My friend and I were having a debate the other day, about Self.com, but before I give you the details, let me set the stage a little. Remember the old Ally McBeal episodes where Elaine would accuse Ally of getting “snappish” with her? David E. Kelley invented the adjective that every woman could relate to, and applied it to scenarios when one character was being a little too bitchy in conversation. Snappishness was a fundamental part of Ally and Elaine’s relationship. The same is true for my friendship with this particular friend. We love each other, but snappishness is an accepted and appreciated component of how we relate to one another.

I think it stems from my inherent inability to verbally edit out unimportant details when I speak, thereby causing a hunger for the same amount of detail from others, and her natural desire to dole out information in small fragments, requiring a near cross examination to complete a story. In fact, remember that Navy admiral POW (Jeremiah Denton), in Vietnam who blinked with his eyes, in morse code, the word TORTURE in his forced television interview? (Neither do I, because I wasn’t born yet, but I have a vague recollection of the movie about it)

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October is breast cancer awareness month, so it’s only appropriate to kick it off with some important information about this deadly disease. I’m not going to talk about all of the horrid statistics, because I think the numbers are startling enough to cause fear and paranoia, and I don’t think that serves us. If you read my Mind Body Medicine interview with Dr. Jacobs, you know that my theory is that by focusing too much on things that make us think the disease is inevitable, it will program our brains to contract it.

Dr. Jacobs says the fear and anxiety around thoughts of getting a disease can weaken our immune system. Because of that, I’d rather focus on the positive. The things we have control over. I’m a huge believer in the old saying our moms and grandmas said – “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

When I look at the list of the breast cancer risks that we can control, it brought to mind my philosophy towards all things health. It’s what I call the cave woman test. I think it’s what our grandparents would have called common sense, but either way, here’s how it works. Whenever I am having an internal debate about what I want to consume to best care for my body, I think about how closely the choice resembles something people would do in cave man days, when they had no choice but to live more in line with nature.

Here’s an example of the test in action:

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Let’s talk naptime. If you’re a stay at home mom, you know how precious that small window of opportunity is when your kids are down for the count. You hope it will be a long count – two hours or more if they’re long sleepers, but you count yourself lucky if you get at least 60 minutes of uninterrupted time to yourself.

Well, for a lot of you moms this is the only time in the day that you might get to fit in a little work out. You don’t have the luxury of running off to the gym, meandering from machine to machine and chatting up the other moms between sets, because you’re stuck at home waiting for your little one to wake up.

What’s the answer? Think: 4th grade PE class!

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We all know the feeling. You arrive home from work with the full intention of changing into your gym clothes and heading out the door to the gym, but your butt finds the couch for the minute it takes you to lace up your shoes, and that’s just one minute too long!

You stretch back, realizing how exhausted you are from a long day, and before you know it, the gym visit takes second billing to fluffy pillows and the afghan.

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