Healthy Living

Where There's A Wheel, There's A Way

By Tasnim Eboo

“Hey, nice wheels!” Typically, someone would be referring to that red Jaguar car driving by, but instead they are hollering at that new colorful bike speeding down the sidewalk. Bikes are the new cars, and suddenly biking has switched from being a healthy sport to a healthy hip sport; it’s the new ‘in’ thing to do, and everyone wants to be a part of it.

Senior at George Mason University, Jeremy Eley, has become extremely interested in biking over the past four years. He has worked at two bike shops, one being a larger corporate store, Performance Bike, in Fairfax Circle, and the second a smaller local shop, Bikenetic, in Falls Church. Jeremy claimed that both stores thrive on quality customer satisfaction. Working in the corporate store had different values then the casual more relaxed environment in the local shop.  Working as a salesman, his passion for biking has grown as well as his knowledge and skills. Recently, a new company started in Washington DC called Capital Bikeshare. It was designed for people who wanted to have a healthier life style and a quicker way to get around the city. Instead of walking, driving, or metroing, people now have the opportunity to bike to school or work everyday. They don’t even have to own their own bike! Capital Bikeshare has over 175 stations across the Washington, DC and Virginia area. 

The process to obtain a bike is simple and easy enough for customers who want to give it a try. You sign up online, pick up a bike, and ride it around for as long as you like! Once the bike return is made, it determines the amount you will pay. Creating such an easy system has made biking a simple, affordable, creative new way to get around and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Jeremy claims that for him, “biking is less expensive, gas costs go out the door, and I can do more because I’m spending less.”

Many people in the past few years have been warming up to the idea of going green and making life choices to try and save the environment. One of the ways to do that is to cut down on driving, and switch to a more eco-friendly mode of transportation. There are more and more companies popping up around the country to encourage people to maintain a healthy lifestyle, especially college students. The Collegiate Bicycle Company has a bikeshare system on 19 college campuses across the nation. Jeremy’s school, George Mason University, recently installed a system called Patriot Bike Share. He says, “It’s great using the system and getting exercise.  It’s less pressure, time efficient, and it’s perfect.” Jeremy commutes from Falls Church to Fairfax daily for school and sometimes bikes all the way with no complaints. 

There are bike paths all over the Northern Virginia area stretching from Fairfax to the middle of DC. Jeremy said, “It’s a good way to relax. It turns a commute into a joyride.”

Work Hard, Play... Not Often?

By Megan Speight

 “Work Hard, Play Hard” is an unofficial motto adopted by corporate America to motivate employees to get rewarded for a job well done. However, in recent years it seems that the “midnight oil” has been burning more often than ever. Americans are working harder and longer, but playing less.

In a 2011 study conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Expedia.com on Vacation Deprivation, of the twenty countries surveyed, results showed that Americans were one of the most vacation-deprived countries. Not only did Americans receive the fewest amount of vacation days, they also used the least amount of these vacation days. Of the Americans polled, their biggest reason for skipping out on these vacation days were financial ones.

The ironic part about this is in recent years, the economy has shown improvement and most Americans are reporting that they have more financial security than in previous years. So why are Americans still holding out on these much needed days to relax? Could it be the age-old “American dream”, work hard and be successful?

While many Americans have achieved the coveted “American dream,” many have not. The drive for success has engulfed and changed many lives for good and bad. The nuclear family is no longer sitting together for a family meal every night. Instead, families are maybe eating dinner together on the go in the car at best or are all eating in the same house, at the same time, but apart in different rooms.

As a Mom, successful career woman, author and Communication Professor at George Mason University, Beth Jannery knows what it is like to juggle a booming career and a young family. She has also taken note on the actions of others around her, noting that everyone is “crazy busy” and “they wear this like it’s a badge of honor.”

In her most recently published book “Simple Grace, Simple Miracles,” Jannery provides inspiration to readers, encouraging them to take the time to step back from the craziness of their lives and enjoy what they have. Jannery urges the need to make face-to-face interaction a number one priority. In the cutthroat world we live in, we are usually concerned about ourselves first and rarely look out for the people around us. Because of this, we tend to isolate ourselves and become busy with trivial things and not taking time to do things for ourselves to bring grace in our lives.

Jannery was motivated to write her first novel because she wanted a life change. At the time, she was covering politics and knew she needed something different from her busy life. She says that in regards to her motivation to write her first novel, “I’m not sure where it came from” but she considers writing “a real treat for me.” Through writing her novels, including her current work, “Finding Grace Again,” owning and running her own writing and editing business, Jannery Communications, raising her two daughters, Jannery has recognized that these are ways that she can keep a grace in her life.

