Make sure that you and your spouse have individual as well as common goals. Just as you personally can feel lost without knowing what your purpose is or having something worthwhile to pursue in life, so can your relationship suffer without goals to strive toward. Name your goals for how much money you’d like to retire with and vacations you’d like to take together, for example. In making these goals, your imagination is the limit!
You know what a difference it makes when you’re well-rested. How much sleep you get can make or break your day and also your health. However, sometimes no matter how early you hit the hay, getting a restful sleep can be tough, especially as you age. There have been times when healthy sleep eluded me, but luckily I’ve learned a few things about how to get a healthy sleep naturally, and now I’m happy to say that it is rare that I don’t catch a solid night of peaceful sleep.
About 70 million Americans experience sleep problems ranging from chronic sleep disorders to sporadic sleep troubles. Studies show that just one night of insufficient sleep can affect memory, productivity, and even the ability y to carry on a regular conversation. As a writer, researcher, and humanitarian, with several radio interviews a week, I can’t afford to not be at my mental peak, and chances are you can’t either. Long-term sleep deprivation can have serious effects such as higher risk for high blood pressure, depression, heart attack, decreased immunity, obesity, and diabetes. As you can see, getting enough sleep should be as much a part of your health regimen as eating well and exercising are!
Tina Turbin
A passionate literacy advocate, I was alarmed by the literacy statistic among the deaf, and now I’ve begun raising support for education for deaf children. Upon the release of my Danny the Dragon DREAMS, the proceeds of my Danny the Dragon DVD, which features a signed reading of the book for deaf children, will be donated to the local deaf children’s school, Blossom’s Montessori School for the Deaf in Clearwater, Florida. I’m very happy that I’m able to do something to improve deaf education!
Tina Turbin
Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does—television, that is. One of the best decisions I made years ago for myself and for my family was to cut down on television drastically. At first this may seem like a daunting task, but with a few simple tips, parents find it’s much easier than they suspected it would be.
First of all, there is the matter of reducing the amount of TV your family watches to just a few shows a week. In order to do this, I recommend a family meeting to discuss your goals as a family and as individuals. Then take an honest look at what everyone is getting out of television. Everyone will agree that they should watch less TV and spend more time pursuing their own goals. With a meeting like this, your kids and spouse will be much more likely to go along with their new lifestyle of less TV because they’ll understand the reason behind it.
I highly recommend implementing a service such as TiVo ® to help keep TV watching to a minimum. After deciding on the reasons for watching less TV, each family member can decide on a handful of shows to watch together as a family, plus a personal favorite or two, to watch only during designated watching times—Friday nights or Sunday afternoons, for example.
Finally, come up with stimulating alternatives. Take the kids to the library or play board games. Have larger, longer family dinners at the table. Keeping everyone busy will get their minds off this missing element in their lives. I highly recommend using this time to get the kids to strengthen their reading skills and develop a strong interest in reading. Soon you might find that your family—gasp!—may prefer reading over watching TV.
Tina Turbin
A trend that has taken off among baby boomers is foregoing malls and shopping centers in favor of online stores. In my busy work as an author, researcher, and humanitarian, as well as a mother, I find that shopping online is an invaluable, convenient tool in saving money and time and in obtaining hard-to-find items. You should give it a try as an alternative or addition to your regular shopping.
Tina Turbin
Omega-3 oils reduce your risk of age-related problems, decreasing your chances of developing macular degeneration, the number one cause of blindness in people over the age of sixty-five, Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia. The physical appearance changes that go along with aging are also reduced. Omega-3 oils will return to your skin its natural oils, which the environment, sun, and harsh weather conditions strip away. This results in a glowing complexion. Studies also show a link to increased effectiveness of weight loss programs, probably due to the fact that polyunsaturated fats increase the ability of enzymes to burn fat.
So how much should you take? The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends eating fish twice a week, especially fatty fish like mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna, and salmon. These are high in EPA and DHA. The AHA also recommends eating tofu and other soybean products and canola, walnut, and flaxseed, and their oils, which contain (LNA), which can become omega-3 fatty acid in the body, but more research is needed in order to establish that there’s cause-and-effect relationship between alpha-linolenic acid and preventing heart disease. On the AHA website, you can find exact recommendations on how much omega-3 oils to eat each day.
