Holidays can be wonderful times, they can also be extremely stressful. It would be great to know how to reduce holiday stress. Personally, my memories of Christmas at Grandma’s are all wonderful. Plenty of games, fireplaces, friendly relatives, card games into the night, sledding and all the good elements of nostalgia.

Those days are gone for me, and for many others as well. Today’s families live all over the map, mine are scattered from Alaska to Vermont to Croatia, and a few places in between.

The clan who always gathered at Grandma’s house is just as scattered. At best we meet through email and at funerals. That’s just the facts of the 21st century.

So, it is an exercise in stress to try and recreate the past. Holiday stresses can put the kabosh on the best laid plans. These special times can still be wonderful, though. What is needed are new traditions, new memories!

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What are some holiday stress tips?

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Relationships

There are many things that we can do to make our families feel the magic of being together. One of the secrets of managing stress is to let go of our own demands and accept things as they are. Only then are we in a position to actually do something constructive.

With all those family members together for an extended period during the holidays stresses and tensions are bound to arise. Old wounds might be recalled, somebody might be offended, etc. I remember my own mother and her sister getting into a squabble over something that had happened maybe forty years earlier. I couldn’t believe they had clung to their grudge that long! Recognize that we only have today to live. Let go of grudges, they only bring pain and useless suffering. Let bygones be bygones, forgive and forget. Even if there is some reason to bring up an event from the past, a family gathering is not the time or place.

Be strong enough to speak privately with the one concerned. Maybe take a walk together, or invite him out for coffe. Why should the rest of the family be subjected to your disagreement?

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Finances

A very common mistake during the holidays is to overspend. It is far better to make do than overextend ourselves. One time, years ago, we had so many Christmas gifts for our children that some actually got thrown away by accident. The children never even noticed! But somebody had to pay for those toys!

Besides, what adult really needs very many gifts at all? During the holidays we are bombarded by the media to buy, buy, buy. How many women need a $1500 diamond ring or a new Lexus, anyway? Wouldn’t our stress levels drop dramatically if we just focused on the important things, like paying attention to one another, listening, spending time enjoying simple pleasures.

 

What people crave is connections, not things. Time spent drawing pictures on the kitchen table with a child means a lot more than expensive activities.

A friend of mine tried making a complex wooden toy for his son, but just couldn’t finish it on time. When he apologetically gave the gift to his son, the response was, “Oh, that doesn’t matter, just so we can work on it together”!

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Physical Demands

Taking too much on yourself can ruin your holidays, for sure. It is perfectly reasonable to ask others to help, and can provide a great reason to build a better relationship at the same time. Trying to have everything perfect is way too stressful. Relax, nobody is going to really care much about that little detail you omit.

Planning ahead and budgeting your time will make the entire process manageable. Use a planner or calendar to realistically accomplish your goals. Last minute cramming can quench almost any spark of good feelings.

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New Traditions

Be creative and open minded! It could be something as simple as taking a family walk every Thanksgiving, making Scottish shortbread on Christmas eve, moving the furniture aside and dancing the polka, or having musical performances from family members.

One family has a tradition of storytelling, another has a historian who recalls family history. Even if your family is tiny, maybe just two people, make memories together.

With digital cameras and video cameras nearly anything can be quickly shared around the globe with those far-away relatives and friends. It may not be the same as lying on you back, next to the dog and your cousin, in front of the fireplace listening to the radio tracking Santa’s travels, but today’s holiday traditions become tomorrows memories.

Just be sure not to miss the heart of the matter during the holidays by getting caught up in the production!

The use of DHEA supplementation and natural hormones have helped thousands of women to restore their body’s natural state of hormonal balance. Stress, lack of rest, medications, dieting, job-stress and family stress can all contribute to the need for DHEA supplementation.

When the body is under stress, the adrenal glands produce DHEA to maintain health. Over time and with incessant stress, the adrenals become exhausted and women experience the symptoms of adrenal fatigue.

Some of these symptoms are:

• Depression
• Extreme fatigue
• Aching joints
• Decrease in bone density
• Loss of sex-drive

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Find out more about a natural way to balance your hormones

Hormonal balance is essential for healthy living and well-being. Our over-stressed society is relentless in it’s attack on women’s health. Over time and with constant stress on the the hormonal system, the need for DHEA supplementation and natural hormones increases.

A group of women doctors in Yarmouth, Maine, called the Women To Women Clinic, have helped thousands of women to find health and happiness by using a natural, holistic approach to women’s health.

