By Guest Blogger Malia Jacobson

When my daughter was a year old, I experienced a sleep epiphany. After months of horrific night waking, she finally started clocking twelve solid hours each night. Meanwhile, I continued waking in the wee hours and fighting daytime fatigue at my full-time job. The delicious prize I’d looked forward to savoring—sweet, uninterrupted sleep—was still elusive.

It was 2007, and my interest (obsession may be a better word) with my daughter’s sleep had lead to a role as a moderator of an online sleep forum. From there, after clocking many research hours, I started helping other parents solve their children’s sleep problems. Later, I would go on to publish dozens of articles in national and regional magazines and answer parent questions as the resident sleep expert at ParentingSquad.com. And then finally author a book, “Ready, Set, Sleep: 50 Ways to Help Your Child Sleep, So You Can Sleep Too.”

But back to 2007… With loads of sleep information under my belt, I was able to help my daughter sleep well and coach other parents to do the same. But with my baby sleeping like a champ, I could no longer blame her for my own fatigue and insomnia. I was thrilled that she was sleeping well, but a smidge disappointed to lose my sleep scapegoat. After spending a long and draining year getting my daughter to sleep, confronting my own sleep troubles was the last thing I wanted to do.

As women, we deal with more than our fair share of sleep problems. We battle higher levels of insomnia and nighttime pain than men, and often field a greater share of nighttime parenting. And according to some experts, women actually require more sleep than men (about 20 minutes more per night, says sleep expert Jim Horne, author of Sleepfaring: A Journey Through The Science Of Sleep).

Like most women, I was fully aware of the benefits of getting enough sleep—after all, I was the one who set my daughter’s bedtime and worked hard to make sure she got the rest she needed. But I was all too willing to sacrifice my own slumber in the name of more productivity, time with my husband, or time to myself. When I experienced long bouts of insomnia, I put up with it, telling myself it would pass. I reasoned that everyone felt tired all the time. Feeling exhausted was my badge of honor; it meant I must be a great mom, right?

But my body told a different story. Without the sleep I needed, my health started to suffer. I caught shingles (“Usually people only get this when they’re really run-down,” my doctor noted in a warning tone) and developed hypothyroidism. A few months later, I nearly dozed off behind the wheel while my baby snoozed in her carseat, and the truth hit me like the tree that could have slammed through my windshield: I couldn’t ignore my sleep problems any longer.

My daughter needed a mom who was awake, alert, and happy. She needed me to be a safe driver. And my demanding job as a marketing director meant I needed to be at my best, or at least functioning, each and every day.

Though I’m a still a light sleeper and a night owl, I’m proud to say I sleep eight hours most nights. To get there, I had to lose some long-standing habits. Here are the six things I did to get my sleep habits on track:

1. No more late-night TV: Confronting my poor sleep habits meant I had to face the facts: I just couldn’t catch the 11 p.m. news or a late-night talk show and still feel good in the morning. I set a firm 10 p.m. lights-out time and aimed to be in bed about 30 minutes beforehand to read and unwind.

2. Hello, healthy boundaries: When I made my sleep a priority, I had to work out a fair division of labor with my husband to reduce the pile of chores waiting for me each evening. I also had to set limits with work—that meant shutting off my Blackberry after dinner. YES I DID.

3. Nix late-day caffeine: Over 65 percent of women rely on caffeine to make it through the day, and I was one of them. But half the caffeine in a beverage will still be in your system six hours later, so afternoon caffeine was off-limits for me. I’m a coffee lover, so I switched to decaf after lunch if I was still craving a cup.

4. Couch potato no more: Exercise promotes deep, restful sleep, and helps discharge the workday stress than can keep us awake at night. So I started squeezing in a 30-minute workout in the morning. I felt calmer and more alert all day long, and I was sleepier when it was time to turn in at night.

5. Get out of bed: When you can’t sleep, staying in bed and stewing over your lack of shut-eye can make insomnia worse. If sleep just isn’t happening, get out of bed. Read, take a bath, or do some calming yoga stretches until you feel tired enough to try again.

6. Know when to get help: Habitual night waking that goes on longer than a month can be a sign of psycho-physiological insomnia, a “learned” form of insomnia that rarely goes away on its own. I didn’t try to battle insomnia on my own, and you shouldn’t either if it progresses into something more severe. See a doctor if your sleep troubles last longer than a few weeks.

Remember, as busy women and moms, a good night’s sleep is absolutely your right. The good news is, healthy sleep can be taught and learned. I wish you all, a long, and restful night’s sleep.

