Bekah blogs at Motherhood Motherhood Moment where she writes about easy meal ideas, money-saving and money-making advice, time-savers, easy eco-friendly advice, freebies, and more. She also hosts monthly giveaways.

Commenting is another way to be friendly and get your name out there.  When commenting, you need to leave more than “yeah, I agree” or “that’s cool”. Leave a useful comment that will stand out and give the person reason to visit your site.  Most blogs have a place for you to leave your link with your name.  It is not necessary to leave an additional link in your comment.  Many bloggers will see this as spammy and will delete your comment or their spam filter will filter it.

The point of linking and commenting is to build friends and readership in your niche.  When I first started blogging, I was told the general rule was to comment at ten blogs each week.  This was a great way to meet to new people and share ideas.  Honestly, I have gotten out of that habit and need to start back again.  I could always use some new blogging friends.  How about you?

“Fresh fruits and vegetables will always provide the most nutrients and natural enzymes that the body can use more readily, so it is important to take advantage of the health benefits of apples and pumpkins while they are in season,” says Chicagohealers.com Practitioner Dr. Helen Lee.

According to Dr. Lee, PUMPKINS contain the following benefits:

• Nutrient-Rich:
  • Provide vitamin C and E, iron, zinc, magnesium, and potassium which support the health of organs such as kidneys, bladder & prostate
  • Contain both beta & alpha carotenoids –anti-oxidants that help prevent cell damage
  • Supply lutein which supports healthy eyes
• Beneficial To Health:
  • Aid in ridding the body of parasites and other unwelcomed digestive inhabitants
  • Contain healthy essential fatty acid oils
  • High in protein- one ounce of seeds provides about seven grams
• Easy Ways to Incorporate in Diet:
  • • A handful of raw pumpkin seeds as a snack or mixed with trail mix, or on top of cereal
    • Pumpkin seed butter spread on toast
    • Pumpkin pie/desserts/pancakes/waffles
    • Pumpkin baked or browned with spices in risotto, chili, rice, or spaghetti

  According to Dr. Hart, APPLES are important in the diet for the following reasons:

  • Quintessential For Health:
    • Low in fat and calories
    • Enzyme-rich energy food which helps break down and digest other foods
    • Reduce risk of colds and flu
    • Improve ability of intestinal muscles to move waste through and help lower cholesterol levels
  • Regulate Blood Sugar:
    • Help prevent hypoglycemia and diabetes
    • Keep blood glucose levels up to help feel full longer
  • Packed With Nutrients:
    • Pectin fiber binds and helps eliminate gut toxins, keeping the GI tract healthy and act as a natural stimulant (green apples contain more Pectin)
    • Great source of vitamin A carotenes for antioxidant activity, the flavonoid quercitin as well as vitamin C
  • Help Fight Disease:
    • Bone protection
    • Asthma relief
    • Alzheimer’s prevention
    • Cancer prevention (lung, breast, colon and liver cancers)
    • Diabetes management
    • Lower cholesterol

  With Halloween and Thanksgiving just around the corner, now is the perfect time to incorporate these foods in to your family’s diet to reap their healthy benefits and add a taste of Fall to every meal.

  About ChicagoHealers.com

  Chicago Healers (www.ChicagoHealers.com) is the nation’s pioneer prescreened integrative health and healing network, offering a comprehensive understanding of each practitioner’s services, approach, and philosophy.  Our practitioner experts advocate natural and empowered health and life choices through their practices, the media, educational events, and our website.  With close to 200 practitioners offering over 300 different alternative therapies, ChicagoHealers.com has provided nearly 400 free educational events for Chicagoans.  ChicagoHealers.com provides a steady resource for TV and print news where member practitioners are requested as experts for health and lifestyle stories.  ChicagoHealers.com is regularly featured on every major TV network (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX) and in leading publications such as Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune.  ChicagoHealers.com takes the guesswork out of finding Chicago’s premier alternative health and healing practitioners.  For more information, visit www.ChicagoHealers.com

A few things to know:  After you purchase the gift certificate, it will be emailed to you.  You must have a printer to print out the gift certificate.  Usually there is a $35 minimum purchase required to use the $25 gift certificate, but it’s still a great deal.