By actually listening to the needs of their patients, they have developed specific programs tailored to meet the individual needs. The use of DHEA together with other supplements can help in your overall approach to good health.

Take the free online profile to find learn about your hormones

The free online test is easy to take, confidential and very informative. The results are mailed to you confidentially and there is no obligation. Find out more here.

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Recommended reading list

Menopause	Hot flashes	Depression
Hormones	DHEA	Anxiety

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The Women To Women Clinic has developed a highly effective supplement program that combines healthy living, exercise, and good nutrition to bring much needed relief to thousands of women.

You can learn more about the various programs here.

Modern life brings a huge amount of stress and menopause is one of the most affected areas of a woman’s life. Many of the symptoms of menopause: hot flashes, night sweats, irritability, feelings of depression, anxiety, insomnia, etc. are greatly magnified by stress.

Stress is, of course, a natural part of daily life. However, when it becomes a chronic part of your life, the effects can be devastating. For example: if you have unpaid bills and can see no way to manage them, your sleep is disupted, your thoughts keep coming back to the bill, your imagination can just run wild. It is exhausting and this depletes your body to the point of causing a hormonal imbalance.

There are many things you can do however! The simple act of taking as little as ten minutes a day to just be still can give you numerous emotional, physical and mental benefits. When you practice deep breathing, it calms your body and mind to an amazing degree and allows oxygen to reach your tissues and brain. This quite time can help you listen to your inner voice and slow down the churning inside.

A daily walk or more vigorous exercise can work wonders as well. It’s even free! It is surprising how much more you can get done by taking time out for yourself, and you feel better as well.

If you know you have a lot of stress, and menopause is approaching, you would be very wise to take the free online profile to help determine if you have a hormonal imbalance and what you can do about it.

The doctors and the Women To Women Clinic have developed a personal program that is tailored to fit your individual needs. The first step is to take the free online profile. It only takes a few minutes, is confidential and the results are mailed to you privately.

They have helped thousands of women with their female health needs over the course of the last 21 years. Many women write them to thank them and tell their story.

There is stress relief available for women, take the time to educate yourself, you don’t need to suffer needlessly! The free profile is a great place to begin.

 To reduce family stress with religion is a wonderful idea, but often the results are just the opposite! Somebody once said that “those who wish with all their heart to be fishers of men have more the effect of scarecrows!”

Children have the right to a heart; their parents, siblings, relatives or friends.  When parents take the time to win their heart and affections, nearly any good seed can be planted. Nature does not force things to grow,  seeds grow when the conditions are right. Too much of anything will destroy the plant.

A great deal of family stress comes as a result of forcing our beliefs on our children. True, they need instruction and, at times, need a strong hand to push them.  A great deal of patience and wisdom is required though to nurture and tend their heart.

It also takes more faith to let go and allow them to find their way, but, in the end, it will be more authentic. Allow God to work in their lives, trust in their naturally good heart. Be their to help them when they fall and make mistakes.  Give up caring what others may say or think, or what you think they might say or think!  Your own stress level will drop dramatically and your peace of mind will surprise you!

Be as wise as a serpent, and as harmless as a dove. The wisdom of the serpent lies in his ability to wait. He waits until his prey is just right for the strike. Never chase and hound them. Make the conditions right and your chances of success greatly increase.  Be there for them.  In this way stress and religion can be work together for the good of all.

Does that sound familiar? I think it was the biblical character Job who said it. He had just lost his fortune and a good part of his family in a cosmic battle over his loyalty to God.

It is the same with us “ordinary” people: be careful what you allow yourself to fear. Not the kind of fear like being afraid of snakes or pitbulls in alleyways, but the kind of thing you allow yourself to dwell on. Teenagers and stress can be a bit like these scary things at times!
Our thoughts are like radio waves, always broadcasting to the universe. We all have a certain, unique wavelength that sends signals that attract other like frequency thoughts. That is, for example, why somebody can go to a completely different location to live and soon end up with almost the same type of people and circumstances they had before.

To help our family, we need to work on our thoughts. You have the right to feel good. It is your right to be healthy and prosperous. If you dwell on good things, you will attract good things. Nothing goes in a staight line, of course, but over time it is certain that you will find this practice very helpful.

