Stay Grounded During the Holidays

The holiday season is now in full swing. If you’re anything like me you probably have mixed feelings about the holidays. I love the excitement, parties, decorations, rituals, music, gifts, connections, and more. However, even these fun things can wear on me. And, the stress, drama, consumption, obligation, expense, and more that often come along with this time of year are not on my list of “favorite things.”

In addition, I often feel like I’m not doing enough, not on top of my “list,” and I sometimes worry that I won’t get everything done in time to make the people in my life happy the way I want to. Can you relate?

The Glory of Vinegar!

When we're good to our environment, we're good to ourselves. We don't need all those chemicals in the cleaning products we buy, at often a mighty high price, and the environment doesn't need them either. Because of its acidity, white distilled vinegar is super-effective at killing most mold, bacteria and germs, and it's eco-friendly. Here are some suggestions how to use vinegar to clean your home:

-Shine chrome and remove lime buildup by making a paste of 2 Tablespoons salt and 1 teaspoon of white distilled vinegar.

-For a natural scouring cleanser, mix ? cup baking soda with 1 Tablespoon liquid detergent and just enough white vinegar to give it a thick and creamy texture.

The Glory of Vinegar! 13 Innovative Ways To Use Vinegar In Your Home

When we're good to our environment, we're good to ourselves. We don't need all those chemicals in the cleaning products we buy, at often a mighty high price, and the environment doesn't need them either. Because of its acidity, white distilled vinegar is super-effective at killing most mold, bacteria and germs, and it's eco-friendly. Here are some suggestions how to use vinegar to clean your home:

-Shine chrome and remove lime buildup by making a paste of 2 Tablespoons salt and 1 teaspoon of white distilled vinegar.

-For a natural scouring cleanser, mix ? cup baking soda with 1 Tablespoon liquid detergent and just enough white vinegar to give it a thick and creamy texture.

Life as We Know It: The Status Quo

Are you more attached to preserving the status quo than to honoring the universal givens of growth and change?

When our lives are going well, and sometimes even when they aren't, we may find ourselves feeling very attached to the status quo of our existence--life as we know it. It is a very human tendency to resist change as though it were possible to simply decide not to do it, or have it in our lives. But change will come and the status quo will go, sooner or later, with our consent or without it. We may find at the end of the day that we feel considerably more empowered when we find the courage to ally ourselves with the universal force of change, rather than working against it.

How To De-Stress Your December

Tired, angry, anxious, resentful, distracted, withdrawn . . . The adjectives are flowing freely at my December De-Stress Workshop, after I ask the group to describe the ways in which they feel stressed as the year concludes and weeks of merry-making, mall-shopping, and holiday commitments here-there-and-everywhere ensue. I’m delighted and a little shocked at the ease with which the group volunteers their misgivings about the season of giving. Figuring I would need to break the ice, I earlier confessed to a having a cheese hangover from the party I was at the night before (there was baked brie; I couldn’t be contained), but it seems these yogis need little prodding.

15 Tips: How to Escape to Sleep

Two weeks ago, on “Wellness Wednesday,” I moseyed on over to Norma Kamali’s Wellness Cafe to get the skinny on sleep. Geraldine O’Keefe, herbologist, sleep expert and creator of the much touted “Escape to Sleep” tonic was Norma’s featured “Wellness Wednesday” expert.

Sleep interests me. Having the proper amount of restful sleep is a critical component to our well-being. Lack of sleep can lead to anxiety, depression, addictive behaviors, weight gain, cardiovascular problems and it can affect your ability to make split-second decisions. And on the other side of the coin, sleep heals.

A good number of my coaching clients have difficulty drifting off into a peaceful slumber and/or sleeping through the night. Sometimes there are obvious reasons for their lack of sleep. Perhaps they’ve overindulged in food and drink late in the day or night, or they are stressed to their last nerve and are ruminating on the events of the day. In other words, their basic lifestyle is not a healthy lifestyle. In fact, they’ve done a bang up job of creating a ‘wired lifestyle.’

Seven Ways To Boost Your Mood in Just Five Minutes

It’s easy to fall into a funk. Life is so busy: kids, work, commuting, housework, social commitments. If you find yourself becoming overwhelmed, don’t ignore your internal alarms. Try one of these easy ways to improve your mood and your outlook on life. You’ll be glad you did (and so will everyone around you!)

Five Minutes of Complete Silence. Lock yourself in the bathroom if you have to or sit in your car with the radio off. Count backwards from 300, which takes about five minutes. Without the din of machines or the cacophony of voices, real and electronic, you will find yourself ready to face the day again.