Tell us, do YOU suffer from insomnia or sleep issues? What are you doing about it? Do you have any of your own sleep tips you can share with our suffering readers? Also feel free to share your sleep concerns with Malia. She might just help!

xoxEDxox

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BIO:

Malia Jacobson is a nationally published sleep journalist and expert and the creator behind TheWellRestedFamily.com, a new blog devoted to helping busy families sleep better. She is the resident sleep expert at ParentingSquad.com and the author of “Ready, Set, Sleep: 50 Ways to Help Your Child Sleep, So You Can Sleep Too.”

Other articles you might enjoy:

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By Guest Blogger Layne Dalfen

Why We Dream About Sex

Have you ever dreamt about having sex with your best friend? Or dreamt about sex with a hot stranger, perhaps while lying in bed right next to your partner?! How does this dream make you feel when you wake up? Aroused? Uncomfortable? Guilty? All of the above?

It’s not surprising that of all the dream topics I analyze with clients, sex dreams top the titillation–and confusion–charts. The way we dream about sex can uncover our deepest secrets about ourselves helping us problem-solve and offering critical guidance on important life issues. You just need to know how to deconstruct them. Discovering why you had a particular dream is an investigation. You’ll want to ask yourself questions to solve the puzzle. Remember that in our dreams we are decision-making, testing out different solutions to our problems. We are practicing different behaviors. And all of the possible ways of behaving in every situation we face are there for us in our dreams. Why feel stuck with the same reactions to situations over and over again when our dreams offer us the potential to change our behavior and our lives?

Sexual dreams can indicate that our body needs sexual release. But they can mean so much more. They can give us a chance to understand conflicts or opportunities in our sexual lives. They can wake in us our need for love or nurturing in our relationship. Even more importantly, they can serve as metaphors for nonsexual issues and situations in our personal and professional lives. Sexual dreams can reveal a union between different aspects of our own selves.

The dream reflects a current need or situation

Before I look for possible meanings in a dream, I always like to look at first things first. The first level of your dream always reflects a very specific current issue in your life that you are attempting to problem-solve. We are adept at hiding our feelings from ourselves and we do so easily keeping busy daily.  We may not always be in touch with our needs. Well, your subconscious never lies to you. Dreaming is a form of thinking without the filter.

To attach your sexual dream to the need or situation it is reflecting, the first thing you’ll want to ask yourself is if you need some release. Sometimes a sexual dream is there to inspire you to ask your partner for some loving.  Maybe your dream is just there to make you feel good!

Dreams offer a safe place to practice.

Sarah, who was brought up in an extremely conservative home, had the idea it was a woman’s place to always lie under the man when having sexual intercourse. Recently she had recurring sexual dreams in which she was always on top. Sometimes it wasn’t her husband either! After eighteen years of marriage she was bored with their routine sexual life. Sarah had to admit that her dreams were exciting. At forty-five years old, her dreams provided Sarah with a safe place to let go of her teenage conditioning and practice how it feels being in the top position. When she felt comfortable enough Sarah took her new idea out into her waking life and surprised her husband!

Metaphors for nonsexual situations

Sexual dreams are often also directly related to problem-solving situations in our personal or professional lives. So when literal explanations for your dream don’t seem to ring true, search out a metaphoric meaning. Allan, a client of mine kept dreaming that his wife was cheating on him. When looking first for a literal explanation, I asked him, “Is it true? Do you really think she is cheating on you?” His answer was no. So we began to investigate other possibilities as to the dream’s meaning. The act of doing this is exactly like trying to solve a puzzle. You try one piece, and if that doesn’t fit, you try another. I like to call these puzzle pieces different points of entry into the dream.

In Allan’s case I tried a “feelings” point of entry by asking, “How do the dreams make you feel?” His response was immediate. “Betrayed. Surprised. Saddened. Angry.” I asked, “What situation do you think went on in your life this week that has made you feel the same emotions?” It was in answering that question that Allan clicked on the dream’s meaning.

A client who had been doing business with Allan for many years, who he felt very close to and whom he thought he could depend on, (much like his wife), took some of their business to a competitor. Allan was not expressing outwardly the tremendous feeling of sadness and betrayal he was experiencing. His subconscious using a picture of his wife cheating on him, accomplished its task. The dream gives rise to an emotion that helps you move closer towards the goal. In this case the goal or lesson of the dream, was to get the dreamer in touch with the sadness he was experiencing and to express it. In many situations it is most beneficial if we can express our feelings directly to the person it concerns. But even when that is not possible, the simple act of expressing out instead of holding in can be a great release. You let some air out of the balloon. The dream has served its purpose. Happily it was Allan’s wife who was there to lean on.

