Tag Archives: whole person health

Integrative Health: Why The Endocrine System Is Fascinating

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endocrine system is amazing

One of my all-time favorite subjects to teach is the endocrine system. It is the most fascinating and clearest example we have of how “everything is everything” in the body. For those of you unfamiliar with the underlying theme of Whole Health Education, our method and model of education and teaching is founded on the idea that everything in the body is intimately connected to everything else.

The endocrines are such a perfect example of this interconnectedness of body, mind and spirit that it is pure joy to share the information with understandably eager students!

We begin with the Reproductive Glands and will discuss SEVEN aspects of the Reproductive Glands based on these concepts:

(1) the specific organ name and function
(2) the seven (7) virtues
(3) organs and systems
(4) Selye’s stress model
(5) its Whole Health aspect
(6) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
(7) the seven (7) “deadly sins”

Referred to as the “root chakra” in yoga and energy circles, these powerful glands are in the most primal sense, the SURVIVAL component of Maslow’s Hierarchy. In fact, they are essential to the survival of the species – which is their primary purpose. They are, of course, part of the organs and system of reproduction that includes various accessory parts that are necessary to support the reproductive function.

That the Reproductive Glands belong to the physical aspect of Whole Health is very straight forward and evident. When we look at them in terms of Selye’s Stress Model we can see that they are connected to the “survival stressors” of

> reproduction (yes, sadly sex is another stressor for our bodies)
> trauma
> exertion (too much exercise or over work)
> weather (excessive heat, sun, cold)
> surgery (very stressful to the entire body and nervous system but sometimes necessary to save our life)

These stressors have a strong effect on the reproductive system. Stress decreases the drive and impulse to reproduce as the body wisely knows to conserve its energy until there is a well balanced system ready for reproduction.

So far we have gone over FIVE (5) of the SEVEN (7) aspects. The last two are fun because they really clarify the emotional and behavioral aspects of these important and influential glands.

The VIRTUE of the reproductive glands is spirituality – seeing the profound divine and unfathomable nature of reproducing and bringing forth, from the co-joining of two human beings, new human life. (If you’ve had children you know that they really do smell like they just came from “heaven” – what we imagine heaven to be anyway)

The DEADLY SIN of the reproductive glands is – we all know this one – its all around us. Yes, indeed, good ‘ol LUST, which of course is about self gratification and not the co-joining of a partnership resulting in a new life.

Understanding this information is important when we look at a person’s physical presentation or dis-ease from a Whole Person perspective. What are the cause and effect factors at play that are creating their disease? What is out of balance in the person’s seven aspects that is creating problems in this particular part of the body?

 

For more whole health discussions, listen to Dr. Georgianna Donadio’s radio show Living Above The Drama.

Going On Vacation? Protect Your Health

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With rising temperatures and summer break in full force, a lot of people decide to take a vacation. This is a time when when millions of people “take to the skies and roads,” visiting friends and relatives or exploring new locations. It’s a time of fun and relaxation, but there’s a hidden danger you might not know about. Unfortunately, 3-5% those who get off of airplanes, buses, trains or auto transport will develop blood clots, often not detected until many weeks after their trip.

As American health care consumers, we know in today’s environment that we must be pro-active and take control of our health through education and prevention. Staying healthy while traveling is one very important preventative situation that we can all be more aware of in order to circumvent an unwanted health crisis.

Three years ago, the World Health Organization published the WRIGHT report (WHO Research Into Global Hazards of Travel). It identified the extent of the problem and who was at risk. The report identified the population most at risk are females over 40 years of age with a prior history of deep vein thrombosis.

Others at risk include older travelers, obese travelers, pregnant women, anyone with varicose veins or a prior history of venous thrombosis, women taking birth control pills or estrogen, travelers with a history of a major operation, cancer, heart failure, highly trained athletes, and those with recent surgery or injury.

In spite of the evidence explored in our health coach certification, however, there are still airlines in denial over the problem as many fear increased litigation. One major US airline has a published statement on its websites as a response to concerned travels that reads: “There is no epidemiological evidence that air travel causes blood clots.”

However, published experts would re-word that statement.  It would be more accurate to say that “Every credible scientific study of the subject has found that air travel [and other forms of confined travel] cause blood clots, including all of the most recent, large-scale, sophisticated studies.”

What can you do to prevent blood clots?

