While breast cancer screening is crucial for all women, it’s especially necessary for those women in their 60s and beyond. Along with early detection, there are preventative measures we can take to keep us healthy longer. One of the first places to implement prevention is in relation to our environment.

Environmental Toxins

Environmental toxins are an underrated and frequently overlooked cause of numerous chronic diseases.

Scientific studies draw a direct correlation between toxins in our bodies and neurological complaints, such as Alzheimer’s, dementia and neuropathies, in addition to diseases such as diabetes, depression, heart disease and even obesity. And cancer joins this list, too.

Longer Lives Mean Greater Exposure

In today’s world, bodily toxins are a fact of life. Unfortunately, it’s no longer a matter of if toxins are stored in our bodies, it’s a matter of how many have accumulated.

The daily, stealth attack toxins unleash on your body is inevitable. After all, toxins can be found in the air, water, food and consumer products such as furniture and bedding, carpeting and paint, personal care items, makeup and household cleaners.

By the time we reach our 60s, our bodies hold a vast storehouse of detrimental chemicals and compounds.

In my consulting practice with women around the world, many worry about breast cancer. An unfortunate consequence is that worry sends stress messages to our cells, including breast tissue.

It’s critical – and empowering! – to shift the focus from worrisome thoughts to everyday positive action steps.

Detoxify to Reduce the Risk of Breast Cancer

There’s quite a bit of misunderstanding about exactly what ‘detoxification’ is. Let’s start from its definition as a way to proactively reduce your cancer risk, in addition to helping you age well and feel vital.

How Detoxification Happens Naturally

Unwanted substances are removed from your body without you having to do anything. Detoxification is a process your body performs on a continual basis, right along with all of the other functions necessary to sustain life.

Certain compounds, like heavy metals, plastics and chemicals, which enter the body from the external environment (exotoxins), and even your own hormones (endotoxins) that don’t belong in the body are neutralized, primarily in the liver, by a process referred to as biotransformation.

Then the intestinal tract (gut), kidneys, lungs, lymphatic system and the skin get rid of (eliminate and excrete) the unwanted compounds.

When Nature Isn’t Enough: Common Indications That You Need to Detoxify

If any of the primary organs involved in detoxification – liver, kidneys, gut, lungs, or skin – are overtaxed by the buildup of toxins, one or more of the following signs and symptoms are likely to be present:

• Impaired Digestion: bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea, indigestion
• Fluid retention, swollen belly, puffy eyes and fingers
• Cravings and blood sugar issues
• Fatigue, mental and physical
• Bad breath, a thick coating on the tongue, or a metallic taste in the mouth
• Sinus congestion, allergies, frequent colds and flu
• Weight gain, especially around the midsection
• Hot flashes or night sweats
• Moodiness, depression, lack of motivation
• Brain fog, forgetfulness, inability to focus
• Skin issues, eczema, itching, rashes, acne, rosacea
• Chronic muscle and/or joint pain.

These symptoms could mean that your immune, detoxification and elimination systems have become overwhelmed. But don’t despair, there are effective ways to purify and cleanse your body and to give your natural detoxification a boost.

Here are 4 easy ways to purify your body every day:

Break a Sweat

One of the most effective ways to eliminate toxins through the skin is to use an infrared sauna. Studies of the sweat produced following a session in an infrared sauna show measurable amounts of bisphenol A, or BPA, which is a known endocrine disruptor.

If you don’t have access to an infrared sauna, other ways to sweat include a hot bath + hot beverage + ginger in the water, or brisk walk with extra layers of clothing on.

Brush Your Skin

Use a brush with a long handle and natural bristles. Stand in your shower to catch the dead skin cells. Brush toward your heart, beginning with your feet and then your hands.

Use a circular motion on your groin, armpits and the front of your neck as these are areas where several lymph nodes are located. Be gentle over your breasts and other delicate areas. Finish with a hot shower.

Jump for Joy

While rebounding, the vertical motion and pull of gravity during jumping up and down improves blood circulation and stimulates lymphatic flow.

Both help to move and eliminate toxins from the body. Using a rebounder, also referred to as a mini-trampoline, jump daily for 10-15 minutes, upbeat music recommended.