Once you have correctly decoded a dream’s meaning (and by that I mean that you have succeeded in discovering what specific problem the dream is addressing), you will be astounded by how precisely it mirrors that situation!

Recapturing your disowned character traits

All the parts of your dreams represent different parts of you. You are the producer, the director, and all the players in your dream. You are the wall, the water, the road, and even the snake. In a movie one person can’t play all the parts! Likewise, in our dreams, we cannot play all the parts. In life I am Layne the wife, the mother, the daughter, the aunt, the friend, the writer, the radio personality, and the dream analyst. I can be giving, selfish, sad, happy, weak, strong, assertive, shy, angry and frustrated, or optimistic and energetic.

In dreams we usually take the role we most easily connect to in our waking lives, and give out the other parts to people, animals, or objects. We use them as metaphors and symbols to say something to ourselves that only we can understand.  So our dreams show us different characteristics we need to be fully ourselves, in every situation and give us the opportunity to reunite these “divorced” aspects of our own character, so that we can move forward through life with a deeper, truer self. When a character trait is “missing” and needed in a particular situation, that trait will very likely present itself in the person’s dreams.

We all have freedom of choice as to how we want to behave and who we want to be. Having the ability to understand our dreams gives us the opportunity to be completely in touch with our whole selves when making decisions.

Steps to take and questions to ask yourself to decode your sexual dreams:

1. Look for a literal meaning. Is the story of the dream something that really happened? Is it something you really do want to do?
2. Write down how you felt in the dream. Is there a correlation between how you felt in the dream and something that is going on in your life?
3. Isolate the symbols. (People, places and things) What comes to your mind when you think about the symbol? Is anyone in your life behaving like that recently? Is it that you might need to adopt that characteristic in your current situation?
4. Say the dream out loud. Maybe you’ll discover a word play or pun!  For example, a woman who dreamed there were snakes on the floor and said, “I couldn’t put my foot down” was subconsciously referring to an inability to “put her foot down” in a situation with her husband.

Once you find the mirror, look for the solution:

1. Is the solution in the action or lack of it? Is the action appropriate to the situation?
2. What behavior or personality type can I take from the dream and use in my current situation?
3. What strength about my character do I need to tap into right now in my life? An example is a woman who dreams that she falls to her death, gets up and walks away. The dream makes a comment to illustrate how when she hits rock bottom, she knows how to pick herself up and carry on.

Remember, dreams allow us to experiment, try new things, learn, all in a safe way, and then transofrm ourselves in our waking lives. Next time you dream a dream, don’t be too quick to dismiss it– it will often give you the answer to looming questions you’ve been sitting on the fence about in your life.

~Layne

BIO:

Layne Dalfen, Dream Analyst

Founder of The Dream Interpretation Center, and author of Dreams Do Come True; Decoding Your Dreams To Discover Your Full Potential, Layne Dalfen has emerged as a speaker and guest on TV and radio programs in the United States and Canada.  She lectures at schools and universities and speaks yearly at  conferences all over the world.

Layne provides the tools needed to decode and understand why we have certain dreams on a particular night, and how that knowledge can potentially enrich our lives.

She is currently a part of a new Internet Social Networking Site called http://www.dreamcatcher.net/layne launching this month worldwide.

Tell us, do you have sexual dreams? Do you have recurring dreams? Have you had dreams that have actually helped you make a real life decision? Do you remember your dreams or forget them? Share any experiences with our readers.

POST YOUR DREAM, AND LAYNE MIGHT ANALYZE IT FOR YOU!

Happy Friday!

xoxEDxox

Other articles you might enjoy:

• Problem Solving While You Sleep
• A Man’s View About Sex
• Four Things You Should Know About Men
• Sex Talk
• In New York, Concrete Jungle Where Dreams Are Made Of, There’s Nothing You Can’t Do, Now You’re in New York

So, you know that expression, “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead?” Yah well, it’s this expression that has pretty much sent me into overdrive. I look at my peers around me, and many of them live by this attitude. The husbands are A athletes, cyclists, skiers. The wives are tennis players, exercisers etc… (and so are their kids, by the way). They are from this mindset– I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead. They Go Go Go. Hard. They are in words of Charlie Sheen, Winning.

And then there’s me… I guess somewhere in the middle– an A player or flat out D player, on any given day.

