Essential emotional nutrients!

The World Health Organization should add two elements to our minimum emotional/nutritional daily requirements (MDR's):

Vitamins N (urture) and A (ffection).

Affection and nurturing help our bodies produce endorphins.

Those are peptides that help us feel better, recover more completely and faster from whatever might be ailing us (physical and emotional) and give us a sense of well-being.

Making certain we have ample doses of both daily assists us feel good about ourselves, creating a much more positive attitude, helping us feel more open to accept other solutions, which adds up to being capable of taking on whatever life hands us.

In addition to tons o' hugs from people I see daily - including clients; I get puppy and kitty snuggles and kisses galore (the latter a little sand-paperish); scalp massages, air waves, manicures and pedicures from my favorite students at the nearby Gene Juarez Academy of Cosmetology; facials and skin work from my friend Kelli; massages; and frequent social visits to Kelli and her four month old baby Brock - who is very much a kissyface boy.

I love great conversation with friends and people I know who are exceptionally smart, accomplished or insightful.

I'm lucky because I work out of my home studio, so my pets are around me all the time. The folks I coach tend to fall in love with them as well. When little Oscar passed away recently, friends and those I coach who created a separate relationship with him over the months and years came to say good-bye.

I also like to be affectionate with people by sharing hugs, making appropriate physical contact or showing my fondness in other ways - like telling people for whom I care that I care about them or love them or that they are important to me.

I like to express appreciation to friends and others who do things for me; I like to write messages of thanks and make other small gestures that essentially say thanks for being you.

I tell my pets, "You know why I love you? Just because you're you." Come to think of it, I tell the kids I know and work with the same thing. Oh, yeah - and the adults.

I take classes to nurture my craft and mind: writing, poetry, drawing. I read, watch documentaries, research, investigate, attend presentations, surf the net and whatever else strikes my fancy to learn. I'm taking my first online class about Writing Romantic Screenplays next month.

I meditate, read spiritual works, write all sorts of things for myself and others, play piano, sing, play guitar and entertain anyone who will watch/listen, view and create art, attend concerts and listen to every type of music to nurture my soul.

Come to think of it, perhaps the most nurturing thing we can do for ourselves is laugh. Laughter kicks in torrents of endorphins more quickly than any other means of feeling good. Fortunately, I spend a lot of my day laughing with the folks I coach, the pets are a great source of laughter and I prescribe TV shows for myself like The Office, 30 Rock, Scrubs, Desperate Housewives and Looney Tunes cartoons, as well as listen to Stephanie Miller for a hearty ha-ha.

I love to walk, hike, now bike, work out at the gym, and have started to actually work in my yard to nurture myself and my environment physically. Before this year, God was my gardener. Now .. I'm learning how to care for and enhance the beauty of the rather wild wooded area in which I live. That's also a spiritual experience, come to think of it.

Yep, vitamins Affection and Nurture=endorphin production, and part of my MDR's.