We can help our children in this way. Practice visualizing them in a healthy state of being. As you do this, they will naturally sense your outlook and expectations and just naturally try to fulfill it. That is also why it is so damaging to say mean and degrading things to them. They will also try to fulfill this!

This is a fundamental way to manage teenagers and stress. It is not so easy to do, especially when faced with the opposite. This is also a great way to learn how to show unconditional love.

Crucial Characteristics of Lasting Love

If you have ever wondered just how to give unconditional love, consider this: those who need the most love seem to be the ones who least “deserve” it! It’s easy to give unconditional love to somebody who is nice to you, or who appreciates it. It is an entirely different matter to show love in the face of an angry teenager, or unresponsive partner.

Parents are the lightning rods of the family and it is our obligation to be strong and absorb the fallout from our children. If we don’t do it, who will? Of course, I’m not talking about abuse or violence. Children say and do many things that hurt us; they forget about us, take us for granted, and even seem to hate us at times. That is when we need unconditional love.

Giving this kind of love requires a great deal of inner work on our part. We need the big picture of what is going on in the situations, not the immediate details. We can look to the goal of a well-balance, happy child and then it is not so hard to remain poised in the midst of a storm. Stress and teenagers are almost a certainty these days, maybe it always was. In any case, it is hard being a teenager in today’s very confusing world, and they need our care, whether we feel like it or not!

Think about when we set limits and they buck it. There can be lots of noise and static, but we stand our ground. Firm, but loving. Hard, but kind. Now is not the time to become embroiled in their emotional upheaval and enter into an argument. Later, we are still firm and kind, steady and secure in our decision and love for them.

We cannot allow ourselve the false luxury of grudg-bearing- that is the enemy of showing unconditional love. Let it go. Move on and work on the affirmative. Visualize your child in a positive way, nurture hope. Work on your reactions, let patience do it’s work. Obviously, this is much easier said than done, but it is very much well worth it! After all, what are the alternative?

In this way, family stress is lessened and you gain the confidence of your children. They are looking for strength and security in you.

On the other hand, sometimes you need more than you can manage on your own. I know that has been my case. Here are some great resources.

There have been two women in my life that had absolutely no help for their stress and menopause. None at all! It was so sad to witness and even sadder to be on the receiving end of their imbalance.

The first was my mother. She was married at the ripe age of 16, when they eloped to Kansas to get married. They didn’t even tell anyone for about 6 months! I was born when she was 26 and we had, more or less a “normal” middle class American life. But as she got older I realized that something was wrong with her.

Gradually she became depressed and unable to do even the most basic task. I’m sure there were many factors involved, but with the understanding I now have, it is very clear that she suffered from a real hormonal imbalance. In fact, she had many female complications during my early teenage years and never once took any supplements or had any treatments to restore her imbalance.

Before she died, we spoke a little about all of this and it was so sad to hear how little support she received during those dark years. Who knows, maybe a specialized treatment like the ones offered at the Women To Women Clinic could have saved her-literally.

The second woman

The second woman in my life who suffered even more was my own wife. I’ve even thought that maybe, somehow, I was to blame for both of them having similar conditions. Like maybe it was my bad karma or something. Many children think such thoughts and it can be very depressing.

It was far, far worse with my wife. To this day I shudder at the things she said and did, both to me and our children. When she was new mother she was totally awesome. She embraced motherhood and our family wholeheartedly and it was heaven on earth.

Gradually though she began deteriorating to the point where she became a raving maniac in our home. Yelling, screaming, cursing, breaking things-sometimes for hours on end. Nobody could make her stop. At first it was occasionally, then it became weekly, then everyday, then all the time.

Childbirth takes an enormous toll on the female body. It takes months to restore the female hormones and their balance. The stress of moving, new schools, new friends, the ever-present burden of financial pressure, appointments, social obligations, church standards to live up to- it all just depleted her to the point where she could not bounce back.

I don’t know, but I strongly believe that if she would have agreed (she never would) to try a nutritional approach and use some supplements to get some help with her stress and menopause (at least perimenopause), she would have stood a chance. I tried, as did some female friends, to get her to seek help. She refused, because, at that point, she was already “gone” and could not think properly. It was as if we were saying she was bad and a failure.

For our family it will take a lifetime to sort all of the consequences of those very dark years out. I see and hear the repercussions on a daily basis. As a single parent of those wonderful children, I have the very challenging task of being their lightning rod. My hope is to change the course of our river, so to speak. As a friend of mine told me though, it is in their DNA now.