A handrail is available, and can be a good idea if you are new to this activity or if you have any issues that make balance challenging. For most people, balance will improve rapidly with repeated sessions and practice.

Elevate Your Feet

Along with jumping, inversion therapy is another way to encourage lymphatic flow. There are additional benefits to inversion, such as decompression of the spine and increasing blood circulation to the muscles, which can be helpful in alleviating back pain.

You’ll need to use an inversion table to obtain those benefits. However, without an inversion table, you can scoot your buttocks up to the wall and place your legs up in the air as a method of increasing lymphatic and blood flow. At the end of a yoga session, I often perform my Savasana in this fashion.

Consider helping your natural detoxification with these everyday detox methods to improve your overall health and to reduce your risk of breast cancer. Be sure to keep up with breast health screenings at all ages. For information on an adjunct or alternative to mammograms, read this.

How many of these 5 daily detox tips do you utilize? Are there any others not mentioned here that you’ve tried? Please share in the comments below.

When I first heard Kate Beckinsale was going to be a face of a skincare brand that uses blue scorpion venom in its products, I was intrigued and also a little freaked out. But take one look at Beckinsale’s background — and her social media — and you know she 1) wouldn’t hurt an animal and 2) doesn’t partner with many beauty brands. So, for Beckinsale to work with MRVL Skincare, there had to be something to it. It turns out, there is and the story of how this skincare came to be is pretty fascinating. As is Beckinsale’s thoughts on why people are so concerned about women asserting their intelligence.

First, let’s get to the beauty products. MRVL Skincare was founded by entrepreneur Rick Langley who is also the founder of the world’s largest Blue Scorpion farm. These types of scorpions don’t have dangerous venom, so there are no concerns there. Langley developed what he calls Blue Scorpion Peptide (BSP) that he promises helps to stimulate natural collagen production, fight free radicals, help regenerate symptoms of damaged skin and smooth the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. The first batch of products is out today on the brand’s website.

I sat down with Beckinsale to find out her must-have items in the line and how she really feels about all that IQ backlash.

How She Got Involved With MRVL Skincare

Beckinsale was happy to become a spokesperson for MRVL Skincare because, well, the products just worked for her, something she says is most important when she’s going to be supporting a brand. “They sent me some of them, and they were such nice products and I really liked what they did to my skin,” she says. And when we learned the photoshoot was going to be in Turks and Caicos with dogs, the animal-rights activist was all in.

Of course, she made sure the Blue Scorpions aren’t hurt when “milked” for their venom, something I asked Langley as well. “I don’t want that to be involved with something that’s not kind,” she says. “But then also once I met them, I’m like, these last people to hurt an animal.” In fact, it was that Langley is also an animal-lover that attracted Beckinsale to the project.

Her Must-Have Products

Beckinsale likes to keep her routine pretty simple with an oil cleanser to remove makeup. As of late, she’s adding in her favorite MRVL Skincare products, too. “I really am a massive fan of the retinol cream particularly,” she says of the Retinol Repair Night Cream that contains combines retinol with the BSP. She uses it a few times a week but applies the Super Rich Eye Cream every day. When her skin is feeling dry and sensitive, she incorporates the calming, rich Arnica Recovery Cream.

MRVL Skincare.

How Her Cats Feel About Dressing Up

Switching gears, I have to ask Beckinsale about the cats on her Instagram always dressed up in the type of outfits my own cat would murder me for putting on her. Her cats are incredibly chill about it. “Well, Clive, the older one is 17. He actually really enjoys an outfit and he’s got certain things he just likes,” she says. “He loves tule and he loves ribbon and he’s really predictable. We adopted Willow from somebody else who couldn’t take care of her. She was kind of skittish and not the sort of cat that’s wanting to wear a pair of pajamas. But actually the longer she’s been with us, she’s like, I guess that’s how it is around here.”

Source: Instagram

Why She Thinks People Have Trouble With Intelligent Women

This past October, Beckinsale was a guest on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show, when the host pressed her for her IQ. She called her mother to find out and revealed it to be 152, which is considered to be “highly gifted.” She told Stern that having a high IQ wasn’t “helpful” to her in Hollywood, saying, “I just think it might be a handicap, actually.” This led to numerous headlines criticizing the actor for “bragging” about her intelligence.

