoes, soiled clothes, and stained carpets.
Or, we can see it as a pool to stomp in, splash around in, and have fun.

We can feel a wind and worry about how it will muss our hair or toss leaves on our manicured lawns.
Or, we can close our eyes, let it massage our face, and imagine we’re soaring on an updraft like an eagle.

We can see a rain storm and see only that we will be drenched, depressed by the grayness, and that the warm rays of the sun will disappear.
Or, we can sing and play in the rain as if it was a water fountain, realize the raindrops are nourishing our gardens, and think warmly of the sun that still shines above the gray clouds.

How do you choose to view attending to your health?

As a chore? As something the government guidelines say you should do a certain number of minutes a day or in a particular combination of foods or by not doing this or not doing that? As a requirement to check off your “To Do” list, if you get around to doing it at all?

Or as a gift to yourself? As a way to keep your mind, body and spirit strong and functioning in a way that will help you reach your goals? As a means to the end of being a successful person who can give of themselves freely since their cup is filled to overflowing?

How do you choose to view attending to your health? It may make all the difference.

Educational efforts on sexual violence prevention typically place a strong focus on communication, especially on the giving and receiving of consent to particiate in sexual activity. As thorny as it can be to define what consent looks and sounds like, what if your attempts to communicate your intention are completely misinterpreted?

Dr. Louanne Weston Cole, in her Sex Matters blog at WebMD.com, shares an intriguing study on the differences between men and women in how they interpret words differently in sexual situations:

I was reading an article about a new book, Studies in Applied Interpersonal Communication, by Michael Motley, a University of California at Davis professor. He did an interesting study on how males and females interpret what females say when in the very early stages of sexual kissing.

When a female says, “It’s getting late,” she means that she wants to stop what they’re doing and go their separate ways. If she finished her sentence, it would go, “I should already be home in bed - alone.” Most males in this study, however, interpreted this to mean that she wants to skip the preliminaries and go forward a bit more quickly.

Or, if a woman says, “I’m seeing someone else,” (meaning that she wants to stop because her affections are really with another man), males tend to think this means, “Keep going, but let’s be discreet,” or “Keep going, but I want you to know that I’m not making a commitment.”

Motley concludes that in their efforts to not offend or upset their male partners with direct and forceful words, women are merely confusing them. He found out that men would prefer to hear it loud and clear, even if it smarts a little bit, rather than trying to read the woman’s mind and risk offending her and/or losing the sexual opportunity. read full article…

While the research is a bit locked up in the gender binary and heterosexual relationships, it still illustrates an important point: what we say may not be what is heard. It’s extraordinarily difficult to get what you want (and avoid what you don’t) if your attempts to communicate your intentions aren’t interpreted correctly.

Discussion Questions:
What does this mean for how we should be communicating with our partners?
Would being more forceful and direct in what we say solve the problem?
Or could our words continue to be misinterpreted even when said with conviction?
How do our cultural attitudes about sex and gender stereotypes play into this?

Wesleyan Resources:
Sexual Violence information
Emotional Abuse information
Sexual Misconduct Policy
Office of Behavioral Health for Students

Do you feel confident in your decision-making or not? We all probably can improve to varying degrees in this area, so the Dumb Little Man blog offers advice on what might contribute to low self esteem in decision making and how to improve it:

 If you suffer from low confidence and feel insecure about your own abilities, you may find it difficult to make even the simplest of decisions. Even the horrid choice of choosing where to go for dinner sends you into a frenzy. Insecurity occurs for several reasons. Perhaps at a young age your parents striped your ability to make any choices by choosing everything you ate, everything you wore, etc.

Now that you are grown and in the workforce, you find yourself suddenly having to make a lot more decisions. With little or no previous experience, it is no wonder that you start to fumble. Anxiety and worry are your constant companions during the decision making process. While trying to decide on your options, you spend hours playing out the possible scenarios of failure. You are nervous about what others may say and think, swearing that you can already hear the sounds of snickering in your head. read full article…

Wesleyan Resources: Office of Behavioral Health for Students

Discussion Questions: What helps you to improve your decision making ability?  

Want to live longer?

Maybe that seems like something to worry about in the far-flung future, but new research indicates it may boil down to four simple things you can do that will prolong your life by an average of 14 years and improve your overall health in the meantime. The Mayo Clinic Health Letter reports on this research.

Does the bombardment of information on how to improve your health just leave you feeling confused? Try focusing on this straightforward advice:

1. Have no more than two alcoholic beverages a day.
2. Don’t smoke.
3. Get at least the equivalent of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity a day.
4. Eat five servings of fruit and vegetables a day.

According to a recent study published in the January 2008 edition of Public Library of Science Medicine, people who follow those steps live an average of 14 years longer than those who don’t. Mayo Clinic experts would further recommend that women of all ages — and men over 65 — have no more than one drink a day.

