Health is on Everyone's Mind

Health is on everybody’s minds these days … not only the physical act of being well, but also the politics of health care. Last week the Mount Washington Valley Economic Council held a seminar on “How the New Health Care Bill Will Affect Small Businesses”. It was well attended, as we are all anxious to know its implications and ramifications. The Health Care bill is LONG and complicated, sort of like the IRS tax codes; and after attending the seminar I think its safe to say that no one really knows for sure what either of them are all about. Yesterday I attended a much more tangible (& interesting) Health symposium. It was the 19th Annual North Country Women’s Health Conference, sponsored by the Littleton Hospital. I’ve been attending it for the last 5 years and it is always extremely interesting and a wonderful ‘girls day out’! I meet so many interesting women, have a fabulously healthy lunch, shop from some really neat vendors and get mini-massages, reflexology and Reiki treatments. There are also various Health Screenings and I learn a lot. There is always an excellent Keynote Speaker, as well as various breakout sessions on a wide variety of health-related topics of interest to women (from specific medical topics of a technical nature given by surgeons and other health care practitioners … to more New Age-y topics such as intuition and alternative health options such as acupuncture, auras, hypnosis, etc.). The Keynote Speaker this year was Dr. Joanne Manson, a Physician; Professor of Women’s Health at the Harvard Medical School; a Professor of Epidemiology in the Harvard School of Public Health; and Chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I just looked her up on Wikipedia and her credits would take 10 minutes to type, so I won’t … but she spoke on the importance of exercise as the Number One thing that any of us can do to improve our health and lower our risk of disease. Her talk today focused on her latest book, “The 30-Minute Fitness Solution – A Four Step Plan for Women of all Ages”. I also attended a session called “A New Point of View”, an exercise for approaching any problem from an ‘Out-of-the-Box’ state of mind. One of the other workshops I went to was on Self-Defense Tactics for Women given by a NH State Trooper, Tim Stevens. Tim reminded me of Teddy Roosevelt; he was so passionate about his topic, and totally committed to preventing any possible threat we might encounter by giving us practical information and tactics. He was really entertaining to boot! Conferences like this one keep us on our toes, arm us with good information, and help us lead more productive lives. I’ve looked forward to it for months … can’t believe it’s over for another year!!