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5 Little Tips that can Help You Lose Weight
In order to lose weight and become healthier, you will need to plan a diet that you can stick to. Your diet plan is not a crash diet that you will give up after two weeks; it should be a LIFESTYLE change. Your diet changes must be reasonable or you...
BLOW AWAY THE DEAD STUFF
Yesterday morning I was looking out of my office window at the trees in my front yard. The trees were filled with brown, shriveled, dead leaves. These leaves were once healthy and green. They had turned brilliant colors under the fall sky. But now...
Could Your Thoughts Sabotage Your Happiness?Take this quiz and find out.
Women are conditioned to be people pleasers. Women are taught to be “nice” even if that’s means comprising their happiness, and often times that is exactly what happens. We have a tendency to do, and say things just so the other person’s...
Cutting Cholesterol Naturally
When most people think of cholesterol, they think of the waxy fat-like substance that is found in many of the foods we eat. Often feared, the truth is that cholesterol is needed by the body for a number of different things. For example it is used in...
Take Control of Your Health
“I’m sorry. It’s malignant.” Hundreds of people hear that phrase every day. Those four words can leave your imagination running at 110 miles an hour. Once the initial stunned numbness has worn off, then the riot of emotions sets in; fear, anxiety,...
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The Power In A Gathering Of Women
Forget "fight or flight" as the only duo of responses in the face of stress. For women, there's a third response: "befriend". A landmark UCLA study turned five decades of stress research on its head with the revelation that a cascade of brain chemicals gives women a larger behavioral repertoire when confronted with stress. The hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress response in women. It controls the fight/flight response and, instead, encourages her to tend children and gather with other women.
Accordingly to co-researcher Dr. Laura Cousino Klein, now assistant professor of bio-behavioral health at Penn State, the study suggests that this "tending and befriending" response to oxytocin produces a calming effect. Although it will take new studies to reveal all the ways in which oxytocin encourages women to care for children and band together, it might also explain why women consistently outlive men.
I have addressed numerous women's conferences and corporate networks of women and I can attest to the observable behavior that participants leave these sessions feeling stronger, encouraged, and positive. I believe they also leave healthier. The famed Nurses Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more
friends people have, they less likely they are to develop physical ailments and the more likely they are to cope better with challenges.
Sadly, today's busy agendas often find women canceling the most positive and healthy thing they can do: gather with other women to engage in the kind of "rapport" and "report" talk that hallmark feminine conversations. The corporate women's networks that generate the most return for the time and money investment allow for the nuts-and-bolts training needed for the business while also creating plenty of opportunity for mentoring, problem-solving and the informal sharing of personal issues.
Create a gathering of women and stand back. The energy reborn from conversation, caring, compassion and concern can move a community, a business, and a nation into a higher place.
(c) 2004, McDargh Communications. All rights in all media reserved. Reprints must include byline, contact information and copyright.
About the Author
Eileen McDargh, CSP, CPAE is head of McDargh Communications, a training and consulting practice founded in 1980. She's also an award-winning author, radio commentator, and on the Board of the National Speakers Association. Eileen can be reached at http://www.EileenMcDargh.com.
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