For the study, researchers interviewed and examined over 20,000 reasonably healthy men and women aged 45 to 79, living in Norfolk County, United Kingdom. Their health status was checked again after many years.

Researchers found that regardless of sex, social status — or even body weight — those who followed none of the recommendations listed above had four times the risk of dying over the course of a decade than did those who followed all of the recommendations. Not smoking offered the greatest benefits in terms of survival.

Discussion Question: If you knew you could live longer by doing these four things, would you? Or if you are already doing these things, does it help motivate you to maintain these choices? And what would you do with the extra time?

From the Mayo Clinic…

Research has long shown that exercise can improve brainpower and hold off age-related memory loss. New studies show that adding strength training to your normal exercise routine may improve your memory by stimulating a hormone that protects brain cells. It’s easy! Lift hand weights, use resistance tubing, or do squats or push-ups. read full article…

Discussion Question: What benefit could this have to your academic performance?

From the Mayo Clinic…

We have just witnessed the extraordinary visits of two extraordinary men. Pope Benedict XVI visited Washington, D.C., and New York City, appearing at Yankee Stadium before more than 50,000 of the faithful.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited Seattle and was a guest at Mayo Clinic here in Rochester, Minn., exploring the mind-body connection. So, we have two spiritual leaders from two different cultures, from two different parts of the world, from two different belief systems yet offering a consistent message. A message that resonates with some of the comments from our blog community. In particular I heard three themes that I would like to share.

1. The notion of compassion. Each of these spiritual leaders underscored the notion of reaching out and caring as one attempts to decrease some of the suffering that surrounds us. Each of us regardless of our titles or education or checkbooks is struggling with some issue.
2. The creation of an inner peace and serenity. The pope is obviously struggling with the challenges of Catholicism, and the Dalai Lama is dealing with the difficult issues in Tibet. Yet, each has an outward serenity and grace. It is their belief in a power over and above themselves that somehow gives them the fortitude to move forward in the face of overwhelming issues.
3. A notion of caring for themselves. Each of these gentlemen is in his 70s or 80s and has an incredibly challenging schedule. Yet, there is time for rest, there is time for exercise, and there is time for quiet introspection. They have learned what many of us have somehow neglected; we are not built to run nonstop, and if we do not take time to care for ourselves, we will quickly run of energy.

So, what other dimensions of wellness can we distill from the words and the actions of two spiritual leaders?

Leo Babauta, a blogger who lives on Guam, writes Zen Habits, a great little blog about achieving goals, productivity, being healthier, and more.  He has created a lot of positive change in his life recently and blogged about things to avoid when you’re trying to change your habits.  In part, it reads:

I’ve not only learned a lot about what you should do when changing habits, but through my failures, I’ve learned about what not to do.

And trust me, I’ve had lots of failures.

I’ve found failures to be just as important as successes when trying to learn how to improve, especially when it comes to changing habits. It’s not an easy task, and I’m sure every one of us has tried to quit something and failed, or tried to do something positive and failed. The key, of course, is to not just give up after failure, but to reset your resolve, to analyze what went wrong and why, and to plan to overcome those obstacles the next time.

Failure often is our best teacher, even if it stings at the time. For example, it takes a typical cigarette smoker an average of eight attempts to stay quit. And each time you might feel like a complete failure, only to have that time you are successful be that much sweeter.

Read up on Leo’s suggestions for how to change habits. They may help you successful a bit sooner as you are striving to create change in your life. 

 Discussion Question: What helps you be more successful when you are trying to change a habit?

From PingMyHealth…

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What is a Healthy Lifestyle?

According to a study by Michigan State University, a healthy lifestyle is defined by four basic criteria:

• Not smoking
• Holding weight down
• Eating right
• Exercising

Of the 153,000 respondents, only 3% participated in all four of what are termed healthy lifestyle characteristics.

“We have millions of people now going through adult life leading unhealthy lifestyles and a medical system that can treat illnesses and keep you alive longer than ever before,” said Mathew Reeves, a Michigan State University epidemiologist. “If we don’t turn this around, the costs to society are going to be crippling.”

What can be done to help people change?
read full article…

WesWELL offers a wide variety of links and resources on health issues that pertain to living a healthy lifestyle. Visit Wellness A to Z for more information.

From CNN.com & Health Magazine… 

Must. Stay. Awake. Yes, it’s the 3 o’clock mantra. And who hasn’t mumbled it while fighting off midday yawns and drooping eyes?

Fatigue and flagging energy seem to be epidemics, especially among women who burn the candle at both ends (and who doesn’t?). Instead of moping, pump up your mojo with these 10 strategies from experts in sleep, fitness, nutrition, psychology, and alternative medicine.

1. See the light

Get the right light, and you’ll have lots more energy. But that can be a challenge, given the poorly lit offices we sit in and the scant doses of daily sunlight (which contains brain-activating short-wavelength blue light) we get. “Our circadian rhythms are more sensitive to blue light than any other kind,” says Mariana Figueiro, assistant professor at the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

read full article…