Health Tips - Health Tips - Health Tips - Health Tips

Did you know?

Sisterhood is a Good Thing

By Annie Ruth

• Sisterhood is a major stimulus for our 6th sense, EMOTION.  This sense is as necessary as the well known "5-senses" (vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch) to maintain a healthy brain, which in turn maintains a healthy you.
• Associating with a positive sister can lift your morale.  Approximately 1/4 of women has a major bout with depression sometime during their life (They may not even know it as depression because it can manifest itself as insomnia, fatigue.)  Sisterhood has been proven and is actually one of the self-help tips that professional mental health service providers recommend for a balanced mental health.
• Low self-esteem may be a factor that inhibits women from embracing sisterhood.  Like self-esteem we all have a measure of love available to us.  However, building self-esteem and building sisterhood is a process.  Many women don't work at building sisterhoods because they don't work at building themselves. It is crucial for us to build.  Like our Creator placed the trees that we use to build houses with, we must use love and positive reinforcement of ourselves to build our self-esteem, which will in turn enable us to build lasting sisterhoods.

                                                  ********************************************************* 

  10 Tips on Sisterhood

• Just say "hello" and acknowledge a new sister with a warm eye contact and a smile.  The eyes are the mirror to the soul.  They reflect the person who's inside. To begin walking that path to sisterhood, you've got to make warm eye contact.
• Move outside of your comfort zone.  Sometimes we have been exposed to doing things certain ways, talking to certain people, and having certain type of acquaintances for so long we don't know how to change.  Not only does doing the routine (the norm) limit your exposure to the world around you but it also doesn't exercise your brain enough.  Find someone who doesn't look, dress, eat, or act like you and extend a warm hello.  Be proactive; keep extending that warm hello until it grows.
• Learn to see beyond the surface and acquire a variety of sister vessels.  If you can envision a pitcher of water that has been poured into several vessels.  One is a coffee mug, one is a beautiful champagne glass, and one is an old pop bottle.  Which one of those vessels contains the water from the pitcher?  You're right!  THEY ALL DO.  So just like those vessels contain the water so do the various sister vessels.  Your task is to find the sister vessel that will enrich your life.  Just because you're an old pop bottle doesn't mean that an old pop bottle will be the one to enrich your life.  (You get the picture).
• Just keep it real - be yourself (who you are) - no airs.  So often we walk through the paths of life wearing a mask of who we think people want us to be and not embracing the freedom of simply being ourselves.  I like the way that William Shakespeare said it, "To thine own self be true".  You'll be a healthier and happier sister because of it.
• Learn to be a good listener (read positively between the words) and (read unspoken language -- body language).  Not all body language is bad, although we've seen some negative displays of language communicated through others' bodies.  Sometimes those unspoken words and body language can be saying, "I care" or "I'm hurting".  Practice listening with your hearth (your inner self) and not your physical ears and eyes.
• Learn to laugh with someone, not necessarily at them.  Laughter is good medicine and food for the body, soul, and spirit.  Science has shown that endorphins are naturally produced within our brains.  They are more than neurotransmitters that serve as a built-in pain control system.  Some scientists claim that endorphins enhance our immune system and have anti-aging effects.  Endorphins are produced when we share love, eat a great meal, take a walk, and for me, singing a song...even when we learn something new.  One of the easiest ways to release endorphins is to laugh.  Laughing with a sister is like experiencing a physical and mental workout.
• Have a good cry with a sister.  Although women are notorious for shedding tears, there are still many sisters out there who aren't letting them flow.  There a times when we want to be alone but their are times when we need the nurturing arms of a sister.  Stress is one of the biggest killers.  Interestingly enough, it is the way that our bodies react both physically and emotionally to any change in the status quo.  Sisters can manage stress by helping others.  Sometimes that is the perfect remedy for whatever is troubling you.  But one of the ways of managing stress and staying healthy is the freedom to have a good cry with a sister.  Tears of sadness, joy or grief can help cleanse the body of substances that accumulate under stress and it also releases those good old endorphins from the brain.
• Spread the love 'cause you are love.  I heard this wonderful quote from my sister; I'm not sure who the author is.  It says, "A candle that lights another candle doesn't lose it's light but the light shines brighter throughout the world."
• Reinforce sisterhood 'cause sisterhood is good.  Like a cure to a disease, like the fountain of youth, like gold mine, and like love, sisterhood is good and much needed in our families, communities, and our world.

 For  Another Health Tip, Click Here

 

---

                                                                            Allabh Home

WOMEN'S HEALTH Main Page

                    

[Home] [General Health] [Health News] [Women's Health] [Lifestyles] [Health Links]

Send mail to allabh@allaboutblackhealth.com with questions or comments about this web site launched since October 4, 2000
Copyright © 2000-2003 All About Black Health
Last updated:10/02/2007 . Site best viewed w/ Internet Explorer 5/6     

BannerExplode.com ID:1100760