If you know of anyone who seems to have the classic symptom of menopause ,or stress, I would highly recommend checking out the various sources for help with balancing female hormones. I’m sure there are many good places, but the two I have found to be best are the Women To Women Clinic and a product line called Menozac.

Women To Women is very thorough and begins with a free online profile. The also have a huge catalog of free information written by the female doctors at the clinic.

Menozac is a great herbal remedy to get some immediate results for get some relief for stress and menopause. It is a great place to begin your course of action.

In any case, I wish I knew then what I know now about balancing female hormones. If my parents and ex-wife and I had known what to do and been willing to take action, many, many tears would have been avoided.

A great and very inexpensive way to learn how to manage your personal stress can be found in my ebook, “Stress Secrets.” It is full of useful, personal insight on dealing with difficult people. You will learn how to grow as a healthy person in the midst of life’s many obstacles. Find out more here.

 

An acne treatment comparison between two of the top products on the market can help you make an informed buying decision. In this article we will compare Proactiv acne medication and review acnezine acne medication.

First of all, both are very good and consistently receive rave reviews from customers. So, even if you choose “wrong” you have still chosen well! Not many things in life are like that!

Proactiv Acne Solution

What can Proactiv do for your skin? The basic program has 3 parts.

1. Cleanser that is an exfoliate. It cleans away dead skin so the medication can penetrate the pores.
2. Revitalizing toner that softens the skin and cleans the pores of impurities.
3. Repairing solution that stops acne causing bacteria at it’s source.

It is an effective treatment for adult acne as well as for teenagers. As with all skin problems, some basic health related items should be in order to make the treatment work best. Adequate rest, a good diet, plenty of fresh water, plenty of exercise and reduced stress are all very important. No product is magic!

How much does Proactiv cost? A one month supply of the 3 part program is $39.95
Get a FREE bonus when you order any Proactiv® Acne Solution system. Choose from Refining Mask or Green Tea Moisturizer.

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Acnezine Acne SolutionHow can Acnezine help your skin? It works on two levels-inside and outside.

1. Acnezine gives the body anti-oxidants to help it work from the inside out.
2. It uses highly effective cleansers and aloe to soften the skin. It is gentle and never harsh.
3. It works on the inside and outside to stop acne and help heal the skin.

How much does Acnezine cost? A one month supply is $39.95 -Discounts are available for larger quantities.
Order your 30 trial of Acnezine here

Which one is best? That’s a very good question! My own daughter got marvelous results from Proavtiv. I was amazed at how quickly her skin became radiant. She also began eating better and continued getting more than enough exercise.

On the other hand, a good friend of mine told me about his son, who was plagued by pimples for years. After a few weeks of using Acnezine his skin was blemish free and had a kind of glow to it.

Order the Proactiv® 30–Day Trial System here

Order your 30 trial of Acnezine here

You really owe it to yourself to take action, you will certainly not have any regrets for treating your acne! Here is a more detailed comparison of 4 leading products.

Expert Flirting Tips

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a natural remedy for hot flashes? There is a lot of talk about herbal remedies for hot flashes, but does such a thing truly exist?
Apparently it does, judging by the popularity of several natural products. Thousands of women have experienced relief from one of most common symptoms of menopause.

What is the cause of hot flashes?

Night sweats and hot flashes are caused by a hormonal inbalance. The demands that cause this imbalance are greatest during menopause and the time leading up to it, perimenopause. Your body uses this to ask for help. Hey! I need attention!

Your body naturally wants to maintain a hormonal balance. Our modern way of life can be very disrupting to this delicate balance: overwork, high levels of stress, irregular sleep patterns, eating on the run, too much to do in too little time-help!

What can you do to get some relief?

Adequate rest, a healthy diet, exercise, reduced stress and fresh water are all things you should be doing. Yet, even with doing all of that, many women still have uncomfortable and annoying night sweats and hot flashes. Monozac is a natural remedy for hot flashes (as well as other symptoms of menopause) that really works.

Menozac’s ingredients have all been recommended as alternatives to HRT by leading herbal experts. In a recent landmark study the herbs actually worked better than estrogen in eliminating hot flashes mood swings, irritability, insomnia and anxiety. And, unlike estrogen, they actually helped to prevent cancer.

There was a special deal available where you could get two bottles for free, it might still be available. That’s a good deal! Just think, sleeping all night, no uncomfortable hot flashes and sweats, that would be great.