“If I was bragging, I would have said it earlier than this,” she tells me. “This would be a thing that I would have mentioned. It’s not something I think about, it’s not something I think is a particularly good marker of intelligence. Actually, I don’t think it’s that relevant.” She says she was just asked so she answered the question. “I think women if you say ‘I’m intelligent,’ or ‘I’m anything,’ frankly, it’s immediately bragging even it’s just a fact,” she continues.

Beckinsale took to her Instagram to express her frustration with the response. She sites studies that show girls often “play dumb” with boys to appear more feminine. Growing up in an all-girls school, Beckinsale didn’t have this experience. She might not have felt confident physically but she knew she was smart — and wasn’t taught to hide it. “I did not grow up feeling particularly confident about what I looked like,” she says. “I was very short and my feet grew to this same size they are now. I wasn’t one of these kids that had an amazing middle school time. That still doesn’t feel like my big strength. But I’ve never ever had to feel like I’m not smart.”

Source: Instagram

How She Feels About the Backlash

“Once I started thinking about it after this whole thing came up, finding all these articles about women dumbing themselves down and women, especially on dates, dumbing themselves down and thinking ‘God, this was just sorry,’” she says. “This says more about men actually, you know. But having said that, a lot of the people who jumped on me were women. I think people, in general, don’t like a woman to take up too much space. I don’t agree with that.”

We talk about how things women like are often seen as silly or frivolous as if being into skincare or cats has anything to do with how smart you are. (It doesn’t.) “I tend to throw a cat [into photos] just to make it more fun,” she says. “And people will go ‘oh, well, this really shows your IQ.’  No, because if you’re smart, you don’t have to be going on about it all the time. You can put a fedora on a cat and still be smart.”

Amen.

If holiday feasting brings you anxiety, know that you aren’t alone and there is hope to have peace with food. For many women, the increase in availability of sugar and carbohydrate heavy foods brings on an obsession, constantly worrying about losing control and overeating, leading to weight gain and other health complications.

Why Does Holiday Eating Bring on Anxiety for Some Women Over 60?

The root of anxiety around food is the belief that you can’t be trusted to make supportive food choices for yourself. You don’t trust your body to crave foods that are healthy, and you don’t trust your mind to be able to say no consistently.

This lack of body trust comes from years of external messaging that your body is not right, and not to be trusted, and perhaps your own personal experience of not being able to trust yourself to eat moderately.

And yet, there are good reasons your body may be craving sugar or you don’t feel able to control yourself around a plate of cookies. And once you address the unhelpful beliefs you hold and physiological imbalances within your body you can achieve peace with food.

Using Food to Avoid Difficult Emotions Will Never Solve the Problem

Emotional eating, where you use foods to either numb uncomfortable emotions or as a primary source of feeling pleasure in your life, can make it impossible to avoid tempting foods when emotions are high.

Additionally, the holidays are often a time of high-emotion. Many women over 60 report eating out of nostalgia, stress, grief and anxiety at this time. If you believe emotional eating is an issue for you, download my free Emotional Eating Roadmap to understand the exact steps to healing.

Feeling Restricted Leads to Out of Control Eating

Dieting or avoiding specific foods (we’ll call them “forbidden foods”) causes a chemical reaction in your brain that makes those foods that much more desirable.

Oftentimes women will tell me they feel like food brings out their rebellious side, when in actuality that’s a normal consequence of feeling restricted. The neurotransmitter dopamine, which helps you feel pleasure and reward, is secreted when you think about forbidden foods, which increases your motivation to eat them.

Having a strong biological pull to eat something that you have deemed off limits is certainly enough to give anyone anxiety!

An Activated Nervous System Leads to More Food Cravings

Furthermore, if you are suffering from elevated levels of stress (whether that be mental stress or stress on your body), or a history of trauma that activates your nervous system, you can have an imbalance in the stress hormone cortisol which leads to strong food cravings.

