Category: health and well being


How is 2014 treating you? And how are you treating it?

How is 2014 treating you? And how are you treating it?

We’ve just passed the halfway point of 2014 — how is the year going for you? Are you following through on your ambitions for the year?
For our new year’s card this year, we provided a range of verbs we felt showed actions of improving your life, including several pairs of actions: start and quit, commit and release, host and visit, save and give.

Lou Rosenfeld loses weight by making small changes

Lou Rosenfeld loses weight by making small changes

About the time I hit my goal of losing 10 pounds, our friend Lou Rosenfeld posted on Facebook in March that he’d lost weight and trimmed his waistline. I found the timing interesting — it’s tempting to scarf heavy casseroles and skip exercise during a bitter winter like we had this year — and I was struck that we’d both taken…

12 tips to cultivate your own happiness

12 tips to cultivate your own happiness

Happiness is a subject I frequently blog about — specifically, that it’s not just a virus you catch or something that happens to you, but like love or fulfillment, it’s something you consciously cultivate. So of course I loved this column by Jacob Sokol on Huffington Post headlined 12 Things Happy People Do Differently — And Why I Started Doing Them.…

How can you make the world better with $5? Find out!

How can you make the world better with $5? Find out!

I love birthdays — I think of them as my own personal New Year’s Day, reflecting on where I’ve been in my last year and how I can make my next year better. And my birthday always falls during Lent, which is a Christian season of reflection leading up to Easter. Though many people simplify Lent to giving something up,…

New Year's gym crowd, you should stay or you should go

New Year's gym crowd, you should stay or you should go

Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, this past week predictably brought huge crowds to my local YMCA. Every cardiovascular machine was full, classes were packed, the hallways bustled. Also predictably, the people who were working out in November and December grumble about the New Year’s resolution throngs. For instance, a friend funnier than I am wrote on Facebook: Dear people…

Do you have difficult people in your life?

Do you have difficult people in your life?

The world would be a lovely place if we were all kind and respectful and loving toward one another. Unfortunately, there are greedy people, bullies and manipulators among us, to name just a few of the difficult people we all have to encounter. How should we handle these people who make us feel less than great? A recent Deepak Chopra…

Embracing uncertainty as the path to happiness

Embracing uncertainty as the path to happiness

If you don’t yet read Brain Pickings, the smartly wonderful guide to things you should check out online, here’s yet another endorsement to check it out. I spend a lot of time reading and blogging about happiness, but recently Maria Popova, the curator of Brain Pickings, turned me on to a happiness book I hadn’t heard of: The Antidote: Happiness…

When 23 seconds might be all that separated life from death

When 23 seconds might be all that separated life from death

We met a woman this weekend who ran the Boston Marathon. It didn’t come up until we’d chatted for a while at a party. She didn’t even bring it up, but after she casually mentioned that she’s a marathoner, I asked if she knew anyone in Boston. I was there, she said, before adding she’d finished just 23 seconds before…

Take care of your health, ego and haters be damned

Take care of your health, ego and haters be damned

Like so many others, I am thinking the new year is a good time to recommit to exercise. Health clubs are full this time of year. Many won’t make it ’til Valentine’s Day before they drop off. But Lindy West isn’t a hit it and quit it gym member. She wrote a sassy, funny, inspiring article on Jezebel headlined, “Hello,…