Category: health

health, productivity, time, youth

My Year of Hopefulness – Getting the Most Out of Your Days

Christa Avampato

“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.” ~ Charles Richards

I am obsessed with productivity. (On occasion, I have spent an afternoon watching an Ace of Cakes marathon on the Food Network. Guilty as charged – what can I say? I love cake.) 95% of the time, I’m doing something that I hope will help move my life forward. Reading, writing, connecting with others, visiting museums, exercising, meditating, running, cooking, and observing life. I am an expert scheduler and I strive to be a model of efficiency.

So why is progress so important to me? Why can’t I just slow down and go with the flow? Why must I be constantly engaged? Part of it is that I am hopelessly nerdy and have been since birth. ‘Why?’ is my favorite question, and I ask it loud, proud, and often. It’s a reflex. I have an overwhelming desire to be in the know, or at least to try to be in the know. The words “I’m bored” have never crossed my mind, much less come out of my mouth.

The other reason for my constant activity is something more serious. For better or for worse, I am constantly mindful of my age and of the time that’s passing. Some people will say that those who are young don’t appreciate their youth or their health. They think they’ll be beautiful forever. I know it’s all fading. Every day I’m looking for a wrinkle, a grey hair, a loss of ability. My WebMD checking can get a bit out of hand from time to time. I was born thinking like an old person, so much so that I am often surprised to look in the mirror and see someone so young.

My siblings and I lost a lot of our family members at a very young age, and those losses stick with us. They changed us. As teenagers, we became painfully aware that life is finite, at least in the form in which we know it. And while I could easily become consumed by the fear of time passing by, instead I focus on making every moment count.

There’s a saying that goes something like “if you live a good life, you’ll be able to enjoy it twice: once as you’re living it when you’re young, and again when you’re looking back on it when you’re old.” Given my love of efficiency, this sounds like a great deal to me – I’ll get two good lives for the price of one! That’s well-worth the effort.

health, healthcare, social media, Spanish, technology

NY Examiner.com: Interview with Manny Hernandez, Founder and President of Diabetes Hands Foundation

Christa Avampato

I met Manny Hernandez, Founder and President of Diabetes Hands Foundation, on Twitter. He started to follow me on Twitter and when I took a look at his profile, I realized he’d be a perfect fit for this column. From the personal challenge of being diagnosed with diabetes, Manny has grown his foundation and the two social networks (tudiabetes.com in English and estudiabetes.com in Spanish) to help people who are also grappling with this disease. Like so many successful social entrepreneurs, Manny took his skills of web product management, on-line community building, and writing, and combined them with his personal passions to find a cure for diabetes and to help people living with the disease manage their lives.

I was honored to get to interview Manny about Diabetes Hands Foundation, his personal connection to diabetes, and his leap of faith into entrepreneurship.

For the full story, please visit: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2901-NY-Business-Strategies-Examiner~y2009m6d28-Interview-with-Manny-Hernandez-Founder-and-President-of-Diabetes-Hands-Foundation

health, healthcare, wellness, yoga

My Year of Hopefulness – Urban Zen Foundation

Christa Avampato

NBC Nightly News has been running a series called “What Works”, a follow-on to their wildly successful series “Making a Difference”. Think of it as nothing but positive news to brighten up your days. Stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, mostly for the benefit of others.


Yesterday, the segment featured the work of Donna Karan with the Urban Zen Foundation. Urban Zen has developed the Urban Zen Integrative Therapy Program at Beth Israel Hospital that is providing supplemental care in the forms of yoga and meditation to people with cancer being treated at Beth Israel. It is a year long pilot program that started last fall. The project is being monitored closely to assess results of the integrated program. It could be a whole new paradigm in U.S. healthcare.

You have to hand it to Beth Israel Hospital. For decades now, many U.S. hospitals have paid little or no heed to the power of yoga as a method to help patients heal. Mumbo jumbo, hippy medicine full of nothing but sweetness and light – that won’t kill cancer. What we really need to do is burn and chemically treat those cancer cells and hope we don’t harm too many of the good cells in the process. I don’t doubt the ability of chemotherapy and radiation to treat cancer. They are powerful tools.

What I believe, and what the Urban Zen Institute believes, is that yoga is a powerful compliment to traditional medical treatment. They are not a replacement – but rather a helpful, potent supplement that can actually enhance the body’s ability to benefit from traditional cancer treatments. It couldn’t have been easy for Beth Israel to make the case that this program was worth almost $1B of investment dollars. They were willing to go out on a healthcare limb to run a true, valid, scientific test of yoga’s ability to treat cancer. It’s courageous.

