| Women's
Wellness & Spa Weekend
at Bedford Springs Resort
in Bedford, Pennsylvania
Julie Register attended this event in January 2008 Note:
Click on any photo to see a larger image and go to the photo
gallery. Saturday, January 26, 2008
 Saturday
started with a 7 am Pilates session followed by a lovely breakfast. During the
meal, Nancy Mramor Ph.D.,
an educational, health and clinical psychologist, a Spiritual Fitness Coach, and
author of Spiritual
Fitness, talked about how we can set our intention to get the highest level
of wellness. She talked about balance and the ways our mind and body affect each
other. She talked about things that can upset that balance and cause stress. Our
power comes from how we react and respond to stresses. We can turn negatives into
positives. She demonstrated a kinesiology technique she used in her practice to
test if the mind body and spirit are congruent (in balance). Dr. Mramor asked
a volunteer to stretch out her arm. Dr. Mramor pushed down on the arm, and stress
prevented the arm from being pushed down. Dr. Mramor then touched the volunteer's
third eye. The stress dissipated and arm went down easily. If not in balance,
the arm would not have gone down easily because of residual stress. (Try it yourself...It
works! Test is after eating chocolate or drinking alcohol.). We should pay attention
to early clues of stress such as headaches, back pain, ulcers and illness. The
sooner we notice the clues and decide to intervene, the better. Dr. Mramor encouraged
us to shift our attitude. When we change the way we look at things, the things
we look at will change. Dr. Mramor shared an amazing story of her experience with
cancer. By setting her intention for perfect balance, the use of therapeutic touch,
neuro-emotional techniques to help release stored negative feelings that adversely
affect the body, and muscle and mind techniques, her cancer went into remission
in 23 days. She offered the following tools to help relieve stress: - Breathing
- short, firm, free, quick, (con bri·o -
with great energy, vigorously,
vitality, energy, life force) - Meditation
- Stretching
- Put
your finger tips together like a tent. You will feel more peaceful, thoughts change
or stop, and the mind quiets down.
- Put the flat palm of your hand
on the forehead. You will feel stillness and keep calm. It's good for someone
who is sick
- "The Magic 20" - It takes 20 minutes of relaxation
to recover from one day of stress, so take 20 minutes of each day to do nothing
- don't plan and don't worry.
Doing nothing doesn't feel purposeful. However,
if you take The 20, everything else will seem more purposeful. You can listen
to a relaxation CD. Even if you fall asleep, you will still hear it. On the busiest
days, you must do The 20 twice, 1 at the end of the day and 1 whenever you will
do it. It's good for children. They are aware of early clues. Children typically
learn in 6 weeks, adults in 6 months.
- Visualization - picture yourself
comfortable in a situation, your brain accepts that it actually happened.
After
breakfast, the Try It and Buy It Fair opened. We had a chance to sample and purchase
some of the products used in the spa from Aromatherapy
Associates, Monavie,
Prive' and others.  After
a while, it was time for the morning sessions. I attended Intervention Strategies:
Preventing Disease While Promoting Health by Devra
Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H. Dr. Davis is the Director of the Center for Environmental
Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and Professor of Epidemiology,
Graduate School of Public Health and is one of the world's leading epidemiologists
and researchers on environmentally linked illness. She was appointed by President
Clinton to the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board in 1994 and
also served as Scholar in Residence at the National Academy of Science. She is
the author of The
Secret History of the War on Cancer and When
Smoke Ran Like Water: Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against
Pollution.
Dr. Davis started the talk by asking how many
of us had dogs that had had cancer. Surprisingly, a majority of the room raised
their hands, including me. Dr. Davis said that pets get lymphomas from the pesticides
used on lawns and in flea treatments. She handed out instructions for keeping
your pet flea-free and pesticide -free at the same time. Our
health is defined by who we are, where we live and where we work - our environment.