Not surprisingly, the American Psychological Association reports that women are more likely to report an increase in stress during the holiday season as the burden of celebration often falls to women. Additionally, us ladies are more likely to use unhealthy coping mechanisms for stress (like eating!) and struggle to relax.

4 Tips to Make Peace with Holiday Eating

#1: Reduce Stress by Getting Intentional About What You Want Out of the Holidays

Whether you are worried about your busy social calendar or feeling lonely, think in advance about the parts of holiday celebration that are important to you. Prioritizing the people, events and foods that you care about most will allow you to say no to or set boundaries around traditions that aren’t meaningful to you.

To illustrate, think about going into a holiday feast feeling like you shouldn’t eat much of anything. Thanks to dopamine, you can end up with a piled-high plate full of everything, even things you don’t much care for.

Now, imagine you’ve given yourself permission to enjoy the heck out of the dish you’re most excited about. You might even have more than one serving! And yet, you will likely choose moderate portions of everything else, end up eating less overall, and really enjoy the day.

#2: Get Help to Heal Emotional Eating

If you are using food to avoid feeling emotions or to feel pleasure, peace with holiday eating, or any other time of year, will only come after addressing the emotional root of your eating.

#3: Recognize You Are Not to Blame for Your Eating Struggles, and Practice Self-Compassion

One common complaint I hear from women over 60 is sadness about how they have “let themselves go.” There is a belief that you are in control of your weight, your eating habits, your wrinkles and fat tissue… and so being anything less than what culture defines as perfect is a personal failure.

Pish posh! (You’ll have to excuse my British appropriation here, I’ve been watching a lot of Bake Off lately…)

I hope you can see now from this article that there are many other forces at work resulting in your relationship with food, cravings, and your appearance.

Rather than indulging the inner self-critic (which usually ends up in more eating because you eat to soothe the self-harm), consider treating yourself like you would a good friend.

While women often fear being nice will result in more eating, in my experience helping over 70 women heal their eating struggles in the Stress Less Weight Mastery, self-compassion leads to a healthy relationship with food.

#4: Calm Your Nervous System by Eating Regularly and Practicing Self-Care

While you may think skipping meals before a big feast is a good idea, it actually causes an increase in the appetite hormone ghrelin, making it hard to feel in control when food finally arrives.

Eating regularly, especially protein and fiber, can help balance your blood sugar. Blood sugar imbalances can activate your nervous system, causing you to feel more anxious (and hungry!).

Practicing self-care for stress management is another tip to calm your nervous system. Moving your body, journaling, and doing activities you enjoy are all good options.

Do you feel anxious about holiday eating? What has worked in the past to help you feel peace with food? Do you recognize any specific triggers to your eating anxiety, like emotions, events or people?

I have just finished reading “These Precious Days”, an essay written by Ann Patchett, published in Harper’s Magazine. I loved it so much the first time; I re-read it for a second.

A Beautiful Story About Friendship

I feel ridiculously close to Ann after reading this candid, vulnerable story about her relationship with a newish friend named Sooki Raphael. Raphael is Tom Hank’s assistant and friend. He describes her as “someone who is all that is good in the world.”

A neighbor of Patchett’s described Sooki as a saint. No doubt if Tom Hanks and Ann Patchett believe their friend to possess such wonderful qualities, she probably is a saint. But I think Ann is the saint in the story.

The initial relationship begins at an event in Washington, D.C. to promote Hank’s book, Uncommon Type. Sooki and Ann’s relationship evolves through their sporadic email correspondence.

“The world that Sooki inhabited was electrified by greens and blues, purple bougainvillea draping over hot-pink walls, colors too vivid to be explained. She would pour color into my inbox for a while and then be gone again.”

Sooki Was Diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer

A pancreatic cancer diagnosis and a clinical trial in Nashville matching her form of cancer brought the two women together in physical proximity. Ann invites Sooki, someone she has only met twice, to live in her downstairs’ apartment while undergoing treatment. Ann excuses away the offer saying, “It’s a southern thing to invite people into your home.”

I guess I’m pretty selfish. My nest (home, hotel room, pop-up tent) is my sanctuary. Being a basic introvert, it’s my place to rest and recoup. It causes me anxiety to share my sacred space with people other than family.