With Beth Israel’s pilot, it seems that the tide may be turning in our country. Perhaps we are coming around to seeing things a different way when it comes to health and wellness. We might be on to a better path forward.
happiness, health, stress

My Year of Hopefulness – The Power of Compartmentalizing

Christa Avampato

You have to let it go. Breathe. Again. Breathe. This year I have really begun to appreciate the ability to compartmentalize the different areas of my life. It’s not a natural skill I have, though one I have developed over and over again with conscious effort. Some days I am better at it than others. Today, I did really well.


I have one area of my life that has been giving me trouble lately, lots of it. I’ve had to learn to let it go and focus on the other great parts of my life. It’s not easy. I’ll find myself walking along the street and it will rear it’s head again, forcing me to stop, breathe, and put it aside. It’s sort of like a bad penny or one of those crazy dreams you have repeatedly.

This exercise has shown me that I do have the discipline to keep negative events in one area of my life from spilling over into others. It’s not something that comes easily, and honestly, I used to be horrible at it. Dreadful, even. I was one of those people who would have 99 great things and 1 bad thing happen, and sure enough there I’d be at the end of day focusing on the 1 really bad thing as if the other 99 great things didn’t even happen or matter. I don’t suggest this method for living – actually, I highly discourage it. You’ll be miserable and unhappy, and quite frankly, the world has enough misery and unhappiness right now without you and me contributing any more.

So learn to breathe a little more deeply, do yoga, meditate, run, have a good laugh, and let it all go. You’ll be healthier and every other area of your life will thank you many times over.

family, health, healthcare

My Year of Hopefulness – Total Knee Replacement

Christa Avampato

Today my mom got a new knee. She’s been struggling with intense pain for about a year. She finally couldn’t stand it anymore, we found a great surgeon, and she signed up for a total knee replacement. My step-father, brother, sister-in-law, and I were there to see her off to surgery. I turned back after we said our good-byes and watched as the very capable nursing staff wheeled her down the hall. There was something frightening about seeing my mom head through those double doors. I wanted to watch the surgery, like I’ve seen so many times on Grey’s Anatomy, but there was no gallery. So I was out in the waiting room with my family, just waiting.

There’s something disconcerting about watching our parents get older, something so hard about watching how we begin to take care of them and worry about them the way that they cared for and worried about us for so long. I couldn’t sleep much last night. I know that total knee replacement is a standard surgery. Over 400,000 Americans have them every year. But this one of the 400,000 was my mom and I only have 1 of her. And I was worried.

As it turns out the surgeon, Dr. Thompson, and the exceptional staff at Saint Francis Hospital took amazing care of her and she came through the surgery just fine. Better than fine. She woke up from the anesthesia smiling and asked the surgeon, “so how did it go?” That’s my mom – optimistic almost to the point of delusion. And in this instance, that optimism was the very best thing she could have.

I hung around with my mom until she got her dinner and I was sure she was settled. We were watching the evening news in her hospital room as Katie Couric described the details of GM’s bankruptcy filing. The government, meaning the tax payers, now own 70% of GM. Mom turned to me, smiling from ear to ear. “Christa, how great a day is this?! I got a new knee and I own General Motors.”

I laughed out loud. “That’s right, Mom. Today was a good day.”

choices, health, social media, technology

My Year of Hopefulness – Mayo Clinic & Social Media

Christa Avampato

Incorporating the world of social media into an existing business can be challenging. And scary. You want to get involved and building community, but where do you start? How do you start? Which tools and materials are the most relevant for a specific business? The number of choices is overwhelming and growing all the time.

If you have a start-up, it’s easier to bake social media plans right into the initial marketing and communications strategy. Established businesses have a tougher time — they’ve made significant investments in brand building and customer loyalty that didn’t involve social media. A few efforts in social media that lack authenticity and the business will be hung out to dry by every power that exists in social media land.

I was tooling around on slideshare recently and found a presentation by Mayo Clinic that described their journey into the uncertain world of social media. With a brand this powerful and with so much debate swirling about patient privacy, Mayo Clinic took a risk by testing social media’s potential to increase their impact and reach. A few of the key points touched upon in the presentation are key for any business interested in a similar pursuit and they’re good reminders for all of us whenever we take on a large project in unfamiliar territory:

1.) Start small. Mayo Clinic could have came into the world of social media guns a-blazin’, hopping on to every social media service available. They didn’t. They first assembled a space on their website that tracked all of the stories about them showing up in traditional media, and gave people a way to respond to those stories through comments on their own site. The branded this site ‘Medical Edge’. Smart – they got a lot of great feedback and leveraged written material that already existed.