Few than 1 in 10 cases of cancer is caused by genes. The environment does not
cause all cancer, but you can control things in your environment. Some careers
have an increased risk of cancer - chemists, hairdressers, nurses, dentists, physicians,
painters, solvent workers. We can prevent disease by promoting health. In public
health, prevention is not noticed when it works - no epidemics, food and water
are safe. But when it doesn't work, it's a disaster. Public health and environmental
oncology look at trends and data. Doctors are not trained to look at the environment
as a factor in cancer. They look at individuals and their genes. It would be better
to know where the patient works and what work the patient does. Dr.
Davis' suggestions to keep healthy include exercise, spiritual health, figure
out what you can control, take time to breath deeply, hug loved ones, listen to
beautiful music, eat organic soft fruit, don't use anti-microbial soap, eat hormone-free
meat, eat smaller fish (the larger the fish, the more pollution), use headphones
with cell phones, use indoor and outdoor shoes, wood floors are better than carpet,
air fresheners are bad, test your home for radon, don't use nail polish with formaldehyde,
don't use dark hair dyes, and never microwave in plastic containers.  During
the delicious lunch, Dr.
Will Clower presented Chocolate Eating Lessons and the Healthiest Diet
on Earth Dr. Clower is a neurophysiologist who spent two years as a research
fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences in Lyon, France. He is founder and
president of Mediterranean Wellness, Inc., which administers The PATH Healthy
Eating and Weight-Loss Curriculum adopted by corporate clients across the United
States. He is the author of The
Fat Fallacy: Applying the French Diet to the American Lifestyle and The
French Don't Diet Plan: 10 Simple Steps to Stay Thin for Life. Dr. Clower
noted that the obesity rate in France is 11% and 33% in the US, yet the French
eat rich foods. People in the US are confused about what to eat - low fat, low
carb? They want to see the data. They rely on science, on studies of fat and cholesterol.
The French and Italians (obesity rate of 13%) won't give up food because of a
study. They rely on history, their culture and tradition. We can adapt what they
do. They love their food. We love our food too much. For the US, love=volume=value.
Here are Dr. Clower's suggestions:
Eat anything
as long it's a food (real not synthesized, no dyes, etc.) You know if it is a
food if it grew and is part of the food chain. Don't
eat oxymorons (low fat half & half, low carb pasta, white chocolate) Don't
eat anything with stabilizers, hydrogenated oils or nuclear in color. If bacteria
won't eat it, neither should you. Trade high quality
for high quantity eating. The unit of measure
is important. 1-2 glasses of wine a day is good for your heart. 2 bottles of wine
a day will kill your liver. Control your portions.
Anything you over consume can be bad for you. A
size of a bite is the size of the first joint of your thumb. If you really want
to love your food, you want to taste it. Control
the pace of eating because it takes 10-15 minutes to get the signal that you're
full. - If you have food in your mouth, put your fork down.
Train
your body not to expect so much. Return to the
family table. Make consuming meals last 30 minutes. - Plan on seconds.
Take a small amount the first time. If you are still hungry, go back for more.
- Exercise.
The French don't watch 4.2 hours of TV per day.
Dr.
Clower also gave us a chocolate eating lesson. Chocolate is healthy in the right
amounts and the right kind - not white or milk (wax). The right kind has a high
(72%) cocoa content. Size matters - the correct portion for 1 day is a square
1/2" x 1/2" x 1/8". Place it on your tongue and allow it to melt
slowly. Savor it.When we eat real food, we will crave less sugar. We want to train
ourselves to eat all we want and we want less.
 After
lunch, I attended the Inspiration
Station: The Art of Understanding and Managing Stress, Beating the Blues and Calming
Anxiety session given by Dr.
Bruce Rabin, professor of pathology, psychiatry and psychology at the University
of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, medical director of the University of Pittsburgh
Medical Center Healthy Lifestyle Program, recognized authority in the effects
of stress on the human immune system and author of Stress,
Immune Function, and Health: The Connection. Dr. Rabin asked us not
to take notes and instructed us to just listen. He provided a handout that contained
all the material from his talk as well as a CD for relaxation. He told us to share
the information with everyone we could, so here is a summary. The presentation
in its entirety can be found HERE. CD:
Mental Journey for Stress Coping and Relaxation Dr. Rabin provided information
and techniques to help increase our ability to cope with stress. We cannot make
the stress in your life go away but we can change the way our brain responds to
stress. By being better able to cope with stress, we will have less of an elevation
of stress hormones. It is the elevation of the stress hormones that alters your
mental and physical health. He discussed what
stress is and provided the following "coping skills" that minimize
the effects of stress: - Having a social support system that you enjoy
and can depend upon. Friends are important; being lonely may increase the risk
of disease development.