  1. Do not be immobile for more than 1 hour when traveling by air or in confined transportation
  2. Dress in loose-fitting clothes and shoes. No socks or garments should have banded constriction.
  3. Stay well hydrated, but avoid alcohol.
  4. Exercise your legs and feet every chance you can (e.g. every 20 minutes).
  5. Consider fitted compression stockings–compression of 20 mmHg or more is best.
  6. Take an aspirin. It is not a guarantee that taking aspirin will avoid, it does prevents platelet clumping, which causes clots. If you are at risk, it seems reasonable to take aspirin daily, starting a day before departure and continuing for a day after the flight terminates.
  7. Sit in an aisle seat. You will have more room, and it is easier to stand up and move around the plane, bus, or train.

For more information search for “blood clots and travel”. There is an enormous amount of information on the subject. If you are getting ready for that big trip, obtaining this information in your health coach certification should be part of your “packing” process.

For more whole health discussions like this, listen to my hit radio show Living Above The Drama.

 

Loving Again After Loss

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Meaningful relationships, belonging and love are essential to our health, happiness and what we want, need and desire. It is one of psychologist Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs and one of the most conflicted areas of human interaction. The willingness to be vulnerable after things go badly in an intimate relationship requires both courage and resilience to traverse the landscape of such deep emotion.

Losing love by breakup or death is one of the most profound and stressful things we as human being can experience. The loss of love can literally “break our hearts” and can even undermine our will to live. Sigmund Freud, MD, the well-known father of modern psychoanalysis, many decades ago stated that we "are never as hopelessly unhappy as when we lose love."

Love is what sustains our lives. Research shows the impact of grief on the development and exacerbation of unresolved grief, and how it can result in the development of serious illness or fatal heart disease. The loss of love is something many of us fear and something many of us don’t imagine can happen when, on the surface, things in our relationship seems to be on an even keel.  Yet, for most of us at one time or another to experience the crushing pain of losing love and the almost obsessive reaction we have to regaining that love or finding a way to end the pain and sense of emptiness that can often accompany such loss.

If you are familiar with a small press literary publication, The Sun, you may not have read this poignant essay, published in that magazine, written by Poe Ballantine. He provides insight to the necessity of trust within love. Trust is the element of love which provides the safe place necessary to share our lives and hearts with others. Trusting, and dealing with the loss of trust within love, requires great courage to be able to move beyond the loss and love again. It is interesting that we are inundated from many sources these days with information about wellness and how to prevent illness, when what many of us need is information about how to create more fulfilling and healthy relationships and prevent the heartbreak of losing love.

Ballantine's essay tells a story about his father:

"He kept a close ritual of coffee, then work, dinner, his television shows and his cigarettes. The newspaper stayed on the table open to the personals. He had opened them the first day she had left him, like the reflex of a man covering a wound after being shot. His face was gray from survival. He was a man who could not allow himself to break. The despair stretched out. The music from the stereo could not fill the emptiness. Our conversations were automatic, clock talk. His single guiding hope was that she would return."

"What had happened to my father he never believes would happen. He was fifty years old, settled, comfortable, secure. His children were raised. He had worked hard all his life and now he could relax. I understood why my mother had left him, but I still condemned her for leaving – for taking the easy way out. My father and I played cards and watched private-eye dramas on television. He looked in the personals, called once at something that looked right, but cancelled soon after; it just wasn't in him."

"One Sunday afternoon I heard him crying in the bedroom. I didn't know what to do with a father who cried. He taught me all I knew, the important things: honesty, loyalty, firm handshake, the love beyond self-love, the duty of a man. Trust was his only religion and it was failing him and in turn it was the failure of the world."

"The one thing a human being asks for on this earth is to be loved. Why should it be impossible?"

Trusting, loving and the resilience to come back from the loss of love may be the next "health frontier". Nutrition, one of the more popular health topics, is not just about nourishing our tissues. Nourishing our hearts, which are hungry for love and acceptance, is another skill we need to learn. If we should be mindful of what we eat, how mindful should we become about how and who we love?

 

For more whole health discussions like this, listen to my hit radio show Living Above The Drama available on iHeartRadio.

Are Females More Prone To Depression?

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It comes as no surprise to most women that there is a relationship between their hormone fluctuation and the potential for experiencing depression. Nonetheless, studies of this connection have not been pursued until fairly recently.

