By Margaret Plouff – Contributor, Natural Wellness
Recently, new research has revealed the importance of the “Sunshine Supplement.” According to the Vitamin D Council,
“Vitamin D deficiency is a world-wide epidemic, with recent estimates indicating greater than 50% of the global population is at risk.”
Vitamin D is necessary for:

Retaining bone density
Maintaining body’s immunity against heart disease, cancer
Preventing muscle wasting and osteoporosis
Aiding the body’s absorption of calcium
Relieving depression

An ideal way to get vitamin D is having twenty minutes of sun exposure on your face, chest, back and arms. Sounds nice this time of year in the northern hemisphere!! You can get your week [...]

By Jennifer Urezzio, Contributor – Spiritual Affairs
Over the next couple of weeks, you will be seeing a lot of articles on the holiday spirit, getting through the holidays stress free, and what gifts to purchase for loved ones.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if this year, you let the joy and the true spirit of this joyous season carry forward and stay with you the entire year? It is easier than you think. Take a moment and relive your favorite holiday memory.  Remember how you felt and experience that joy all over again. Now, I suggest every time you move into feelings [...]

Anne-Marie and Audrey van Petegem met Robin Smalley, Director and Co-Founder of mothers2mothers, at BlogHer 2011 in the Johnson&Johnson room. She shared stories of the women and the babies that mothers2mothers helps, the role that Johnson&Johnson plays in financially supporting global health issues and the bright future for women with HIV and their children. The energy, passion and dedication that Robin has towards these women and their babies is nothing short of being heroic. She found her true calling after she left the high profile world of being an award-winning television director/producer for shows such as Entertainment Tonight, Lifestyles of [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
A couple of months ago my Book Club read the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (author of Seabiscuit). It is a story of an Olympic hopeful who roomed with Jesse Owens and met Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Olympics. When WWII broke out and the 1940 Olympic games were canceled, Louis Zamperini  enlisted in the war as a bombardier. The book shares his story about surviving a plane crash, being lost at sea for 47 days, becoming a Japanese POW and his survival of post-tramatic stress disorder.
I had the privilege of hearing Louis Zamperini speak [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
Have you noticed recently that there seems to be a lot of men sporting new mustaches? There is a reason for this. By now, we are well aware that October is Breast Cancer Awareness month (we wrote about it last month). This month is Movember (mo is slang for mustache) where globally, men are growing mustaches to raise awareness and funds for men’s health issues such as prostate cancer.
My brother-in-law Brian had prostate cancer and supports the cause of early detection through PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) screening (he is always asking my husband, Scott, what his [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor
We have all heard about UNICEF, an acronym for the United Nations Children’s Fund (the I for International and the E for Emergency were dropped in 1953).UNICEF has been around since the 1940′s and was initially created to provide for children in countries that had been devastated by WWII. Today, UNICEF operates in more than 150 countries and provide humanitarian relief to focus on saving children’s lives with services such as maternal and child health, food security and nutrition, HIV/AIDS prevention, water and sanitation, education and child protection. UNICEF is funded by both, government and [...]

If you are a parent, this is probably the most important film you can watch with your family all year. Get together tonight (Oct 20), because there is a broadcast premiere of Miss Representation on Oprah’s OWN channel at 9:00pm EDT (local channel finder).
“Miss Representation” is a film AND a call-to-action campaign to empower girls and young women to fight the limiting labels and hypersexualized expectations that mainstream media has pushed onto us, having us believe that these disparaging images are the “normal” way to view women.
This is certain to be a very powerful film and young men and boys [...]

By Margaret Plouff – Natural Wellness Contributor

Essential Fatty Acids are essential because your body absolutely needs these healthy nutrients, omega 3-6-9’s. We’ll all turned off by the word “Fat” but let’s take a closer look. The brain is made up of healthy fats, and we need to feed it essential fatty acids for clarity, focus, and improved mood. The cells are surrounded by essential fatty acids and if there is a lack of the good fats, the bad fats take over that job.
The joints function smoothly and pain-free when they are lubricated properly. The skin shows a healthy glow when [...]

By Audrey van Petegem, Senior Editor

I love my book club. It consists of twelve mothers, of all ages, each with very different taste in books, but we love our monthly get-togethers. We laugh, we share and we talk – A LOT!  Each year, we each sign up for a month to host the club. The host is responsible for choosing the book, hosting the event in her home and supplying food and drink for the evening. It is acknowledged by everyone that no one needs to bring a thing. That way, we are each only responsible for one book club [...]

By Marjie Killeen, Contributor- Midlife Wisdom
The death of Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs at age 56 made many of us keenly aware that our time here on earth is limited and if we want to live our lives to the fullest and realize our dreams, we’d better get going now. However, it isn’t that easy to take your life in a new direction, especially if you’re a procrastinator like me. I’ve found all sorts of ways to put off doing what’s important, but I’ve also discovered a few simple tricks to getting down to business. In this short video, [...]