Monday comes around every seven days, just as it did today. It’s back to the regularly scheduled routine. And when I say scheduled, I mean SCHEDULED. Our lives are jam packed with schedules. Our kids’ schedules are “over-scheduled.” Maybe even scheduling sex with your partner is something you’ve resorted to doing in order to stay connected. Life can often feel a lot like a rat race, and the speed in which we move through the days, weeks and months, can start to feel overwhelming.

But here is where this blog post is going. Here is where I sit on the fence: Weekends. Downtime. Unscheduled time. What do you do? How do you pass the time?

I would say, crazy neurotic me, calls her mom (real life therapist) at least once a weekend, to rehash the same old issue: Relaxation Guilt.

The conversation goes something like this:

Me: “Mom, it’s already 11:30am, we’re still in pj’s, it’s gorgeous outside, we need to get fresh air and do something productive, but no one wants to move. Everyone’s tired. At what point do I enforce activity, and at what point do I surrender and let everyone hang like vegetables?”

Mom: “Let everyone relax and regroup. The weeks are crazy, nothing wrong with laying low and letting the kids enjoy.”

Me: ” Yah but, they’re indoors all week and I feel like we should be productive. I feel guilty when we sit around and do nothing.”

And so the back and forth– her trying to tell me, if the inactivity bothers me so much, get up and get moving–  which we do of course. There’s usually hockey or skiing to get to. But the truth is, if we DON’T have a scheduled activity like hockey, or skiing, I have a hard time relaxing and regrouping. I know we need it, but I feel like we should be doing something productive. Is it my craziness or do you feel the same way? Judging from the people I interviewed for this blog post, many of you also suffer with the inability to take the time, and JUST BE. Many of you complained about not being able to relax without feeling guilty.

There is a such a strong temptation to fill our lives, (and our kids’ lives) with activities, so that no time is wasted. We’ve become very efficient at being efficient. In fact, at a recent parenting conference I attended, many mom are ticked off by hearing, “I’m bored,” from their children. I know I never complained I was bored growing up. But the facilitator explained the importance of being bored. Kids today don’t have enough boredom, and so when there’s downtime, they literally don’t know what to do with themselves. We adults are guilty of it it too. However, there is nothing wrong with a little every now and then– for anyone.

It’s truly a fine line.  So if you want to learn how to relax without feeling guilty, here are some tips:

1. Commit your schedule to relaxing. Seriously,  just as you’ve pencilled in your son’s karate class at 9am, block off a chunk of time Saturday afternoon, for example, for doing nothing. Commit to relaxing.
2. Make a point of being physically active with your family early in the weekend if possible: If you’re like me, and feel the guilt from lying around (even though we know everyone deserves downtime), do something active as a family on Saturday morning, for example, so you’ve got your fresh air and activity out of the way, squashing guilt to make room for couch time.
3. Understand your body REQUIRES downtime. Our bodies– our physical and mental bodies are not meant to be physically active and under stress 24/7. That is why sleep is so imperative to good health. When our body gets the rest and downtime it requires, it gets refueled for creativity. Understand R & R is mandatory for good health– and this will decrease feelings of guilt.
4. Exercise without “rules.” On the weekends, go with the attitude that “activity is activity.” Try and lax up on the rules. We were feeling lazy this weekend, so for us, no rules meant going in the driveway and picking up a hockey game with the neighbors. We did nothing but hang out in the driveway all day Saturday. But we did it guilt free, knowing we were going skiing on Sunday. Free play is for everyone– board games, cards, relaxing, shooting hoops with your son, no rules.
5. Accept that you are human and always doing the best you can in any moment, under any given circumstance. When it all feels like too much- it usually means it is. That is when surrender is the best answer, and that is when you must just “be.” When writers experience writer’s block, when a pregnant woman is put on bed-rest, when an athlete tears a muscle, when creativity juices stop flowing, it’s one’s body telling them it’s just all too much at that given moment. When this happens, just stop. There’s always tomorrow.

xoxEDxox

Tell us, do you feel guilty for relaxing? Are you on the fence about how much down time is too much? How much activity do you do on the weekends? Any tips you’d like to share with our community about balancing it all?

Other articles you might enjoy:

• Charlie Sheen: My Side
• Mommy Guilt
• Denise Richards & A Call To Action

By Guest Blogger Layne Dalfen

Why stay stuck on the fence? Life is filled with decisions– our own, others’, and even those others telling us what decisions to make. But the fact is, deep down inside, we usually know exactly what we should do. The trick is getting in there to access that wisdom.