A short time ago, the prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) looked at this subject and explored the potential relationship between hormonal dysfunction and depression in women. The published report specifically reviewed how the female reproductive system interacts with the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis. This is a major regulatory mechanism of the body's stress response.

With important data showing that women are twice as likely as men to experience depression, it becomes powerful to recognize that it is this mechanism which sets up a biochemical environment for depression. Stress in women impacts the reproductive hormones which can upset patterns of ovulation, hormone secretion and implantation. Mediated through the HP-axis, this upset can contribute to the loss of menses and to infertility.

If the stress becomes chronic and exerts an ongoing imbalance on the female reproductive hormones, then it makes sense that behavior, mood disorders and depression can significantly increase. When the powerful reproductive, love hormone oxytocin is suppressed due to excessive stress hormones, fertilized eggs cannot implant into the uterus. This significant result of chronic stress is believed to be a primary cause of infertility in American women.

A key to preventing or correcting the problem is to create a more balanced, less stressful lifestyle. When our body's stress adaptation system becomes overwhelmed, many disorders and conditions can develop, depression being just one of them.

The NIH investigators reported that regarding postpartum depression, ongoing hyper-secretion of the stress hormone cortisol during pregnancy creates a temporary drop in adrenal function following delivery. This hormonal change coupled with the plummeting levels of estrogen after giving birth may be an important factor in post-partum depression and possibly in immune dysfunctions, such as postpartum thyroid conditions.

 

 

For more whole health discussions like this, listen to my weekly radio show Living Above The Drama available on iHeartRadio.

 

Are You Using Integrative Medicine For Better Healing?

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Are You Using Integrative Medicine For Better Healing?

There is no doubt that today more and more people are turning to integrative medicine and alternative modalities for their health concerns and disease prevention. This popular movement, winning one out of every two American consumers as converts, may seem to some like a new idea or a “health revolution.” In reality, it is a return to a period in time, over 400 years ago, when health was seen from a more whole person, integrated and even spiritual perspective.

Until the early 1600’s, the realm of human health was believed to represent a person’s spiritual state. If one was healthy, that meant they bore no demons. If one was sick, that meant they needed to purge sickness, which was seen as a “possession” or a spiritual incorrectness that had to be remedied. The prevailing church of the day, ruled by the Vatican, exerted a huge influence over the medical community and how people viewed the cause and cure of their disease.

In 1612, Rene Descartes, a powerful, influential physician and scientist, declared “I think, therefore I am.” He held that the mind and body were two separate, unrelated parts of a human being. Descartes led the political movement to separate the body from the soul, a separation in which he and his peers literally brokered a deal with the Vatican, which was reluctant to give up control over its flock. However, the “scientific revolution” was gripping the culture and the church knew it was prudent to agree. Thus, the division of the mind and body began and the practice of medicine started down the slippery slope to where we find ourselves today.

Since this division set up a medical system that treated only physical health, it became considered, by the mass majority, that this form of medicine was the only legitimate form of healthcare. However, over the course of the past 50 years people have grown sicker and increasingly dissatisfied with the medical system. This led to an increase in the use of “untried” remedies and treatments, which offered success and often cures for varied ailments. This “alternative medicine” attempts to address the whole person rather than just the physical body. Because of the success of alternative medicine, and the resultant popularity, we are currently experiencing a renaissance of the “whole-person” body, mind and spirit approach to healing.

Today, thanks to the internet, we have more information about every aspect of health than ever before. Still, there exists confusion between allopathic medicine and integrative medicine regarding how their treatment approaches differ and how one can discern what is right for their particular need or condition. By comparing and contrasting both approaches individuals can be empowered with information to make an educated decision about how they would like to address their personal healthcare and what forms they would like to incorporate.

Often called modern medicine, conventional or traditional, allopathic medicine defines health as the absence of disease, disorder or problem. This is most often attained by administering drugs or surgery that produce the opposite effect of the problem.

In allopathic medicine, the main cause of illness is considered to be viruses or bacteria. Scientific tests are used to diagnose before drugs or surgery are prescribed. Furthermore, the emphasis here is more on “attacking the problem,” which is seen as an invader or enemy outside the self, rather than exploring the cause and effect of the problem and working to identify what needs to be changed or altered to bring about the return of health.

On the opposite spectrum, alternative, natural, complementary or holistic medicine addresses the problem or condition from a focus of identifying what particular choices or behaviors the individual might be making that are leading to the expression of symptoms collectively called their “disease or diagnosis.”

