Blog Break

Has it been a week already?? I am studying my brains out for the anatomy/physiology final exam next week. Need to pass this course to take my national board exam in massage. If my head doesn't explode, I will be back to blogging here soon, I promise.
Yours in wellness, purpose, and abundance,
Jen

Tips For Using Essential Oils For Spring Cleaning

Warmer weather is almost here! Prepare now to clean out all the indoor allergens and dust that accumulates while your house is closed up during the winter months. Here are some tips that will help you create a clean, healthy house ready for a beautiful spring:

• Gather your essential cleaning supplies: empty spray bottles, Thieves® Household Cleaner, Purification® essential oil blend, your favorite citrus oils, empty garbage bags, and a few rags.
• Select your favorite air-purifying essential oil and diffuse it throughout your home while you are cleaning. Springtime favorites include the crisp aromas of lemongrass, orange, and Citrus Fresh™.
• Launder all your bedding, towels, and curtains and add a capful, or about one teaspoon, of Thieves cleaner to each load for added freshness.
• Thieves cleaner, either diluted in a spray bottle or a pail, is excellent on most surfaces, especially in kitchens and bathrooms. For areas that need additional power, add four or five drops of Purification in a spray bottle and spray directly on the problem areas.
  Finish your spring cleaning by vacuuming and dusting. See the tips below to discover ways to add the power of essential oils to these tasks.

“I put 5–10 drops of peppermint and/or eucalyptus essential oil on a single sheet of toilet paper and then vacuum the sheet up. It emits a nice, uplifting scent while I'm vacuuming.”—Janet Scalzo

“I like to put lemon oil on a rag for dusting wood.”—Rachelle Draegert

Get your Start Living With Everyday Oils kit today! Includes 9 oils every house needs plus a 50% off coupon for a diffuser as well as a wholesale membership to purchase Young Living Essential Oils at the lowest price.

Call me at 715-381-6979 or order online at my website, fill in your contact information to enter site and click Get Started to purchase products.

Yours in wellness, purpose, and abundance, Jen

Quote of the Week

A healthy attitude is contagious

but don't wait to catch it from others.

Be a carrier.

~ Source Unknown

What Can Essential Oils Do?

A great explanation by Dr. Terry Friedmann, MD!

What can the oils do?

First of all they are transporters; they transport products to the cells of our body.

Secondly, they contain ATP which serves as the power source of the cells-the fuel.

Essential oils can also:

Normalize the viscosity of the blood.

Facilitate the delivery of vital nutrients.

Soothe muscle spasms.

Relieve migraine headaches.

Reduce mental fatigue.

Reduce pain and swelling of arthritis.

Release liver toxins.

Clean the gallbladder.

Clear up acne.

Stimulate the secretion of gastric juices.

Work to improve nerve impulses and synaptic connections.

Reverse insomnia and anxiety.

Heal burns, cuts, and infected wounds.

Lower cholesterol.

Relieve PMS symptoms.

Stimulate immune system functions.

Destroy fungi, bacteria, and viruses.

And smell great as perfume too!

Subscribe to my free e-newsletter to learn more about the benefits of therapeutic grade essential oils!

Yours in wellness, purpose, and abundance,

Jen

UCLA Study On Friendship Among Women

UCLA STUDY ON FRIENDSHIP AMONG WOMEN
By Gale Berkowitz

A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are. By the way, they may do even more. Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis.

This study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research ~ most of it on men ~ upside down."Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible," explains Laura Cousino Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. "It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers. (Jen's note: I believe our Creator made us that way!) Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just "fight or flight." "In fact," says Dr. Klein, "it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the "fight or flight" response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect.

This calming response does not occur in men", says Dr. Klein, "because testosterone ~ which men produce in high levels when they're under stress~ seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen", she adds, "seems to enhance it." The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic "aha!" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. "There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab,had coffee, and bonded, says Dr. Klein." When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own.

I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something." The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist afte r another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research,scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health. It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other women, but the"tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men.

Study after study has found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol. "There's no doubt,"says Dr. Klein, "that friends are helping us live." In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had no friends increased their risk of death over a 6-month period. In another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut their risk of death by more than 60%. Friends are also helping us live better.

The famed Nurses' Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidantes was as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight! And that's not all! When the researchers looked at how well the women functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the face of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friend confidante were more likely to survive the experience without any new physical impairments or permanent loss of vitality.

Those without friends were not always so fortunate.Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much of our life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to our life,why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That's a question that also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls and Women's Friendships (ThreeRivers Press, 1998). "Every time we get overly busy with work and family,the first thing we do is let go of friendships with other women," explains Dr. Josselson. "We push them right to the back burner. That's really a mistake because women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they're with other women.

It's a very healing experience."

Healing Haiti: A Call to Fasting and Prayer

Praise God for the healing power of Jesus Christ!

Quote of the Week

You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.

~ Unknown