Working with dreams is a wonderful and very simple way to get to that deep-down place and consult our inner advisors for solutions to waking-life dilemmas. It’s not that dreams have some magical wisdom about the absolute right or wrong thing to do in any given situation. Rather, they let us know what we are most comfortable doing, what we really feel or need or want. Dreams give us the opportunity to tap into our intuition and to be in touch with our whole selves when making decisions.

Although dreams can sometimes present very literal solutions to waking-life problems, they often illuminate aspects of ourselves that we need to develop in order to solve those problems. Meaning, sometimes, dreams shine a spotlight on other people as a way to pinpoint a behavior that is missing in our response to a current situation. For example, that screaming child in your dream, may be telling you that you need to speak up more about your concerns at work. Do you get it? In this way, dreams show us different possibilities for thinking, acting, and reacting that are unimaginable in our waking lives and provide us with a safe place to practice these new behaviors. Eventually we can bring the new behavior out of the dream scenes and into real life.

No one ever said that change is easy, but I am here to tell you, it most certainly is possible. All those behaviors you wish you’d possess are there for the taking! Shy and wish you were assertive? So accommodating you can’t say no? Your dreams are here for you every single morning giving you behaviors you can practice. Oh yes, I’m quite serious!

You are in the powerful position to choose how you would like to respond to every situation in your life. Dream decoding is a great way to rid yourself of your habitual reactions to issues that come up in your life, and learn to replace them with new ones.

By practicing the following simple techniques for decoding your dreams, you can learn how to access your own deep wisdom, and also how to become more flexible and more imaginative in your responses to the predicaments that life tosses your way.

Here goes…

Decoding The Dream

Write the dream down!

When you wake up with a dream in your mind, write down the dream story, double spaced and with wide margins, on a sheet of paper—anything that gives you lots of room for jotting down notes and associations.

1. Isolate your feelings.

After you’ve written a description of the dream, write down the  feelings you had during the dream on the left side of the page, alongside the scenes where those feelings occurred. Pay particular attention to any changes in your feelings over the course of the dream, asking yourself how you felt at the beginning of the dream, as different characters appeared and events passed, and then at the end.

2. Identify the symbols.

Now isolate and circle each symbol that appears in your dream description. Basically, any thing in a dream can be a symbol, including objects, animals, and people. This task is to discover what the symbol means to you, in your own unique and ever-evolving personal dictionary.

And the key to discovering your personal definitions of these symbols is to pay attention to the feelings that they conjure up in you. Take the common dream image of teeth falling out. For one person, this dream might signify a concern over growing older or entering a new phase in life. But for another, it may symbolize the inability to control her feelings in a love relationship. For a third it might be encouraging her to speak up… as the metaphor is in itself a rehearsal for something coming out of your mouth!

After circling the symbols in the dream description, ask yourself a few things that come to mind about each symbol, jotting these down next to the appropriate one. Describe the image in detail, as if to a child or a person who has never seen it, noting what it looks like and what it does in the dream.

If the symbol is a person, ask yourself for two or three things that come to mind when you think about that person. Is she shy or straightforward, or especially kind or selfish? Sometimes a person brings to mind an incident, such as a shopping trip or an argument, rather than an adjective. Write everything down uncensored, and do not try too hard to figure out the symbol’s meaning if it does not come to you right away—stick to describing the object and your feelings about it.

3. Play on Words and Puns

Though dream decoding can be done alone, you may find it helpful to work with a partner because describing things aloud can help you click more easily on a dream’s meaning. (For this reason, even if you are working alone, you may find it helpful to talk out loud.)

The same as we do in our waking life, we constantly use play on words and puns in our dreaming minds. So if in conversation you use language like, “I was so embarrassed I thought I was going to die,” you might dream that you are dying and it won’t be that you are actually dying! It will simply be a case of our words appearing in the form of a metaphor. I often hear clients, in describing their dream say something like, “I was in a bathroom and I was stuck in a stall.” This description from a dreamer begs the question from me, “Is there anything you are stalling about in your current situation?”

4. Plot the action.

Finally, notice what actually happens in the dream, putting a square around each action—or non-action—that takes place. I started running and I felt stuck and couldn’t move are examples of actions/non-actions. What are you, the dreamer, doing in the dream–are you in the action, or outside the action, observing? What are other dream-characters doing? Write any comments or associations you have about the actions in a side column or alongside the action noted.

NOW…

Interpreting the Dream

After you map the dream, you can begin to interpret it. The way the dream story mirrors your current life situation is what I refer to as the first layer of meaning. The first step in interpretation is to try and see what specific situation the dream is mirroring. Dreams offer us suggestions and solutions to specific problems we are attempting to come to a conclusion about, and your solution will come to you regardless of whether you “incubate” a dream asking for a solution.

