Debbie Mandel’s
Turn On Your Inner Light
Weekly Wellness Newsletter
October 24, 2005
www.TurnOnYourInnerLight.com


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Affirmation of the Week
When you become the top dog,
you don’t have to bark at everyone.

Weekly Wellness Radio Show

The Turn On your Inner Light Radio Show airs Tuesday evenings 7:00 to 7:30pm, on WGBB 1240AM in Long Island. The shows are archived for your listening pleasure.

Guest of the Week - Robert Freund, MD

On Oct 25, 2005 - Robert Freund, MD, a leading NY plastic surgeon and the author of Cosmetic Breast Surgery. Get a refreshingly honest guide to cosmetic surgery.
Click to listen to it NOW via the internet.


Health Tips of the Week

  • According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there are only four kinds of fish to avoid because of high mercury levels: shark, king mackerel, swordfish, and tilefish. Regarding other fish, eat a variety because the benefits of omega 3s outweigh the mercury risks.
  • Latest research on obesity: Getting a good night's rest could help you lose weight. Seven or eight hours of sleep per night seems to be the optimal number. That doesn’t mean that you can increase your calories, and sleep them off, but it does help increase the level of leptin, an appetite suppressor.
  • The Cochrane Report, the gold standard of medical reviews states that: Cognitive behavioral therapy helps children and teens suffering from anxiety disorders. In fact, it is so effective it might be the first line of treatment with qualified therapists.
  • If you want your kids to exercise more, try motivating them with TV viewing time. Get your child a pedometer and after 400 counts they could watch an hour of TV. According to Children’s Hospital in Ontario, the kids wearing pedometers became more active. This is an interesting approach: fight fire with fire.
  • Amoxicillin when given frequently to infants, as in the case of chronic ear infections, has been shown to damage tooth enamel from small white spots to pits and brown stains.
  • According to the journal Neurology severe blows to the head, commonly experienced by athletes like football players, tend to cause mild mental impairment and could trigger Alzheimer’s disease at a younger age than the rest of the population. Head trauma has been listed as one of the possible causes of Alzheimer’s by a number of researchers.


Article of the Week
Halloween Can Help You Define Your Identity

Halloween provides an ample opportunity for costuming and partying. Many of us wear costumes that are outrageous – frightening, hilarious or sexy. We wear masks to facilitate playfulness, encouraging us to try on different identities. Men dress as women and women dress as men – the yin and yang of things. In addition, part of the fun is figuring out the true identities of friends and acquaintances, cleverly disguised. Is Count Dracula the children’s pediatrician? Is Marilyn Monroe the neighborhood librarian? We perceive everyone in a different light and observe body language, tone and verbiage to figure out who is who. In fact, we pay attention to others more closely than usual. We laugh and delight in our new found freedom. Is this a trick or a treat?

Trying on different identities is not limited to teenagers who are notorious for costuming en route to self-discovery. An identity crisis is perhaps more severe in midlife when our lives can be overturned in a moment by loss: health, job, home, relationship, empty nest, or death of a loved one. People we thought we knew now wear new masks and we don’t know who they are any more.

This reminds me of Marcel Proust’s novel, Remembrance of Things Past, where the hero attends a party that he thinks is a costume party, everyone wearing masks. However, it soon becomes clear to him that the party is attended by old friends, whom he hasn’t seen in years; they have aged in the interim and so to him it appears that they wear masks hiding their youth. Of course, he does not see how he has aged!

The people we encounter who disturb us or delight us mirror our personal insecurities and strengths. We can multiply our opportunities for self-growth by paying attention to our specific feelings for the people in our lives. Even when we have a history with someone and believe that we must be friends until the end, More


Frank Mikulka's Fitness Tip Of The Week
How to Deal With Sugar Lust

I have a hard time staying away from eating some kind of chocolate dessert each day. I don’t have a weight problem, and work out on a regular basis, but I feel bad about eating dessert loaded with sugar each day. Do you have any tips for limiting my intake of sweets without missing or craving it? I’ve tried to give up eating sweets before, but failed miserably. Thank you, (Susan, New Jersey) Answer

Send your fitness question to: fitness@turnonyourinnerlight.com

Debbie Mandel, MA is the author of Turn On Your Inner Light: Fitness for Body, Mind and Soul, a stress-reduction specialist, motivational speaker, a personal trainer and mind/body lecturer. She is the host of the weekly Turn On Your Inner Light Show on WGBB 1240 AM in Long Island and has been featured on radio/ TV and print media.

To learn more: www.turnonyourinnerlight.com