In contrast, because integrative medicine bridges the gap between traditional and alternative medicine, an integrative physician or practitioner would evaluate not only the patient’s physical health, but also the other aspects of their life that may be influencing their health. Scientific evidence and ancient teachings have proven that there are multiple components to health that make up a whole person, therefore, illness cannot be cured or wellness realized without taking multiple aspects into account.

For example, a traditional allopathic approach to a sore throat could include a drug substance or over the counter aspirin and possibly a cough and sore throat medicine. The integrative medical practitioner trained to stimulate the body’s healing potential, may prescribe nutritional changes, herbs, aromatherapy, gargling with various natural extracts, vitamins, garlic, broths, vegetable juice or extracts, calcium sources or homeopathic remedies.

The options we are offered today through Integrative Medicine invite us to become more proactive and better informed as health care consumers. This empowers us to take greater control over our health outcomes and longevity. That’s a prescription for good health we can all live with.

For more whole health discussions like this, listen to my weekly radio show Living Above The Drama available on iHeartRadio.

 

 

Six Immediate Steps To Improve Your Relationships

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Six Immediate Steps To Improve Your Relationships

Making your relationships more fulfilling for you as well as for the important people in your life is easier than you might think. Most of us simply forget what makes a good relationship, yet we know what it feels like when one of our relationships isn’t going well. Often, improving any aspect of your life is a matter of being reminded what the tried and true behaviors are that create happy relationships. Here are six easy-to-remember and even easier-to-do steps you can take right now to improve your friendships, family dynamics and even interactions with co-workers:

1. Respect Everyone

Respecting someone means to literally accept them for who they are and how they choose to think, feel and live. We cannot change others, and it is futile and even presumptuous of us to try. By accepting others and meeting them in a respectful way, we save ourselves needless frustration. No one wants to be told who to be or how to live; and the sooner you apply this principal, the sooner you improve your relationships.

2. Practice Kindness

Kindness is one of the most attractive qualities in anyone. Even more attractive is when a person thinks and feels that all others are worthy of their consideration and kindness and treats others with mutuality and compassion. People notice kindness and know when someone is caring. This is easy to do if you treat other people the way you would treat anyone you truly care about.

3. Be Happy For Others

In the highly competitive, often dog-eat-dog environments many of us work and live in, we can develop an attitude that if “we don’t have ours” than “no one else should have his.” This is an unhealthy and unsuccessful attitude that doesn’t allow us to celebrate for others and invite them into celebrating for us when we have success or an achievement. Good wishes toward others result in good wishes for us.

4. Release Resentments

When we hold onto anger or resentment toward others, we end up doing more harm to ourselves than to them. Anger and resentment make us sick and chains us to the events or circumstances that hurt us. This does not allow us to move on in life, and it lessens the love and kindness we can be experiencing and sharing with others. It leaves us in turmoil about something in the past.

5. Do The Small Things

Think back to your most tender and memorable moments with the important people in your life. You will probably find that those moments were filled not with expensive, larger-than-life gifts, events or experiences, but rather with small, meaningful gifts, gestures and shared experiences. While you cannot do special things for everyone in your life, the people who are most important will really appreciate it if you show them how important they are to you with the small things that mean so much.

6. Follow the Golden Rule

There is a saying that we should never expect others to give us what we are not willing to give to them. The Golden Rule is a simple one: Give to others what you want the most for yourself. If you want to be loved, love others. If you want success, than provide service or value for others. This is an easy and simple rule and best of all, it works.

For more whole health discussions like this, listen to my weekly radio show Living Above The Drama available on iHeartRadio.

 

How Love Affects Your Brain

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HOW LOVE AFFECTS YOUR BRAIN

Love affects us in many ways. Much of this is felt more than it is seen, but did you know that love affects your brain in ways that can be observed? I recently read a fascinating article that discussed a study from Stony Brook University in New York. The study examined whether couples can still be very much in love after spending many married years together and whether they experience the same intense romantic feelings as newly formed couples. Continue reading to find out what research has discovered about how love affects your brain over a long period of time.

MRIs Show Brain Regions Stimulated By Love

The scientists took MRIs of long-term married couples who said they still felt very much in love with their spouses after an average of more than 21 years together. These images were compared to images from couples who had recently fallen in love. In this way, scientists were able to compare specific parts of the brain that function and respond to love.