A few years ago, for instance, I wanted help in deciding whether or not to sell my house, and so I incubated a dream on this question. I closed my eyes and let the feeling of confusion, dashed with a fear of the unknown, surround me. Then I wrote out my query: Is this the right time to sell the house? Do I really feel right about selling? Am I comfortable moving on to a new space? Am I ready? Please give me a dream that helps me find the answer to these questions.

Soon after, I dreamed that I was in the office of my (real-life) financial advisor, but he was not there. Instead, there was a man wearing a cowboy hat that was way too big for him. The hat kept falling over his eyes, and the man looked and talked like a buffoon. I was very frustrated at having to deal with this stupid man, and I asked repeatedly to see the man I usually deal with. Finally I told the man I was leaving, and walked out of the room.

Looking at the first layer of the dream, I see that it took place in the office of the person who invests my money in the stock market. In my personal symbolism, a market is a market, whether it be the real estate market or the stock market, and so this dreamscape was reflecting my current concerns about selling my house.

Discovering the Solution

Sometimes the solutions are so blatant and simple they smack you in the face. Other times, though, a dream’s wisdom is not so easy to find, and we have to delve into what I call the second layer of a dream, in which we look at each part of the dream as representing a different part of ourselves.

Using this approach, we can sometimes discover the solution in the dream by taking on the behavior of someone else who appears in the dream, and applying it in our waking-life situation. The solution, however, was hidden in the second layer of the dream, in which the other people embody different aspects of ourselves. Stay with me.

The man I wanted to see is someone I consider a smart investor. I could not find him in the dream because I could not find the part of myself that is a smart investor. In my waking life, I was acting like the buffoon in the cowboy hat, because I was too emotional about the house and unable to think about it logically. Realistically, the house (like the man’s cowboy hat) was too big for my husband and myself, now that most of our children are out of the house. The dream gave me an answer to my dilemma when it showed me walking out of the room. Symbolically, I was walking away from the side of me that was stopping me from making the appropriate decision. I was also walking out of my home. We sold the house soon after, and have never regretted it.

The most daunting part of dream work comes when we face those particularly strange dreams that we all have from time to time, dreams with a surreal jumble of locations, characters, and time periods. But I believe that by moving away from the dream itself, and focusing on our feelings about the people, places, objects and actions that appear in it, we can break through to the answers the dream holds for us. Dreams allow us get off the fence and improve our lives.

It is our emotions that provide our dreams with both power and wisdom. Feelings don’t just disappear, after all, and if we don’t let them out in our waking life, then they are bound to show up while we sleep. Fortunately, our dreams give us the chance to acknowledge these feelings, feel their power, and learn from their wisdom.

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Layne Dalfen, Dream Analyst

Founder of The Dream Interpretation Center, and author of Dreams Do Come True; Decoding Your Dreams To Discover Your Full Potential, Layne Dalfen has emerged as a speaker and guest on TV and radio programs in the United States and Canada.  She lectures at schools and universities and speaks yearly at  conferences all over the world.

Layne provides the tools needed to decode and understand why we have certain dreams on a particular night, and how that knowledge can potentially enrich our lives.

She is currently a part of a new Internet Social Networking Site called http://www.dreamcatcher.net launching this month worldwide.

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Tell us, do you have recurring dreams? Have you had dreams that have actually helped you make a real life decision? Do you remember your dreams or forget them? Share any experiences with our readers.

xoxEDxox

Other articles you might enjoy:

• Sexual Dreams
• Never Underestimate the Power of Will

I thought today I’d do a collaboration of ALL the “On The Fence” topics you have suggested over the past year.

It turns out there are MANY.

Here is the top 35! I didn’t hold back. I have kept track of EVERY “On the fence request” since Day 1. Please feel free to voice your faves for further expanded Blog posts.

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Here is what you women sit on the fence about:

1. Vaginal coiffing: Full, trimmed, landing strip, Brazilian, The “Telly Savalas”

2. When I get married, whose last name do I use… mine or my husband’s?

3. How much parental involvement should there be with kids’ homework?

4. Do you make your guests take their shoes off when they come over?

5. Do you tell your best friend her husband is cheating?

6. Do you tell your partner if YOU cheated?

7. To spank your kids or not…. YIKES.

8. How many extracurricular activities are too much for kids?

9. What perks do you give up in a slow economy?

10. Do you tell your best friend her child is a total nightmare?

11. When do you tell your husband you’re upset, and when do you let it slide under the rug?

12. “I’m on the fence about having a threesome– my husband keeps pressuring me.” Hmmm lady, doesn’t sound like you’re really on the fence. Say no!