2.) Use what’s free and available from others first rather than building your own platform from scratch. Mayo Clinic took advantage of the iTune platform to first create radio mp3s. Then it graduated to podcasts, more and longer podcasts, and then eventually built its own platform at podcasts.mayoclinic.org. Rather than jumping right in and building their own platform, they wanted to see if there was even any interest in this type of material and they experimented with length and topics. Might as well learn on someone else’s platform before you build your own.

3.) Use what works. For some organizations, a blog and a Twitter account are the best vehicles for building community. Others find that Facebook Groups work really well for them. For Mayo Clinic, it’s videos. That shared experience by real people who are a part of the Mayo Clinic global community provided the most bang for the buck. And with a Flip video camera, the interviews became very easy to record, edit, and post – first to YouTube and then to their own sharing platform at sharing.mayoclinic.org.

These small tips added up to big impact for Mayo Clinic, an established brand that found a way to make social media work for them by taking small steps forward. They are flourishing in the world of social media and can be found participating in multiple outlets. They went slowly, and took the time to discover which path suited them best. It’s a wonderful framework to consider. Find it at http://www.slideshare.net/LeeAase/mayo-clinic-best-of-blogwell09

career, economy, faith, fear, health, job, religion

My Year of Hopefulness – Cathedral of Saint John the Divine

Christa Avampato

Yesterday, I found myself leaving the emergency room of St. Luke’s Hospital. I had developed a “subconjunctival hemorrhage” and a slight amount of “petechiae”. This is a fancy way of saying a very small blood vessel popped in my left eye and I had a few tiny red freckles around both of my eyes. I was panicked that I was experiencing the beginning of a very serious medical condition. Turns out that all of my blood work and diagnostic tests came back completely normal. I’ll just look a little weird for a week or so.

I called my mom to update her and let her know that nothing was seriously wrong with me. I wandered down the street, into the children’s sculpture garden of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. As I was explaining to my mom that I was just fine, I found myself tearing up. Maybe they were tears of relief, or fear, or maybe it was frustration with the week I had just finished. Over the past few days I have discovered many more of my friends have lost their jobs. I’m beginning to wonder how I’ve been so fortunate to escape that situation in this economy. I work very hard, though not any harder than my friends who have been let go from their positions. I’m beginning to think that luck has a lot to do with it.

I sat in that sculpture garden for about 20 minutes and had a good cry. The sun had come out, the wind was blowing, and I felt lost. I’m worried about the uncertainty we’re all facing, despite the fact that I have managed uncertainty so many times before. I feel like the ground is shifting beneath our economy, and there is no sign of it settling down any time soon. I was angry for my friends who have been let go from their jobs – hard working, talented people who were seen as a line item on a company’s excel spreadsheet, an expense rather than a resource and an investment. I felt shaken.

I had never really looked at that giant sculpture next to Saint John the Divine. It’s a collaborative piece of work based on Noah’s Ark and the triumph of good over evil. The Cathedral has been closed for some time for renovations and recently re-opened. I was weary from my hospital visit though felt drawn into that incredible cathedral. I wandered in and it was nearly empty. The choir was practicing and I felt drawn to sit in the center of the space, letting that beautiful music wrap around me like a warm hug. Though I am not a religious person, I felt that God was very close to me at that moment, that he knew what I was going through, and wanted to help.

I let my eyes tear up again, I was cemented to that seat, transfixed by the music. After a little while I got up and walked around the edge of the cathedral, stopping to look at each of the small chapels. The light shone through them so brilliantly. I had never seen stained glass that colorful and perfect. By the time the choir stopped, I got to The Poet’s Corner, a small area that pays tributes to literary greats such as Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Gertrude Stein. They each had their names and birth date engraved into a stone, along with a quote they famously wrote.

One quote particularly caught my attention. Theodore Roethke said, “I learn by going where I have to go.” I thought about this quote all the way home. It reminded me that I have places I need to be, where I’ve committed to be, and there are things for me to learn there and to take somewhere else. Today, I just need to do what I have to do. The acts of hope and faith are a daily process. Just keep showing up.

The image above can be found here.

books, business, career, entrepreneurship, Examiner, health, technology

My Year of Hopefulness – The Food Medic

Christa Avampato

Today I am thrilled to publish a recent interview with Gary Novosel, Founder of The Food Medic. The Food Medic is a website that provides information of good nutrition’s ability to combat disease. On the site, Gary provides information on the health properties of specific skills, what foods have great benefit to combat specific diseases, and delicious recipes that are easy to prepare.

All of the interviews I do for Examiner.com really motivate me to work on my own business ideas. Gary’s story is one with real heart, so much so that I even found myself tearing up when he talked about several life-changing experiences that prompted him to start The Food Medic. He’s also written a cookbook to capture many of his insights and delicious recipes, appropriately titled The Food Medic Cookbook.