The images were created while the subjects were shown photos of their beloved as well as photos of close friends and strangers. The brain activity was measured while the subject viewed the images. Then, using the same scanning methodology, the researchers compared the imaging results on men and women who reported falling in love in the past year.

Clear Similarities

The scans showed “many very clear similarities between those who were in love long-term and those who had just fallen madly in love,” says Arthur Aron, Ph.D., of Stony Brook’s department of psychology. The scientists were particularly interested in the dopamine region of the brain—the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure. “The VTA showed greater response to images of a long-term partner when compared with images of a close friend or any of the other facial images,” Aron says.

Applying This Knowledge To Improve Relationships

The researchers are hoping that the study might be able to provide or demonstrate the details of how some couples can stay in love over long periods of time. This study seems to show both groups have brain activity in the regions that are wired for reward, motivation and desire.

To apply this research, Aron is looking into the possibility of using the study outcomes to assist soldiers who have returned from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to save their marriages. There is an unusually high level of divorce among deployed U.S. military. Perhaps this new information can help to improve the strength of their relationships during the stressful time of separation during deployment.

For a free chapter download on how to immediately improve your relationship communication skills, visit www.changingbehavior.org.

FREE Whole Health Consultations available.
888-354-4325 Take charge of your health!

Postpartum Adjustments Aren’t Limited To Mom

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Postpartum Affects Men too, relationships

As a mother of three children, I remember thinking after the births of my children: “Why doesn’t anyone tell the truth about the stress of having a baby or caring for multiple children?” Fortunately, there were plenty of other new moms I could commiserate with about the reality, opposed to the romanticized version, of childbirth and parenting. Still, it’s worth noting that the postpartum adjustment I was struggling with doesn’t only affect women.

The Science Of The Adjustment

It took time and many personal adjustments to fit myself into the role of mom. Along the way were experiences of anxiety. I also read many parenting books, having a sense that I was “learning on the job” with no prior training or knowledge of how to do this.

The fact that moms can feel that way comes as no surprise to those of us who have children. What does surprise people is that many dads also can experience high anxiety, stress, and postnatal depression after the birth of their children.

A British population study obtained psychological questionnaires from 8,431 fathers and 11,833 mothers. Interesting data emerged, relating to postnatal depression in fathers. The study gathered data at three different intervals after the birth of the child: 8 weeks, 21 months and 3.5 years.

The outcomes demonstrated that children born to fathers who experience postnatal depression are twice as likely at the age of 3 to have behavioral problems as children born to fathers who do not experience postnatal depression. This was found to be consistent even after maternal depression was factored out.

New Relationship Focus

What parents are often not prepared for after the joyful birth of their children is the accompanying loss of their personal identity as both an autonomous individual and a romantic partner. After the birth of a baby, the child rightfully becomes the center of concern and attention. The personal and social time and activities that had been couple-centered now become baby-centered.

Spouses can feel abandoned, lonely, or isolated from their partners after the birth of even the most long-awaited and beloved child. Parenthood brings with it enormous joy and equally enormous stresses.

It is best to discuss such feelings and express the negative as well as the positive emotions of parenthood. This is healthier than feeling guilty and turning frustrations into potential depression. As always, the three important rules to sustaining a happy relationship and family are: communicate, communicate and communicate.

For a free download on relationship communication skills that can keep you well connected with your partner, visit http://www.changingbehavior.org/.

FREE Whole Health Consultations available.
888-354-4325 Take charge of your health!

 

 

 

Tylenol For Heartache?

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Here is a very interesting bit of research. Last year there was a study conducted at the University of Kentucky, College of Arts and Sciences. It was examining the connection and possible overlap between physical pain and emotional pain. This particular study had 62 participants who were filling out the “Hurt Feeling Scale,” a self-assessment tool that measures an individual’s reaction to distressing experiences. In addition, the study was using doses of the active ingredient in Tylenol, acetaminophen, as art of its protocol.

The researchers separated the study volunteers into two groups. The first group, after filling out their self-assessment tools, were given 1,000 mg of the acetaminophen. This is a dose that is equal to one Extra Strength Tylenol. The control group, however, received a placebo instead of the acetaminophen.

The finding from this study showed that the control group without the acetaminphen, after three weeks, did not experience any change in the intensity of "hurt" feeling during the three week period. However, the group that did receive the active ingredient reported a noticeable reduction of "hurt" feelings on a regular, day-to-day basis.