13. To Botox or not to Botox.

14. On the fence about intermarriage– one woman could not decide if she should marry out of her faith.

15. On the fence about abortion.

16. Do you leave a “safe paying” job to chase your dreams?

17. How do you know when to keep fighting or when to surrender if you have been diagnosed with a serious illness.

18. On the fence about what to make for dinner. HELLO!

19. Who would be your GREEN LIGHT FUCK? Yes… one woman’s husband told her to compile a list of 5 people that he would  grant her the GREEN LIGHT if she had the opportunity to be with. Those were her three words. Sounds to me like HE was lookin’ for the green light!

20. Which diet to go on… The Zone, Low carb, Weight Watchers…

21. Vaccinations – get ‘em or not?

22. Would you leave your husband if you found out he had a one-night-stand and not an ongoing affair?

23. Would you hire a gorgeous but qualified nanny?

24. Do you ask a new boyfriend about their sexual past?

25. If you found out your child murdered someone by accident, would you turn them in? Yes, during the Van Der Sloot case, two women told me I should Blog about that.

26. Which method of birth control– the pill, condoms, rhythm method, P & P  (pull and pray)

27. How do you know when it’s time to leave your marriage? When do you throw in the towel?

28. To fake it or not to fake it. Yes, a woman wrote in asking if she should be faking orgasm to make her partner feel like he’s doin’ the job!

29. Do you tell your boss that they screwed up?

30. Do you leave your city with your network of family and friends for a job?

31. What would you do if you won the $50,000,000.00 lottery. (I actually do this with my hubby all the time. I would pretty much change nothing, other than I’d buy a house in The South of France YES, give my family money, and invest the rest).

32. On the fence about what to do with your life when your kids are grown and in school.

33. To online date or not.

34. What to buy your partner for their birthday — this for sure is a full blog post right?

35. And finally, I was told last year to blog about “Should a married woman own a vibrator or not?”

Alrighty then! Here was the list of eclectic Women On The Fence topics you demanded more info on.

Tell us, which one was your favorite? And what do YOU sit on the fence about? It could be the next Blog post!

xoxEDxox

Other articles you might enjoy:

• 10 Years: The Story of Us
• Taking A Little “ME” Time
• Help, I’m Totally Frazzled!
• The In-Laws Conversation
• Knowing When to Pull the Plug on your Career

I can’t believe it’s almost that time again… winter. Beside beautiful falling snow, winter often brings something entirely different — flu season!  In fact, my family’s skin has already faded from golden brown (summer lovin’) to pale white to green-like. My boys have started their first runny noses, and I have been fighting a sinus infection for about three weeks. We slacked off with our health regime all summer long, because we had the benefits of natural sunlight, the great outdoors, and we ate a ton of fruit. However, with back-to-school, a bunch of kids packed into close quarters, for hours on end, it’s only a matter of time before everyone is sick again.

So, seeing that this is the season we’re heading into, I wanted to give you some great ways to “flu-proof” yourself and your family this winter season. I am tightening up my regime, and I already have my kids back on their vitamins and pro-biotic. If you’re on the fence about what works and what doesn’t with regards to your family’s well-being, let me give you some proven facts. Even with germs spreading like wildfires, you can absolutely take your health into your own hands. There are many way you can lower your risk of getting sick.

I am going to cover all the categories, so that you can PREVENT getting sick. Prevention here is key.

FOOD

Here is what to start eating now:

