You know those mass emails your second cousin sends you? The ones warning you about the dangers of cotton socks and chewing gum. Or the ones that promise you good luck or a free Ipad, ONLY, if you forward to everyone you know. I’m not a fan. But, when I received this ‘viral email’ from my mother, who knows I detest them, I gave her the benefit of the doubt and read it. (While, I’m not sure if the research backing these claims is 100% verifiable what I do know is the value of a true girlfriend, so read on…)
“I just finished taking an evening class at Stanford. The lecture was on the mind-body connection…the relationship between stress and disease. The speaker (head of psychiatry at Stanford) said, among other things, that one of the best things a man can do for his health is to be married to a woman, whereas for a woman, one of the best things she can do for her health is to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends.
At first everyone laughed, but he was serious.
Women connect with each other differently and provide support systems that help each other to deal with stress and difficult life experiences. Physically, this quality “girlfriend time” helps us to create more serotonin – a neurotransmitter that helps combat depression and can create a general feeling of well being. Women share feelings whereas men generally form relationships around activities. They rarely sit down with a buddy and talk about how they feel about certain things or how their personal lives are going. Jobs? Yes. Sports? Yes. Cars? Yes. Fishing, hunting, golf? Yes. But their feelings? Rarely.
Women do it all of the time. We share from our souls with our sisters, mothers, friends, and co-workers…and evidently that is very good for our health. He said that spending time with a friend is just as important to women’s general health as jogging or working out at a gym.
There’s a tendency to think that when we are “exercising” we are doing something good for our bodies, but when we are hanging out with friends, we are wasting our time and should be more productively engaged—NOT TRUE! In fact, he said that failure to create and maintain quality personal relationships with other humans is as dangerous to our physical health as smoking!
So every time you schmooze with a gal pal, just pat yourself on the back and congratulate yourself for doing something good for your health! We are indeed very, very lucky. So let’s toast to our friendship with our girlfriends! Evidently it’s very good for our health.”
Girl Time is Good for Your Health! For some healthy girl time with your special ladies, attend the Women’s Wellness Weekend at South Mountain YMCA Camps this fall (Sept. 28-30, 2012).
Trail’s End Camp in Beach Lake, Pa., opened as a coed sleep-away camp in 1947. Co-owner Marc Honigfeld has winterized some buildings and when he puts in new ones, he focuses on multi-purpose: a hockey arena doubles as a dance hall. He stays open from early May through mid-October, with seven weeks in the middle for summer camp sandwiched by special-event season.
I say my first “real” trip because I do not count crossing over from the Minnesotan side of a lake to the Canadian side on a canoe trip as a true international experience. BUT, through my high school, I had the opportunity to study and travel in Spain for four weeks one summer. It remains one of my most memorable experiences. Camp Conrad Weiser is already so great and it’s right here, so why bother with an international trip to Spain? Read on…
trip: my first passport, my first trans-Atlantic flight, my first café con leche, my first time negotiating retail prices in another language, my first siesta (well, in a country where they have a designated time for that anyways), my first bullfight, my first time navigating the winding streets of a city where buildings date back to the Bronze Age, my first castle, my first time seeing a painting covered during Art History in real life…need I go on?
nothing like the history and culture outings I’d been subjected to during the first 15 years of my life: think road trips where you stop at every historic marker, musty old house, Civil War battleground and small town museum in the lower 48. In contrast, Spain was cooler than every school trip and family vacation…even the ones to the BIG stuff (you know, the White House, the Empire State Building, Colonial Williamsburg, Disney World). You might not think that teenagers would get into touring monasteries, castles & cathedrals but I did, in fact, we all did! The streets, the buildings, the art, the music, the food…everything about Spain is beautiful.
I took Spanish for 3 years in elementary/middle school and 3 years in high school before heading off to Spain for a month of independent study and travel. I thought I was set. Boy, did I think wrong. There is a whole, big difference between speaking Spanish in a classroom and speaking it all day, every day, everywhere, to EVERYONE. I learned more in the first week than in all six years of Spanish class.
hand at communicating your wants and needs in a foreign language knowing full-well that you’ll probably get half the words wrong, misconjugate the verbs, might be misunderstood and could even cause a bout of uncontrollable giggling if you accidentally string together something inappropriate. Even a decade(-ish) later, I can still use my Spanish when needed and I don’t sweat it if it’s not perfect…so long as I can get my point across.
So you have made the decision to send your child to summer camp. It was a great decision. Thank you. You chose for your offspring to learn about the outdoors and themselves while meeting interesting people and making new friends. Well done.
talked to camp staff. Visit the Camp! We believe it’s worth the drive, and it will give you and your new camper another chance to ask questions and get comfortable.
Snow is falling all around us… and that means one thing: it’s time for WINTER CAMP. Yes boys and girls, its almost here and Camp Conrad Weiser is eagerly awaiting your arrival on the mountain.