- Being optimistic that things will go well
for you and those problems that occur will not alter your basic belief that you
are a good and well-liked person. Always feeling that you are responsible when
things go wrong can increase your chance of becoming depressed and developing
heart disease and diabetes.
- Having a sense of humor so that you can
find amusement in events and can even laugh at yourself (remember the old saying
that "laughter is the best medicine").
- Being physically
fit as appropriate for your age, rather than being sedentary. This does not mean
you have to go to a gym and work out. What you need to do is to increase the amount
of walking you do.
- Enjoy participating in religious activities or having
a spiritual nature that allows you to relax and calm yourself when faced with
stress
A way many people have found helpful to remember the behaviors
that are important is to think of the word RELAX:
Reflection:
Enjoying participation in spiritual or religious activities, or simply taking
time to reflect on the things that add meaning, purpose, and joy to your life
helps to reduce the negative influence of stress on health
Expectations:
Being high in optimism, seeing the glass as half full rather than half empty helps
to reduce the negative influence of stress on health
Laughter:
Having a sense of humor and being able to laugh at some of the things you do helps
to reduce the negative influence of stress on health
Acquaintances:
Being socially active and spending time with people you enjoy being with helps
to reduce the negative influence of stress on health
Xercise:
Being physically active (walking as often as you can) and not just sitting around
watching television or playing games on a computer helps to reduce the negative
influence of stress on health
Dr. Rabin discussed the benefits
that result by increasing our ability to cope with stress. He also provided detailed
techniques to calm our mind and improve the quality of our mental and physical
health when experiencing an ACUTE STRESS (one that is unanticipated, has
sudden onset, and short duration):
and
detailed techniques to help cope with CHRONIC STRESS that will improve
the quality of our mental and physical health (the stress of daily life events):
His
final recommendations: - PLEASE GET OUT AND GO FOR A WALK!
- DO
IT EVERY DAY!
- DO IT WHENEVER YOU CAN!
It
is up to us. We can use the above behaviors to help keep ourselves mentally and
physically healthy. We will benefit along with our families, friends, and coworkers.
In addition, remember that keeping physically active, eating a nutritious diet,
not being overweight, and not smoking, are important parts of keeping ourselves
healthy. Other well-known experts in their fields who made presentations
were:
• Body Beautiful! Better Bones and Health Through Nutrition
Susan
Greenspan, MD. Professor of Medicine, Associate Program Director, General Clinical
Research Center, Director, Osteoporosis Prevention and Treatment Center Department
of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh and
• Makeovers for Moms: From Botox
to Breast Implants and More
Dr. Kenneth Shestak, Professor of Surgery, Division
of Plastic Surgery, Director of UPMC Center for Cosmetic Surgery
 Dinner
Saturday night was a fabulous Chef's Table with Chef Konrad Meier and his culinary
team. Members of the Wellness Weekend donned aprons to help prepare the food.
It was great fun, educational and delicious! We had many, many courses, each accompanied
by an organic Keng Estate wine from Eugene, Oregon - Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot
Noir, and more. We ate an abundance of food - Tuna Tartar, Crab and Scallion Cakes,
Salad with Miso Dressing, Mushroom Strudel, Red Beet Salad, Spaetzle, Tapenade,
Scallops, Filet Mignon and more. We were given recipes to take home. Here is one
of them:
Miso Dressing 2 1/2 oz Miso
4 T Rice Vinegar
1
t Minced Ginger
1 t Minced Garlic
1 T Soy Sauce
1 1/2 oz Honey
2 T
Sesame Oil Combine the first 6 ingredients and slowly whisk in the sesame
oil. Serves 8. Click on the following links to continue:
Photos
copyright Julie Register 2008 |
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