In This issue:

• Forgiveness: Crucial to your health and happiness!
• Time to Think about Vaccinations
• Health Tip of the Week: Drink More Water!

Nearly everyone has been hurt by the actions or words of another. Perhaps your mother criticized your parenting skills or your partner had an affair. These wounds can leave you with lasting feelings of anger, bitterness and even vengeance - but if you don't practice forgiveness, you may be the one who pays most dearly. By embracing forgiveness, you embrace peace, hope, gratitude and joy.

I come from a long line of marathon grudge-bearers. My great grandmother was still angry at her mother and her sister when she died at 91 - for what, I couldn't tell you. She wasn't the only one. The rest of my family also carries the same gene for holding grievances.

This never-ending anguish of others' past actions made me a bit paranoid as a child. Regardless of the offense, the awful energy that surrounded those grudges always felt the same - a pit in my stomach and a fear that someone, sometime was going to do something to me.

Most importantly, however, was the passed-on knowledge that its quite alright for me to silently stew over another's misdeed - the longer, the better.

Only when I began to realize the negative impact my thoughts had on my body did I realize the truth. I could continue to stay angry, accumulating devastating effects to my body, or I could forgive and, quite simply, feel better.

As you can imagine, forgiveness is not always that easy. Maybe you've tried to forgive others and maybe even yourself but haven't been as successful as you'd hoped. In our Community Health Series, we're going to look at forgiveness in a whole new light. We'll discuss different meanings of forgiveness and you'll learn ways that you can begin this difficult, but oh-so-important aspect of your healthy life.

Our Community Health Series is held at the Bright Side clinic every other Wednesday at 7pm. Call or email us for more information at thebrightsidehealth@gmail.com or 828-280-4559.

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During the first week of February, 2010, there was an outbreak of mumps among more that 1000 people in New York and New Jersey. An outbreak like this is, in and of itself, not that unusual. What is unusual is that the health authorities admitted that "most of the people infected with mumps had already been vaccinated against mumps."

In Ocean County, New Jersey, county spokeswoman Leslie Terjesen told CNN that "77% of those who caught mumps had already been vaccinated against mumps."

So, this mumps outbreak spread among people who were vaccinated against mumps. What is wrong with this picture?

The vaccine industry wants the public to believe that vaccines are effective at preventing infection. But now, intelligent observers are increasingly seeing the truth about these vaccines.

Here are some things to think about:

• It is now clear that even if you're vaccinated against a disease, you may still catch that disease anyway! So, what's the point of the vaccine?
• Infectious disease vaccines simply don't work. If they did, then why did all these children, who were already vaccinated, still get mumps?
• Vaccines may actually increase your risk of disease. It is interesting that far more vaccinated children were stricken with mumps than non-vaccinated children.

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Health Tip: Drink Enough Water

One of the first questions we ask our patients is "How much water do you drink every day?" While everyone knows they should drink enough water, they don't realize why.

The body needs water to function. Many parts of the body contain water, including the brain, blood and lean muscle. Water in the body serves to:

• regulate body temperature
• remove wastes (through urine and stool)
• carry nutrients (food) and oxygen to cells
• cushion joints and
• dissolve nutrients to make them available to the body

When the body doesn't receive enough water, it lets you know. Headaches, dry, cracked lips, thirst and fatigue are early symptoms that you're dehydrated.

A quick way to check that you are getting enough water is to look at the color of your urine. The urine should be pale yellow. If your urine is dark yellow and has a strong odor or if you go to the bathroom less than 4 times a day, you probably need to drink more fluids.

So how much water should you drink? A good rule of thumb is to drink half your weight in ounces. You'll also need to drink more if your beverages include alcohol or caffeine, which act as a diuretic.

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