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From an email forward ---

In an evening class at Stanford the last lecture was on the mind-body connection - the relationship between stress and disease.The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things that a man could do for his health is to be married to a woman whereas for a woman, one of the best things she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends. At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.

Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically this quality *girlfriend time" helps us to create more serotonin - a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings whereas men often form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their feelings? Rarely.

Women do it all of the time. We share from our souls with our sisters/mothers, and evidently that is very good for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to our general health as jogging or working out at a gym.

There's a tendency to think that when we are "exercising" we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged-not true. In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking!

Really?

A new study reveals,
"Obesity is now a bigger overall threat to people's health than smoking... Obesity causes as much or more disease than tobacco... While smoking rates are starting to decline, obesity now shortens as many or even more healthy lifespans than tobacco use..."
-Read the full story in the Financial Post
I'm glad that less people are smoking, that is such a good thing since there really was a global push to create awareness of the dangers of cigarettes. However, it is horrible to hear that obesity is on the rise at such a drastic rate. I wish we could just blame America, but Canada is bad for it too!

Beautiful

I can see you walking ahead of me, I walk faster to catch up
Your so tall, yet feminine
I watch you move your arm to touch your face
Moving so confidently, yet graceful
All in black, your long skirt flows softly in front of me
Very fashionable, yet subtle
Your bare shoulders lead to bare arms, you touch your face again
Arms so long, yet elegant
Tilting your head, your arms float through smooth motions
You seem mystical, yet real
I see your breath, then I see why
I see you flick the ash, my heart falls as I pass
And your no longer beautiful