Kindness is Healthy!!

Scientific studies are now supporting what our Grandmothers have told us for centuries - kindness is good for you!

• Helping contributes to the maintenance of good health, and it can diminish the effect of diseases and disorders serious and minor, psychological and physical.

• A rush of euphoria, followed by a longer period of calm, after performing a kind act is often referred to as a "helper's high," involving physical sensations and the release of the body's natural painkillers, the endorphins. This initial rush is then followed by a longer-lasting period of improved emotional well-being.

• Stress-related health problems improve after performing kind acts. Helping reverses feelings of depression, supplies social contact, and decreases feelings of hostility and isolation that can cause stress, overeating, ulcers, etc. A drop in stress may, for some people, decrease the constriction within the lungs that leads to asthma attacks.

• Helping can enhance our feelings of joyfulness, emotional resilience, and vigor, and can reduce the unhealthy sense of isolation.

• A decrease in both the intensity and the awareness of physical pain can occur.

• The incidence of attitudes, such as chronic hostility, that negatively arouse and damage the body is reduced.

• The health benefits and sense of well-being return for hours or even days whenever the helping act is remembered.

• An increased sense of self-worth, greater happiness, and optimism, as well as a decrease in feelings of helplessness and depression, is achieved.

• Once we establish an "affiliative connection" with someone - a relationship of friendship, love, or some sort of positive bonding - we feel emotions that can strengthen the immune system.

• Adopting an altruistic lifestyle is a critical component of mental health.

• The practice of caring for strangers translates to immense immune and healing benefits.

• Regular club attendance, volunteering, entertaining, or faith group attendance is the happiness equivalent of getting a college degree or more than doubling your income.

Source: Luks, Allan. The Healing Power of Doing Good: The Health and Spiritual Benefits of Helping Others. New York: iUniverse.com, 2001. Our thanks to the Niagara Wellness Council, Niagara Fall, NY, for compiling this list from Luks' book. The Niagara Wellness Council may be reached by email at niagwellness@opticlick.com.

Find Yourself Again...

You deserve more than just a massage...you deserve an experience of blissful tranquility...an oasis of stillness...nurturing, loving hands giving back to you because you give so much to others...

Women are natural caretakers...of our husbands, children, family & friends...yet in the bustle of modern existence we can go too far, too fast and give too much...exhausting ourselves into a joyless state of obligatory service...

In short...sometimes we feel so lost...

At Bless Your Body, you will receive...nothing is expected of you...nothing required...this time is yours alone...because you deserve it...and because you cannot continue without it...

Revel in the hypnotic fragrances of the purest essential oils...melt beneath warm hands tenderly ministering to your body...allow your mind to wander through corridors of silken sound...

Join us as we nurture the nurturer within you...sending you back into your life rejuvenated, refreshed, and ready to give anew from a full heart...

We believe in holistic care for the woman’s entire lifecycle…utilizing the benefits of touch therapy and the uniquely effective remedies of specifically chosen plant essences…to help you find yourself again...


"I come here to find myself...it is so easy to get lost in the world..." - John Burroughs

Water...

Like you, I have heard for years of the importance of drinking water. I am a massage therapist and part of our training is the dogma of "drink water."

After fifteen dehydrated years of doing this work and several more post-baby pounds than I'd care to admit, I finally discovered a treatise on water intake that spoke my language...Don Colbert's book "The Seven Pillars of Health."

The gist of course, is that our bodies are made up mostly of water and that this element is profoundly essential to the proper functioning of the human machine.

Remember the concept of "water weight?" Most folks use this as the dismissive adjective referring to the first few pounds lost on any diet; but the truth, according to Colbert, is that water weight describes the camel-like tendency of our bodies to hoard water in our fat cells to ensure our survival in the pseudo-drought of modern life.

We drink coffee, tea, cola, red bull, juice, and a plethora of high-fructose corn syrup infested cocktails, but none of these does our body recognize as water. Our earth suits are convinced we are dying of thirst, so, bless their hearts, they protect us by wrangling whatever liquid they can muster from the stuff we drink and cramming it into our adipose tissue.

This leads to all sorts of nasty inflammation response ickies - not the least of which is feeling bound up and unable to move, inflexible in our skins.

The body will willingly let go of excess pounds when it knows it will be receiving the water it needs.

The secret to long life - the kind you'd actually WANT to live - is giving our bodies what they thirst for...

Imagine an engine given all the gas it wants (food & sugary caffeine laden drinks) but no oil....wears out quick, huh? Same thing with our bodies...

Say your car's engine needs five quarts of oil - everybody understands that. Well, the body has the same type of requirement for water...DAILY. Each of us should drink approximately 1/2 ounce per pound of our body weight...each and every day. This will ensure the parts stay lubricated and the "engine" runs as God designed...