Ann Patchett also refers to herself as an introvert. Nevertheless, she welcomes people into her home and does so with such graciousness. There were no conditions or expectations put on Sooki’s stay. Ann made her physical environment exquisitely comfortable.

Sooki made it easier by being the consummate guest. The onset of the pandemic occurred during Sooki’s stay. She could not fly home to California in her compromised state. They were pandemic partners sharing space, time, and a cancer journey.

This glimpse into the lives of these extraordinary women provides such insight into the creative process. Ann wrote; Sooki painted. As someone who aspires to do both, I was transformed by their insights.

Ann Patchett Described Her Writing Process in This Story

Ann noted about her writing:

“When I’m putting together a novel, I leave all the doors and windows open so the characters can come in and just as easily leave. I don’t take notes. Once I start writing things down, I feel like I’m nailing the story in place. When I rely on my faulty memory, the pieces are free to move. The main character I was certain of starts to drift, and someone I’d barely noticed moves in to fill the space. The road forks and forks again. It becomes a path into the woods. It becomes the woods. I find a stream and follow it; the stream dries up, and I’m left to look for moss on the sides of trees. “

I’ve yet to write fiction but I too take a circuitous route when writing a story. I often begin an essay or blog post with one story in mind and end up landing elsewhere as it progresses (not that I’m comparing my writing to Ann Patchett’s.)

“Sooki always wanted to paint. But she had other jobs.” During her tenure in the Patchett house, Sooki started to paint like someone who had never stopped. “Her true work, which had lingered for so many years in her imagination, emerged fully formed, because even if she hadn’t been painting, she saw the world as a painter, not in terms of language and story but of color and shape. She painted as fast as she could get her canvases prepped, berating herself for falling asleep in the afternoons.”

Sooki Loved to Paint

Sooki didn’t talk about her husband or her children or her friends or her employer; she talked about color. We talked about art.

“She brought her paintings upstairs to show us: a person who was too shy to say good night most nights was happy for us to see her work. There was no hesitation on the canvases, no timidity. She had transferred her life into brushwork, impossible colors overlapping, the composition precariously and perfectly balanced. The paintings were bold, confident, at ease. When she gave us the painting she had done of Sparky on the back of the couch, I felt as if Matisse had painted our dog.”

The love these friends shared. They participated in a yoga practice for an hour each morning and evening. Ann even tried doing psilocybin (mushrooms) with Sooki during her cancer journey. It worked out for Sooki, but Ann did not fare as well on that particular journey. (She described the trip as eight hours of hard labor.) She was willing to share everything with her friend.

“Pay attention, I told myself. Pay attention every minute,” this was Ann’s mantra during the first months of the pandemic and Sooki’s stay. What was and is a disastrous time became a cherished opportunity. I suspect that is the meaning of life.

“As it turned out, Sooki and I needed the same thing: to find someone who could see us as our best and most complete selves. Astonishing to come across such a friendship at this point in life. At any point in life.”

Don’t we all aspire to achieve such a friendship. To find someone who is able to see us as our best and most complete selves.

Do you have a relationship with someone in your life who is able to see you as your most complete self? When did that relationship begin? How long has it been going? Has it changed since the time it first started?

When I first heard Kate Beckinsale was going to be a face of a skincare brand that uses blue scorpion venom in its products, I was intrigued and also a little freaked out. But take one look at Beckinsale’s background — and her social media — and you know she 1) wouldn’t hurt an animal and 2) doesn’t partner with many beauty brands. So, for Beckinsale to work with MRVL Skincare, there had to be something to it. It turns out, there is and the story of how this skincare came to be is pretty fascinating. As is Beckinsale’s thoughts on why people are so concerned about women asserting their intelligence.

First, let’s get to the beauty products. MRVL Skincare was founded by entrepreneur Rick Langley who is also the founder of the world’s largest Blue Scorpion farm. These types of scorpions don’t have dangerous venom, so there are no concerns there. Langley developed what he calls Blue Scorpion Peptide (BSP) that he promises helps to stimulate natural collagen production, fight free radicals, help regenerate symptoms of damaged skin and smooth the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles. The first batch of products is out today on the brand’s website.