The outcomes were so interesting that the researchers started a second study cohort group of 25 different volunteers, but this time upped the amount of acetaminophen to 2,000 mg daily and added computer games that were designed to create social rejection and a feeling of isolation in the participants. Also new to the study was MRI scans, which were able to identify when the participants had feelings of social rejection.

Now here is the "gold" of this research–the outcomes demonstrated that the area of the brain where emotional discomfort is felt is the same location where the physical pain is experienced. This would explain why the group that was taking the acetaminophen, while having not physical pain reported less feelings of hurt and rejection than the group that was not taking the acetaminophen but rather a placebo substance.

Geoff MacDonald, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, who is an expert in romantic relationships, co-authored this study. MacDonald states that our brain pain centers cannot tell the difference between physical pain and emotional pain.

So, while Tylenol is not recommended to be used routinely as it can lead to liver and digestive system disturbances, knowing that it can take away the pain of a broken heart, it may soon be that our therapists as well as our physicians will recommend that we “take two Tylenol and call me in the morning” for heartache as well as for headache!

 

FREE Whole Health Consultations available.
888-354-4325 Take charge of your health!

 

References

Medical News Today: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/227298.php http://web.psych.utoronto.ca/gmacdonald/Research%20Interests.html

10 Tips For Sustainable Love

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It is not a coincidence that happy couples share many of the same behavioral patterns. Often, we think that being happy means we have fun sharing the same hobbies or doing everything as a couple. While sharing activities enhances relationships, the most important components to successful relationships are found in how individuals within a relationship treat each other. In large part, it relies on communication and behavior.

Some of the most important aspects of having a successful relationship with your significant other include:

Friendship: Being friends and genuinely liking your partner is one of the most important components of a happy and successful relationship. If you don’t like the other person, how can you truly love them?

Enjoying your partner’s company: Laughter is not only good medicine, but it is also the glue that binds relationships and creates memories. Laughing together and even crying together are meaningful in good relationships.

Being spontaneous: All of us have preferences, likes and dislikes. When you’re spontaneous about trying new food, travel plans, places to visit and other novel experiences, you expand your personal horizons and show respect for your partner’s preferences as well. Life is more interesting if we can be spontaneous together.

Having your own life: Developing a healthy relationship is about two independent and emotionally mature individuals joining company to share their lives together. Sometimes our needs can become interjected into our relationship in a way that creates a co-dependent dynamic. This can derail happiness in an intimate relationship.

Being fully, purely present to your partner: It has been said that there is no greater gift than our full, complete presence to another. Being authentically interested and attentive to the other person is a hallmark of a healthy, happy relationship.

Showing and expressing affection: Physical touch is an important part of happiness and fulfillment in relationships. Couples can often express that just by holding hands or sharing affection with their partner. This is a very important part of feeling loved and cared for.

Being caring and kind: Kindness is one of the most attractive things about another person. When we are kind, not only do we feel good about our behavior, but our significant other feels good about our behavior as well.

Being honest: If we give our partners a sense that we are devoted and loyal to them and they provide that for us, we create the foundation of a truly lasting and loving relationship. Marriages or relationships often break up because of trust issues. Trust is the foundation of all good interactions.

Being committed: When we are committed to someone, it means that we are there for them and can be counted on to support them in times of need. This is what we all want from our relationships. In order to depend on this benefit, we need to provide it as well.

Communicating: By actively communicating with your partner on an ongoing basis, you can avoid many of the problems that arise in relationships before they even get started. Being proactive and checking in with each other on a regular basis to see how things are for the other person goes a long way in preventing difficulties with conflicts and unmet needs.

Sustaining A Relationship

Creating and sustaining a loving, trusting and lasting relationship is one of the most fulfilling experiences a person can long for and look forward to. While this is not a complicated process, it does require awareness and cultivation similar to what you need in raising a child or growing a garden.

If you keep disruptive weeds from infiltrating the flower beds of your relationships, you can enjoy the uninterrupted beauty of longed-for interactions and reduce the work, wear and tear that neglect can produce. Relationships take time, caring and commitment, but they are truly worth it.

For a free download on communication skills for enhanced relationships, visit http://www.changingbehavior.org/

FREE Whole Health Consultations available.
888-354-4325 Take charge of your health!