There’s something timeless about love, romance, and courtship. Countless books, plays, movies, songs, and everything in between have been based upon romance – and it truly is a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, there are those who would prey on a person’s desire for love to gain financially. We’re talking about romance scams, which tend to affect senior citizens more than younger generations. Let’s take a closer look at this unfortunate phenomenon, and learn tools to discern when a new lover is too good to be true…

Becoming a primary caretaker for a loved one is not unlike becoming a parent for the first time. It’s a journey full of compassion, love, stress, anxiety, humbling moments, and incredibly rewarding moments. To care for another human is the greatest act of love, but it also requires a lot of energy, time, and work. In that light, it can be easy to lose track of your own health and wellbeing as a caretaker…which can have negative impacts on yourself as well as your loved one. Let’s take a look at ten different ways caretakers can take care of themselves, too!

Unless you’ve been on a cultural hiatus for the past year or two, you must have come across a blog or conversation about mindfulness, a meditation practice that is a remedy for our post millennial pace. This practice is offered as an antidote to all that hustle and thrum of non-stop images, messages, and reminders of incompleted tasks, money worries, economy woes, the daily overload of noise spilling over even into our fitful sleep. If this describes the life you are living too, you are in good company. In August of 2014, 72% of Americans reported feeling stressed about money at least some of the time as reported in the American Psychological Association’s “Stress in America” survey. And 80% report feeling stress on the job according to Stress.org. Nearly half of workers surveyed say they need help to manage stress themselves, while 42% say it’s their co-workers who need help managing stress. Hmm…so if it’s not you, it’s your coworker who’s wrapped too tight!

It may be time for more of us to step into the calming waters of mindfulness as a lifestyle, especially medical patients, people in any type of treatment protocol, or those who are caregivers for someone who is. Mindfulness, though it may present a huge behavioral leap, brings a most helpful basket of healing rewards to even the casual participant.