Helen's Reads » Health and Lifestyle

April Is National Poetry Month

helen — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:48:07 +0000

It’s National Poetry month people. So get out there and celebrate. Not sure how? Poets.org lists 30 ways that you can slip poetry into your daily activities. I’ve posted before about the heart healthy benefits of reading poetry. Other studies suggest that reading poetry can boost the immune system and also reduce the severity of symptoms in arthritis and asthma sufferers. So do your body AND soul some good. Read a poem, share a poem, write a poem. You owe it to yourself and the ones you love.

Open A Book
by Jane Baskwill

Open a book
And you will find
People and places of every kind
Open a book
And you can be
Anything that you want to be:
Open a book
And you can share
Wondrous worlds you find in there
Open a book
And I will too
You read to me
And I’ll read to you.

Via Reading Lady

How Not To Act Old

helen — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:11:29 +0000

Reading a review of How Not To Act Old by Pamela Redmond Satran (the follow up to How Not To Look Old) revealed the fact that young people don’t wear watches. Is that true? Maybe just the fact that I have to ask that question makes me a member of the old team. I already knew one of the book’s hottest tips for getting a young person (i.e. my son) to return a cellphone call “hang up without leaving a message.” I would like to add my own tip. Skip the cellphone call all together and learn to send a text message. It works. I promise. As for the book promo video below…at least my generation knows how to count back change. Enough said.

Voracious Reader Lucas Glover Wins U.S. Open

helen — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:37:04 +0000

The following is one of the questions posed to Lucas Glover during his post tournament interview and courtesy of the U.S. Golf Association Web site.

Q. Talk about how much you love literature and how much you’re doing reading; tell the fans some of your favorite authors so they can go read some of the stuff you’re reading.

LUCAS GLOVER: Any murder mystery. I read any of them. It’s like watching TV; you can read them in one day. Clive Cussler is probably my favorite. Daniel Silva. There’s two.

Focus In On These Two Books….IF You Can

helen — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:21:07 +0000

At last month’s book club meeting, the question was asked, “Is anyone else feeling overwhelmed by all the new technology that’s out there?” What followed was a very animated discussion of Who had a Face Book page and why? and What was Twitter and why did anyone use it?. One of our members told of attending a career event at a local University where she met a professor who taught a class on Solitude and highly recommended a book she used in class Distracted by journalist Maggie Jackson. She then told us that she immediately put a hold on the book at her local library all the while pondering why the idea of solitude sounded so appealing? Apparently, she is not alone. Another book just out, Rapt by Winifred Gallagher, believes the key to happiness and fulfillment is through skillful management of attention and not through Twittering, browsing, Face-booking, emailing, texting, IPoding and computer gaming our time away. OK, we’ve been warned now watch this. An email is going around stating that Sony played this at their executive conference this year. Where’s my yoga mat?

Click here to purchase these books from your favorite Indie bookstore

Girlsfriends And Aging

helen — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:53:54 +0000

Tomorrow I’m headed off to San Francisco to spend the weekend at the beach with ten plus fabulous friends. It’s an annual event. We call ourselves the Stinson Beach Babes. Each year I go, I return home with aching cheek muscles from all the talking and laughing. Our friendships go back some 30 years. Back when we were newly married career gals just starting our families and hoping it was true that we could have it all. It doesn’t surprise me then that a new book about female friendships is striking a chord with a lot of women. The folks at Earlyword reported that The NY Times most emailed story this week is What Are Friends For? A Longer Life which mentions the book and focuses on research that shows people with close friends do better at fighting illness and depression, have speedier recoveries, and age slower. Read my review of the book.

Click here to purchase this book from your favorite Indie Bookseller

People of the Book

helen — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:55:16 +0000

This was my book club’s April pick. The story line revolves around Hanna Heath, an Australian rare book expert, who is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of a very REAL book known as the Sarajevo Haggadah ( a book used in the Jewish passover services). The book originated in Spain, during a time when Jews, Muslims and Christians lived together in peace. Fasten you seat belt. You will be swept away with Hanna as she unravels the book’s history, taking you through the Inquisition, the Holocaust and the Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia. Great read!

Listen as NPR interviews Geraldine Brooks.

Click here to purchase this book from your favorite Indie Bookseller

Book Author: Geraldine Brooks

This post was submitted by helen.

It’s Heart Healthy To Read A Poem

helen — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:40:47 +0000

What better way to celebrate National Poetry Month and do your body some good, than to receive poet.org’s poem a day in your inbox. Poetry has been used for therapeutic purposes in health and healing for centuries. One of the more interesting studies is the effect that poetry has on blood pressure. Apparently, rhythmic vocal recitations enhance cardiovascular activity, especially hexameter verse found in epic poems.

Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought
countless ills upon the Achaeans.
The Iliad by Homer, translated by Samuel Butler

A Book For The Aging & Those That Care

helen — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 01:13:15 +0000

The last few weeks my siblings and I have been consumed by helping our 93 year old mom move from her home into an apartment inside the retirement community where she has lived ever since our dad passed away ten years ago. Besides the sorting, tossing, moving and giving away of her things that there is no longer room for, we faced addressing some very personal issues as well. Mom’s loss of memory has us questioning her check writing habits and I found myself googling topics like “How to discuss incontinence with a parent.” Then I came across Virginia Morris’ book ‘How to Care for Aging Parents’. I bought four copies. One for myself and the others I sent to my brother and two sisters. Now, whatever else comes up, we can all be on the same page.

Take Your Brain On A Walk…Read A Book Online

helen — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:21:47 +0000

I feel better already. Happy with the knowledge that reading book-like text on my computer screen and surfing the web for story ideas is like taking my brain for a walk. The study was done on middle age volunteers ages 55 to 76. Online reading stimulates regions of the brain controlling language, reading, memory and vision while Internet searching or “Googling” stimulates neural circuitry activation such as complex reasoning and decision making.

‘Complications’ by Atul Gawnde

helen — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 23:58:07 +0000

I will wind this week up by recommending another book that reads like a medical thriller but is all too true. Atul Gawnde’s “COMPLICATIONS, A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science” is a collection of eye opening essays written for the New Yorker about patients and their doctors and how deadly mistakes happen. This book first came out in 2002 yet is as relevant as ever in light of today’s headlines warning us of nursing shortages, physician malpractice, and rampant hospital Staph and MRSA infection. As one reviewer writes

The idea that instinct and chance are as much a part of medicine as science and protocol is harrowingly illustrated in the final chapter where a patient admitted with harmless cellulitis is diagnosed with something truly horrifying.

Read up, get yourself an advocate if you are headed into surgery and above all stay healthy!

UPDATE:
The Way We Age by Atul Gawnde The New Yorker 4/07