• Yogurt. Now don’t be fooled by all the yogurt labels out there claiming to have “pro-biotic.” The key ingredient here in prevention is Lactobacillus reuteri, a pro-biotic that appears to stimulate infection-fighting white blood cells. In an 80-day Swedish study, workers who took Lactobacillus reuteri, were 33 percent less likely to get sick.  The key when looking for yogurt, is to look for the yogurt that contains Lactobacillus acidophilus as well as Bifidus and L. rhamnosus.
• Garlic. Now don’t freak out about the smell, but in another study, those who took a garlic capsule for 12 weeks were two-thirds less likely to catch a cold.  And for those who did catch a cold, they suffered for 3 1/2 days LESS. Garlic contains allicin, a potent bacteria fighter, and other infection-fighting compounds. Now you don’t have to resort to capsule form. It’s even better in real food! The suggested quantity is one to three cooked cloves of garlic in your food each day.
• Eating Fruit on an empty stomach. Fruit is best eaten 30 minutes before breakfast, on an empty stomach to fully achieve the benefits. Eaten this way, it acts as a cleanser for your body.
• Black tea. Now I wouldn’t recommend this, because I’m not one of extremes, but I will give you the findings of a Harvard study: Drinking 5 cups a day for two weeks will turn your immune system T cells into “Hulk Cells” producing 10 times more interferon, a protein that fights colds and flus. If you don’t like black tea, green tea will also do the trick. You will still get the benefits without drinking many many cups. Fewer cups still give the benefits.
• Mushrooms. Mushrooms contain 300 compounds to increase immunity, and increase the production of infection fighting white blood cells. Shiitake, maitake, and reishi varieties contain the most immune-boosting chemicals, but good old fashioned regular mushrooms will do!
• Fatty Fish. I think we all know this one, but it’s true. Salmon, mackerel, herring, and other fatty fish contain omega-3 fatty acids, which increase activity of phagocytes — these are cells that fight the flu by eating up bacteria, according to a study.   DHA and EPA (the two main forms of omega-3s) benefit the immune system at the most basic level, absorbing nutrients and removing toxins.

For more information on what foods benefit what, click here.

KEEPING GERMS AT BAY

Germs can stay on surfaces for up to THREE DAYS.  Here’s how to protect yourself:

• Washing your hands. Hello we know this! I suggest keeping hand sanitizers in your purse as well if you can’t get to a sink after going to the grocery store, the gym, Walmart! I keep them in my purse and car at all times. A hand sanitizer that has 60% alcohol or more will do the trick.
• Paper Towel at Home. During flu season, wiping your hands on dish towels is a sure way to spread germs.
• Disinfect your household items. Your phone, your computer, your keyboard, door handles, light switches, your remote controls, wipe them down daily if you can.
• Elbowing! Try hitting elevator buttons and pushing open public bathroom doors with your elbow.

Also, don’t forget the 5-foot rule. Always maintain 5 feet of distance between you that sneezing someone!

SUPPLEMENTS

Some natural supplements will also help keep you healthy this fall and winter season:

• Omega-3 fatty acids. If you don’t like fish. You can take daily purified fish oil capsules.
• Vitamin D if you don’t get enough natural sunlight. In a study, people who took 2,000IU of Vitamin D had 70% fewer colds and flues and those who didn’t. The recommended daily dose is to not exceed 1,000IU.
• If you feel a cold coming on… try these: Ginseng or Zinc. 30 Mg of Zinc will shorten a cold by a day, it’s been shown.

THE OTHER FIGHTERS: EXERCISE AND SLEEP

• Moderate Exercise. 20-30 minutes daily increases blood flow, sends nutrients to your cells, and decreases your stress hormones. As long as it’s not extreme, moderate exercise has been proven to lower your overall risk of upper-respiratory infections.
• Sleep at least 7 hours. Sleep deprivation depresses your immune system. Fact. I am going to give you results now of a study that will blow you away: After 153 healthy men and women were exposed to a cold virus, those who had slept more than 7 hours each night during the preceding 14 days reduced their risk of contracting the rhinovirus by up to 300 percent! Wow, we need to sleep, ladies! If you’re suffering from sleep deprivation, please read this.
• Tai Chi, Yoga, Pilates. All have been shown to increase overall immunity.
• And, getting social! Yes. People who are socially active get fewer colds! Research shows that social and sociable people tend to be more positive, which is tied to strengthened immunity.

(msnbc)

So ladies, I hope you’ll share the info with those you love, and start getting proactive when it comes to yours and your family’s overall health and well-being.

Also, if you have any other ideas or ways you have kept your family healthy, please share them here!

xoxEDxox

Other articles you might enjoy:

• On Aging– Hopefully Gracefully
• Boobs, Irene and A First Day of School
• 21 Ways To Stress-Free Living and Decluttering Your Mind
• Trusting HER Instincts: What Moms Will and Won’t Do For Their Kids
• Back To School with Khan Academy: The Power of Learning

I thank my mother, who forwarded this to me. It’s a great reminder. I think it’s something we should all read at least once a week. Make sure you read to the end.

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio

“To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more”:

LESSONS I LEARNED FROM LIFE

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry, God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?’

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone for everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come….

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

————————————————————————–

What’s # is your favorite lesson? I’d love to know and why.

To my fellow Canadians, a very Happy Thanksgiving. And my American friends, a very Happy Columbus Day.

xoxEDxox

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