As with a many good-for-you supplements, you may not notice changes right away, but within a few weeks, I suspect you’ll start to reap the benefits of an improved complexion, higher endurance, and increased ability to concentrate. In the end, you’re investing not only in your current physical and mental well-being, but also in your future as you age.
The renowned and distinguished School Library Journal LOVES my Danny the Dragon children’s book series just as much as the kids do.
A terrific review of the Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy DVD was published in the June 2010 issue. I’m very pleased to share it with you below.
Tina Turbin
Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy. DVD. 21 min. Imagination Publishing Group.2009, 2010 release.
PreS-Gr 3–When Jimmy and Sally visit the beach, they find a beautiful shell and take it home with them. They soon discover that it houses a dragon named Danny, wearing red tennis shoes and carrying a yellow backpack, and his navigator friend, Skipper. Danny and Skipper have dinner with Jimmy’s family and stay the night. The picture book by Tina Turbin (Imagination Pub. Group, 2008) closes with a promise that the friendly dragon will guide the children through a series of upcoming adventures. The DVD opens with a message from the author. Interpreter Carol Downing signs the entire story, standing on the right side of the screen as the pages turn. The fun cartoon illustrations by Aija Jasuna are scanned. Sound effects add to the narration, underscoring word meaning and helping children with some hearing identify sounds. Recommended especially for schools and libraries seeking to offer a greater variety of material to hearing-impaired children.
–Mary Landrum, Lexington Public Library, KY
Even if you love to cook like I do, there’s nothing like an occasional meal outside the home for a special occasion. So how do you stick to your healthy diet when you’re dining out?
It all begins with a little planning. Some restaurants offer menus online. This way, you can choose a meal ahead of time; this makes you more likely to choose something healthy, just in case you are pressured to decide quickly what you want while you’re at the restaurant or in case you arrive super hungry with your eyes bigger than your stomach, so to speak. Avoid arriving hungry by staying well-fed throughout the day between meals with small, high-protein snacks, so you don’t over-indulge when you eat out.
So what should you choose? Avoid fried and battered foods, which are high in calories and fat. A lot of American restaurants will accommodate your individual needs, so you can ask to have your food prepared another way such as grilled, broiled, roasted or steamed. As a healthy side, you can ask for steamed vegetables or a salad instead of greasy French fries.
So you’re at the restaurant and you’ve ordered yourself a delicious healthy meal of grilled chicken and steamed vegetables, for example. Your next challenge? The generous portions are two to three big as what you’re accustomed to. Go ahead and split it with someone or ask to have half of it already packed to-go so you can enjoy it later.
You will be plenty satisfied with your lean protein-packed, low-fat, low-carbohydrate meal, but if everyone else is ordering dessert, you can ask for some fruit and a coffee drink to keep yourself occupied with an item of yours instead of staring at the others’ plates.
For a regular, well-balanced diet, I recommend home cooking, but there will be times when you’ll have to or want to eat out. If you follow these tips above, you’ll be able to stick to your healthy diet and feel great during and after your dining-out experience.
Tina Turbin
I am really thrilled to share this good news. My children’s book on DVD with sign interpretation, Danny the Dragon has made a PR headliner on the ever popular and important, Deafness Research Foundation site:
Tina Turbin www.glutenfreehelp.info
Vitamin D is becoming known now as the Super Vitamin, wowing researchers with its ability to prevent cancer and diabetes, as well as other health conditions such as heart disease, obesity, arthritis, high blood pressure, and autoimmune disorders. Vitamin D is actually part of the steroid family (including estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and cortisol). A recent study found that women who lived in areas without sunlight (exposure to sunlight produces Vitamin D) were nine times more likely to get breast cancer than women who live in sunnier spots!
Sixty percent of Americans are deficient in Vitamin D. Your doctor will be able to test you for a deficiency with a simple blood test. An optimum level is above 35 ng/mL. The daily recommended value is about 2,200 IU a day with some sun exposure of about fifteen to twenty minutes a day. Some researchers suggest as much as 5,000 IU every day during the winter when sunshine is at its lowest levels. If you choose to take it as a supplement, make sure you take D3, which is the same type of Vitamin D your body produces. Foods that are rich in Vitamin D are milk, cold-water fish, and egg yolk.