 

Americans are lucky in this modern world we live in to have all of the technology accessible at our fingertips. However, is this technology really helping us as humans? Jannery addresses this situation by saying “We are always plugged in, but not to each other.” Should we always be connected to our workplace at home? In the air? At the beach? Or in the woods? No! Humans biologically need rest and rest means taking a step back from the craziness of their lives and recharge. We only have one life to live on this Earth so enjoy every bit of it you can. Take a vacation! Enjoy life! And most of all bring grace back into your life and keep it there! Jannery says it best “We are not taking our stuff with us. All we take are our human connections. Human contact is a gift. Why waste it?”

Mothers and Daughters and Breast Cancer

By Amanda Schwartz

Dr. Carla L. Fisher, a professor at George Mason University, is an advocate for the importance of research in the field of family and health communication. With a plethora of experience working and doing research in the field, Dr. Fisher is a recognized authority on family, health communication related issues.

The field of health communication became particularly interesting to Fisher when she was studying family and aging and was doing a lot of research with mothers and daughters. Fisher started to notice that the topic of breast cancer would often arise in her discussions with mothers and daughters. “It would come up a lot in interviews I’d conduct with women even when we were not talking about health-related issues. I then started studying women’s experiences with breast cancer. Family communication is an important part of how women are coping and adjusting to the disease. You cannot only be concerned with the patient, it affects the whole family,” says Fisher.

Fisher is not only experienced and knowledgeable in the field but she also has a strong passion for it which is conveyed when she speaks about the topic. “I think it is really important for health care to consider that family communication is central to the health and well-being of individuals, and, as such, needs to be integrated into health care in some manner.” Fisher says that she notices that families faced with managing illness sometimes communicate in unhealthy ways, and in her research she hopes to help families cope better by helping them learn healthy communicative behavior when adjusting to disease.

Fisher has much experience working in the field of family, health communication. In 2006, Fisher initiated a research program on Mother-Daughter Communication and Breast Cancer Coping & Prevention in an effort to gain an understanding about how mothers and daughters can enhance their communication in ways that improve how they adjust to the disease and promote better health outcomes (Fisher Breast Cancer Research Program on Mother-Daughter Communication). She also works with the Mayo Clinic as well as the world renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. She has worked directly with various health professionals and behavioral scientists including nurses, psychologists, and genetic counselors to better understand what women’s family communication needs are. In her research she interviews women to capture their authentic stories to better understand breast cancer as a mother-daughter experience and what mothers and daughters need to do in order to learn better coping behaviors.

The most apparent finding according to Fisher, “They want to talk about it and breast cancer is very much a mother-daughter journey for many women-” Even though it is important to have open communication, sometimes it is not easy says Fisher- “I find that mothers who are diagnosed with breast cancer who have young adult or adolescent daughters at the time of the diagnosis find themselves wanting to talk but their daughters don’t always want to and will sometimes avoid those conversations.”

A research participant of Fisher’s who was a late adolescent daughter of a diagnosed mother stated, “I didn’t really know how to react to it so I kind of hid from it, blocked it out of my mind... I pulled away ’cause that’s like the only thing I knew that I could do to help myself through it because I’d be a mental wreck... It was easier for me to just pretend nothing was happening...” (Fisher Breast Cancer Research Program on Mother-Daughter Communication).

It is important to understand how to teach mothers and daughters to talk about the topic and how they can engage in these topics in an easier fashion. Some advice Fisher gives for the mothers is to “approach the matter in a calm and brief manner, let the daughter set the tone and bring it up over time and not all at once in one conversation.” For the daughters, she says that “for some young-adult daughters it can feel good to show her that you care while allowing your uncertainty about the topic to be decreased by having your questions answered to help you minimize your fears or concerns.”

Dr. Fisher has big plans for the future. She hopes to create health communication programs within psycho-oncology care to help mothers and daughters cope. She also hopes to become more involved in researching various cultures of mothers and daughters and their experiences with breast cancer.

Fisher obtained a bachelor’s degree in scientific communication at Florida Tech, a master’s degree in communication and advocacy at Arizona State University, and a Ph.D. in family health and aging communication at Penn State University. She also received a minor in gerontology. Fisher was also a National Institute on Aging (NIA) Pre-doctoral Fellow, which involved three years of interdisciplinary training in human development and aging behavior, and was invited to complete post-doctoral training in health behavior theory in the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) fifth Advanced Training Institute.

For more information on Dr. Carla L. Fisher and her research please visit www.motherdaughterbreastcancer.com.