My six-year-old Joey told his grandmother -- my mom -- the other day, "Nana, you are generous." It was thoughtful and touching and it brought a smile to her face. Later that night, Joey said the same to me. "Mom, you are generous," he proclaimed. And now I'm not sure if he really meant his sweet sentiments or if he was just practicing one of his new kindergarten vocabulary words. Regardless, it got me thinking about how generous his Nana really is.

My mom not only generously gave me life. She also saved my life -- not in the medical, scientific manner surgeons and oncologists saved my life but by the sheer force of love, support, comfort, and undying devotion that seems to involuntarily pour from the hearts of moms with sick children.

The experts at Canyon Ranch resort and spa know what they're talking about when it comes to health and happiness. They make a living off their expertise, in fact. But they're not stingy when it comes to sharing their know-how, and on the Canyon Ranch website, they offer us all a chance to better our lives.

I promised in an earlier post to share more of what the Canyon Ranchers have to say -- so here are seven more healthy habits you just might want to embrace.

To Carb or Not to Carb

Canyon Ranch has watched "fad" diets come and go, never falling for their quick, easy-fix mentality and consistently advocating for balance, moderation and basic good nutrition. In recent years, some diets have forsaken whole grains for foods rich in protein and essentially free of carbohydrates. Whole grains, which are carbs, have always been a vital part of good nutrition. And while removing high-carbohydrate foods from your diet may initially help you lose weight faster, over time their absence can negatively influence your health.

Making Time for Time

People take classes to learn time management, they rely on the latest technologies to make the most of it and budget time as carefully as their money. Still, when it comes to health care, you may find yourself in a time crunch. Fortunately, Carl Pratt, managing director of the Canyon Ranch in Lenox, offers a timely solution: The 90-Minute Program. "It really only takes 90 minutes a week to stay focused on maintaining a healthy lifestyle. If you aren't willing to dedicate 90 minutes, you aren't willing to take care of yourself, and you need to accept that fact," says Carl. Carl breaks down the 90 minutes per week as follows:

• 15 minutes of planning for "mindful eating"
• 45 minutes of exercise (15 minutes, three days a week)
• 30 minutes of relaxation (five minutes, six days a week)
  

Commuting Bliss

When you change your mindset and treat commutes as a transition time for relaxation or education by listening to music or books on tape, your daily drive becomes a worthwhile experience. "We all see commutes as inconvenient, and we need to think of them as something valuable. Remember, the ultimate removal of commute time is not what people want. Otherwise, we would go directly from birth to death and skip everything in between. If you can't enjoy the commute -- and indeed, some are more difficult than others -- you are simply losing part of your life," says Robert Rhode, Ph.D., clinical psychologist at Canyon Ranch in Tucson.

Family Bonds Tied to Well-Being

Even painful family connections can be a significant part of personal growth. Learn to feel reverence toward yourself even as you feel pain. This connects you with your humanity and your ability to give and receive love. How to get comfortable with painful memories? Relax your body and allow yourself to feel emotions -- anger, pain, sadness -- while maintaining a positive attitude toward you.

An Attitude of Gratitude

Being thankful each day for the good things in your life and the ability to appreciate what you have rather than what you do not have is an important aspect of emotional health and well-being.

Think Big

One key to spiritual well-being is to get outside yourself with activities such as volunteering or contributing to worthy causes."Get involved with others and become committed to something greater than yourself. You start worrying about the greater good and you feel better about yourself," says Evan Kligman, M.D., at Canyon Ranch in Tucson.

Not a Morning Person? It's OK

Giving yourself a workout boost first thing is great for some, but an early morning workout may not be for everyone. Phil Eichling, M.D., sleep expert at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, encourages people with sleep problems to put off their workout for later. He says to enhance sleep, the best time to exercise is usually late afternoon. And people who have cardiovascular issues or certain other health concerns may also want to ease into the day before they strap on their running shoes or cross trainers.

I have had a hard time keeping my counseling appointments lately. Life keeps getting in the way, and counseling keeps getting pushed to the side. The last time I called my counselor to cancel -- due to an emergency room trip with my three-year-old -- I mentioned that my inability to keep up with sessions was perhaps a precursor to an eventual termination of our counseling relationship. My counselor -- Lindsay -- said this was maybe an accurate assessment, that we should discuss the possibility of an ending point. We haven't yet discussed it, though, because I have not made the time to contact her. I have continued to leave counseling on the back burner.

But today Lindsay sent me an e-mail to check in. She wrote that I am probably going to be okay on my own now -- in the aftermath of cancer -- and that we should have one final session to reflect on my progress over the past 16 months. I have not replied to Lindsay -- not because I am busy with other things but simply because her words made me cry. They still make me cry, hours later. I'm not exactly sure why. And I'm not exactly sure how I will follow up on scheduling my very last session.