I sat down with Beckinsale to find out her must-have items in the line and how she really feels about all that IQ backlash.

How She Got Involved With MRVL Skincare

Beckinsale was happy to become a spokesperson for MRVL Skincare because, well, the products just worked for her, something she says is most important when she’s going to be supporting a brand. “They sent me some of them, and they were such nice products and I really liked what they did to my skin,” she says. And when we learned the photoshoot was going to be in Turks and Caicos with dogs, the animal-rights activist was all in.

Of course, she made sure the Blue Scorpions aren’t hurt when “milked” for their venom, something I asked Langley as well. “I don’t want that to be involved with something that’s not kind,” she says. “But then also once I met them, I’m like, these last people to hurt an animal.” In fact, it was that Langley is also an animal-lover that attracted Beckinsale to the project.

Her Must-Have Products

Beckinsale likes to keep her routine pretty simple with an oil cleanser to remove makeup. As of late, she’s adding in her favorite MRVL Skincare products, too. “I really am a massive fan of the retinol cream particularly,” she says of the Retinol Repair Night Cream that contains combines retinol with the BSP. She uses it a few times a week but applies the Super Rich Eye Cream every day. When her skin is feeling dry and sensitive, she incorporates the calming, rich Arnica Recovery Cream.

MRVL Skincare.

How Her Cats Feel About Dressing Up

Switching gears, I have to ask Beckinsale about the cats on her Instagram always dressed up in the type of outfits my own cat would murder me for putting on her. Her cats are incredibly chill about it. “Well, Clive, the older one is 17. He actually really enjoys an outfit and he’s got certain things he just likes,” she says. “He loves tule and he loves ribbon and he’s really predictable. We adopted Willow from somebody else who couldn’t take care of her. She was kind of skittish and not the sort of cat that’s wanting to wear a pair of pajamas. But actually the longer she’s been with us, she’s like, I guess that’s how it is around here.”

Source: Instagram

Why She Thinks People Have Trouble With Intelligent Women

This past October, Beckinsale was a guest on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show, when the host pressed her for her IQ. She called her mother to find out and revealed it to be 152, which is considered to be “highly gifted.” She told Stern that having a high IQ wasn’t “helpful” to her in Hollywood, saying, “I just think it might be a handicap, actually.” This led to numerous headlines criticizing the actor for “bragging” about her intelligence.

“If I was bragging, I would have said it earlier than this,” she tells me. “This would be a thing that I would have mentioned. It’s not something I think about, it’s not something I think is a particularly good marker of intelligence. Actually, I don’t think it’s that relevant.” She says she was just asked so she answered the question. “I think women if you say ‘I’m intelligent,’ or ‘I’m anything,’ frankly, it’s immediately bragging even it’s just a fact,” she continues.

Beckinsale took to her Instagram to express her frustration with the response. She sites studies that show girls often “play dumb” with boys to appear more feminine. Growing up in an all-girls school, Beckinsale didn’t have this experience. She might not have felt confident physically but she knew she was smart — and wasn’t taught to hide it. “I did not grow up feeling particularly confident about what I looked like,” she says. “I was very short and my feet grew to this same size they are now. I wasn’t one of these kids that had an amazing middle school time. That still doesn’t feel like my big strength. But I’ve never ever had to feel like I’m not smart.”

Source: Instagram

How She Feels About the Backlash

“Once I started thinking about it after this whole thing came up, finding all these articles about women dumbing themselves down and women, especially on dates, dumbing themselves down and thinking ‘God, this was just sorry,’” she says. “This says more about men actually, you know. But having said that, a lot of the people who jumped on me were women. I think people, in general, don’t like a woman to take up too much space. I don’t agree with that.”

We talk about how things women like are often seen as silly or frivolous as if being into skincare or cats has anything to do with how smart you are. (It doesn’t.) “I tend to throw a cat [into photos] just to make it more fun,” she says. “And people will go ‘oh, well, this really shows your IQ.’  No, because if you’re smart, you don’t have to be going on about it all the time. You can put a fedora on a cat and still be smart.”

Amen.