Gary’s journey is a wonderful lesson in the power of kismet and following your passion! He also has great advice for people who are interested in starting their own businesses. Check out my interview with Gary on Examiner.com by clicking here.

family, garden, health, holiday, mother, nature, New York City

My Year of Hopefulness – Mother’s Day

Christa Avampato

I took Mom to brunch and to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens today for Mothers’ Day. It’s easy for her to hop on a train, I pick her up at Grand Central, and away we go. Though I love my family get-togethers it’s also fun to have my mom all to myself once in a while – something we had precious little of when I was younger.

All day I considered how Mom has shaped my life, how much I’ve learned from her, and how much comfort she’s given me over the years. We drive each other crazy from time to time also, though I think that’s more just the nature of mother-daughter relationships. I wouldn’t swap lives with my mom – she had a tough go of it for many, many years. She came of age in a time when women were starting to be treated with equality, though she endured many unfair circumstances that had nothing to do with her ability and everything to do with her gender. I know she lives vicariously through my accomplishments and I try to live up to that honor every day.

After dropping Mom at Grand Central so she could catch her train home, I hopped onto Facebook to see a note from my friend, Heidi, that she was spending the day celebrating the great lady who now watches over her from above. I reflected back on my day with Mom, thinking about how excited she was to smell the full scent of wisteria and see the azaleas in bloom at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. I’m so grateful for this time we have together – it’s one of the biggest reasons I came back to NYC. After my Mom’s cancer in 2006, I realized with a sad and painful awareness that she wouldn’t be with me forever, that someday I’d have to celebrate Mother’s Day the same way my friend, Heidi, did today.

For now though, Mom’s alive and kicking (or at least she will be kicking once she gets her new knee on June 1st) and time is of the essence. As we went up the escalator from the subway, my mom gave me a hug and thanked me so much for the day.

“You spent a lot of money, today, Christa.”

“That’s fine, Mom. I’m happy to be able to do it. It’s only money.”

And I meant it – it is only money, and I can always make more of it. I won’t always be able to get more time with Mom so we need to savor it while we can. Happy Mother’s Day to all!

courage, death, family, health, loss

My Year of Hopefulness – Bearing defeat without losing heart

Christa Avampato

“The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.” – R. G. Ingersoll

I read this quote last week on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/tamow) and knew I wanted to blog about it though couldn’t decide on how to steer this post. This morning I sadly realized how critical it is for us to have courage. I am beginning to think that it might be the most vital skill we can develop and cultivate.

My mom let me know that my Great Aunt Lorraine passed away this morning. In her mid-80’s, she lived a largely healthy and incredible happy life, one that my grandmother would define as “good, clean living”. Honest, hard working, and loving, my Aunt Lorraine was thoughtful and generous, never forgetting a birthday or anniversary. I will miss her. She went through several bouts of cancer and chemotherapy eventually got the best of her.

She passed away from a from condition called MDS, a chemotherapy-induced form of leukemia. Chemotherapy is a poison, and the hope is that in targeted doses it will kill the cancer before killing the person being treated. Chemotherapy gave my Aunt Lorraine extra years that she would not have had otherwise, though I always find it discouraging to hear that science has failed us in some way. When she was first diagnosed, I was angry with her doctors. No wonder some people refuse treatment all together. Who wants those toxic substances floating around their bodies to cause unspeakable pain and suffering later on?

The art of medicine, and those who seek treatment through it, are engaging in a constantly morphing, emerging field. When someone is lost because science couldn’t save them, there is cause to feel defeated and disappointed by doctors, the very heroes who are supposed to literally save us. The truth is that we can’t give up on medicine, on the process of trial and error, on the development of new processes and treatments. Without taking these risks, advancement isn’t possible. And advancements let my family have my Aunt Lorraine for as long as we did, in relatively good health. She had great courage to continue fighting cancer and she never lost heart. Her doctors pushed forward doing the best they could to give her more time. They had great courage, too.

My Aunt Lorraine’s passing is also a reminder that our time here is short and precious. The times we’re living in are testing us to the nth degree, and many are walking around disillusioned and disappointed, in themselves, in the failings of their government and financial system, in their companies. I understand that feeling, and on occasion I share it.

Many times in our lives, we will have to bear defeat, learn from it, get up, and keep going. With hope of better days, it’s a little easier to keep going. As I’ve said before, hope isn’t a strategy for success. It’s a tool to make the journey easier, and it makes courage more attainable. My Aunt Lorraine had hope that the chemotherapy treatments she endured would help her live longer. And she was right. I am inspired by her ability to look defeat in the eye and hang on to her heart, her family. We must all do the same – the alternative is not an option if we intend to live as well and as long as she did.