I assume my tears -- my sadness -- are part of the healing process, part of the separation anxiety I feel each time a part of my treatment ends and a part of my life moves on. I assume I am sad at the prospect of leaving a vital part of my recovery behind, about leaving the comfort of my counseling chair, about leaving Lindsay. The possibilities are endless. And I suppose we will cover all possibilities when Lindsay and I sit down for our last, final, concluding session -- when we recall how much I have grown since the day we first met, when I could barely mutter a word about cancer without weeping uncontrollably, when I could barely manage to find pleasure in my days, when I could barely imagine that life could -- and would -- offer me peace and happiness.

Today, life is good. And it's clear that counseling is no longer necessary for my survival. But that doesn't make it any easier to make my final appointment. To contemplate saying my last goodbye. To tackle life completely on my own. Which is what I will do -- in time -- so I can continue moving on, away from breast cancer.

It may be possible to learn happiness -- like we might learn to cook or learn to dance -- by merely taking a class. Some refute this idea and believe you can't actually pursue happiness. You either have it or you don't. But some psychologists are embracing a whole new approach to psychology -- they call it positive psychology -- and they say it focuses on training the mind to focus on the past as very positive. It's completely different from traditional psychology where time is spent trying to determine why someone is so horribly sad. This movement, invented by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman in 1998 when he was president of the American Psychological Association, provides a scientific validated set of exercises -- known as interventions -- that lead happiness seekers to their ultimate destination.

The Northwest Arkansas Morning News is featuring a story about Nicole Young, and her new non-profit Message In A Bottle project, that is providing inspiration to cancer patients and their families with hand-written messages delivered in a bottle.

Young, who is now 33, was first diagnosed with ocular melanoma, a rare eye cancer, three years ago while she was seven months pregnant. The diagnosis of cancer was made after she experienced blindness. Last fall, the doctors found tumors in her liver. She is currently undergoing chemotherapy.

Young says she knows all about the emotional and physical pain that cancer patients and their families go through, and she came up with the idea of writing messages of inspiration and delivering them to patients and their families facing cancer as a way to bring happiness and hope. To date, Young has been delivering her messages in a bottle to local cancer patients but she hopes to be able to do this on a worldwide basis.

To read more about Young, who at the age of 8, wrote, published and delivered the Lakeside News to neighbors featuring interviews, gossip and a comedy column, read Cancer Patient Bottles Inspiration. She needs help to make her messages in a bottle dream a worldwide reality.

Cancer go away.

The news is not good today. When someone is diagnosed with cancer, and there seem to be so many of us now, it does not diminish the initial response when you find out someone else has cancer. The news is still a shock to the spirit, a moment where the breath catches and pauses out of rythmn, and the heart drops into another pool of sadness. As a cancer survivor, you know what is to come for the newly diagnosed, not just the physical, but the mental, the emotional and the spiritual effects for the cancer patient and those who love them.

Cancer. I hate this disease.

You have just learned you have cancer, and I am surviving cancer. With all my heart, I want you to survive cancer too. I walk back through my mind, retracing my footsteps from the day of my cancer diagnosis to this, remembering all the things I did that might have tipped the scales in favor of my living and not dying. I cannot say I know the one thing that it might have been, or the combination of things I might have done, so I want to remember it all. I want to share all of it with you. I want you to be able to tip the scales in favor of life and not death too.

Here is how I approached my diagnosis of cancer, these are the perspectives I held and the steps I took during my cancer treatments and healing. Maybe there is something in all of it that matters, that made a difference, that if you know too, will help you in your healing too.

According to the results of a new study, money cannot buy happiness and won't relieve stress. The more money you have the more stressed you are and the less time you spend enjoying yourself. That's what Princeton University economist Alan B. Krueger and psychologist and Daniel Kahneman, who developed a tool to measure the quality of daily life known as the Day Reconstruction Method, or DRM, which creates an enjoyment scale by requiring people to record the previous day's activities and describe their feelings about the experiences, report regarding the link to happiness and affluence.

Those who earned less than $20,000 a year spent far less time in a bad mood, and far more time involved in leisure activity, then those that made over $100,000. And the voice inside my head shouted, wait a minute! Who were the researchers talking to? If you are one of the 45 million working poor who cannot afford health insurance, how stress-free are you? If you get sick, and cannot afford the treatments you know are out there and available, but you don't have the money to pay for the treatments, how stress-free, happy and content can you possibly be? How much of your free time will you spend in leisure activity when all you can think of is not being able to get well, or a loved one suffering needlessly because good medical treatment cannot be financially afforded and their health is deteriorating as a result? Just a few quick questions that came to mind when I read the news of the study.