Enjoy!

Below are a few back to school texting tips for parents to help their kid’s text responsibly, courtesy of Predicto Mobile (www.predicto.com), the leading online and text message based survey company:

• Check the school’s cell phone policies. Speak with their teachers about what they are doing to limit text use and find ways you can work together to combat the issue if it becomes a serious problem
• Talk to your kids about the dangers of sexting. Find out who they are chatting with and look at the cell phone bill to see what time of day they are texting the most
• Encourage good academic behavior. Find out when their exams are, offer help with studying, etc.
• Make them work for it. If texting during school gets out of control and you see a spike in your bill, ask your child to get a part time job to cover their text message cell phone plan
• Don’t text them when they are in class. Occassionally you may need to get in touch with your child during school hours, find out when your child has breaks in between classes or what time they take lunch and use that time to send texts
• Petition your cell phone provider to limit cell phone text message service during school hours

“Kids have pioneered text usage and it’s become somewhat invasive in a classroom setting,” says Eyal Yechazkell, CEO of Predicto Mobile. “Many schools have already banned cell phones, and we’ve all heard horror stories about kids sexting in school or using the service as a way to cheat. Parents need to take a tougher stance and talk with their kids about texting in the classroom to make sure it doesn’t interfere with the learning process.” 

For some kids, going back to school at the end of summer can be traumatic. Anticipating a new teacher, classmates, grade, or school can trigger fear, anxiety, and depression–not to mention very real physical symptoms such as stomachaches, headaches, and insomnia.

Fortunately, your child has a whole toolbox to draw from–in her own imagination. Here are six imagination tools parents can use with young children to relieve “back-to-school-itis.”

Teach her to balloon breathe. With her hands around her navel, have her breathe slowly and deeply into her lower belly so it presses into her hands like an inflating balloon. The Balloon Breath has dramatic calming effects and facilitates a waking state of focused concentration and receptivity to positive suggestions. This one tool makes all the other ones easier.

Visit his special place. This is a safe private place within your child’s inner world where he can work out problems or take a mini-vacation from stress and worry. He can invite a wise Animal Friend into his special place to talk to and help him, or he can even dig for a treasure box there that contains the antidote to his fear.

Draw the fear. Putting an image on paper: (1) makes her fear of separation realer and less frightening than keeping it inside, and (2) makes her fear less likely to grow because there is a concrete picture to work with. Once she has a picture, she can talk to it, find out why it’s trying to scare her, strike a bargain with it, surround it with a soothing color bubble, and so on.

Talk to his symptom. When a child suffers from a worry headache or stomachache, these three questions can help eliminate the pain. Have him do deep balloon breathing (diaphragmatic breathing), then ask: (1) What color is it? (2) What shape is it? (3) How heavy is it? After more breaths, ask him again. Continue to breathe and question in rounds. His pain will likely change or disappear. If it doesn’t completely go away, ask the ache what it wants him to know, do, or understand to release any more bits of pain.

Picture the future. Artwork is also an effective starting point when you’re working with clear end-goals, like getting a good night’s sleep or reducing a fear. Have your child draw two drawings–how things are now and how she’d like them to be. Hang the picture in her bedroom; this is a great reminder of her desired goal and the first step toward getting there.

Encourage drama. For kids whose nature tends toward drama, acting out their worries and troubles is a wonderful way to release them. Let them play it out–with puppets, with their bodies, with anything their imagination suggests. It’s amazing what creative solutions come up when given free reign.

* * * * *

Charlotte Reznick is a child educational psychologist, an associate clinical professor of psychology at UCLA, and author of a new book, The Power of Your Child’s Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success (Perigee, 2009, $14.95).

www.ImageryForKids.com