Quitting smoking is very hard to do. If you succeed the short and long term rewards include improved lung capacity, circulation, greater sense of smell and taste, reduced risk of coronary artery disease, stroke and lung cancer.

BlueCross BlueShield of Central New York and the New York State Smokers Quitline offer seven steps smokers can take in their quest to quit.

Visualize success. Studies of successful quitters show that one of the most important ways to succeed is to believe that they can quit smoking.

Make a plan. Create a daily plan to follow that includes:

• Times when you want to smoke most and things you can do instead of smoking when you have a craving.
• Names of friends and family you can call for support.
• A reward for yourself when you have achieved your goal of being smoke free.

There's this guy. His name is Matthew Zachary. He's a cancer survivor, a motivational speaker, a concert pianist, and the founder of a resource portal for young adults surviving cancer.

Steps for Living, Inc. -- also known as I'm too young for this -- was created by Zachary because he wants us all to know there are awesome cancer support services out there for adolescents and young adults. He means really awesome opportunities -- like spa retreats, online forums and blogs, social networking, camping excursions, fertility education, peer counseling, financial scholarships, and more.

You may be too young for cancer, but you are not alone, says Zachary whose mantra is Get Busy Living. And this is exactly what he is doing, despite challenges and setbacks in his own cancer recovery.

Think about this, an e-mail written by Zachary for those near and dear to his heart:

I am writing to share that I have suddenly gone deaf in my left ear. The condition is called Sudden Sensory Neural Hearing Loss.

After consulting with the country's best hearing experts as well as my oncologist, it has been determined that this is unequivocally a latent, long-term side effect of my post-operative cancer treatments from eleven years ago. Evidently, the excessive radiation dosages to the left hemisphere of my brain have caused irreparable neurological damage to my cochlea, which has ceased functioning.

There may be options (cochlear implants) but I will not know more for several weeks. As you can imagine, this is a devastating blow to my personal life and music career, especially since I remember fighting so hard to regain dexterity and muscle control in my left hand when it ceased functioning prior to my initial diagnosis in 1995.

That said, it has only reinvigorated me to stay the course and continue to advocate on behalf of the more than 500,000 young adults living with, through and beyond cancer each and every year. Now more than ever, I stress the importance of recognizing that remission is not a cure and that public awareness and adequate funding for adolescent and young adult cancer survivorship programming is tantamount to that of cancer research.

This is what it means to be a cancer survivor.

To read more about Zachary's powerful journey, click here for an unbelievably moving essay -- titled The Cost Of Living: No Cure For Cancer -- written by this unbelievably grounded guy.

Blogger Kristina Collins wrote on February 11 about three great steps for reducing the risk of cancer. Her suggestions -- eat well, get fit, and stop smoking -- are such good tips and could certainly account for major health changes in those who heed this advice.

Each one of these recommended lifestyle alterations is a major undertaking. And if you're like me and find big, swift, sweeping changes a sure recipe for defeat, then this short to-do list may seem a bit intimidating. So I'd like to offer a bit of my own advice for accomplishing these health feats -- take baby steps.

Kristina has taken baby steps. She first quit smoking -- I'm not sure there's anything small about this success, however -- and now she's taking on membership at a gym. Cutting down on red wine comes next, she says, as she pursues a life driven by health.

I have just recently taken a baby step myself. I stopped drinking soda -- or pop as I called it before relocating from Ohio to Florida. I'd known for some time I wanted to rid myself of the sugar that comes packaged in my favorite drinks -- Dr. Pepper and root beer -- but for some reason, I was dragging my feet when it came to giving up this vice. Yet I did it. I stopped drinking soda, replaced it with water, and now have no desire for sugary drinks of any kind.

I am a creature of habit. I know this because I spent years drinking only water. But when cancer struck, I turned to the carbonation of soft drinks to settle my upset stomach. With time, my stomach stopped bothering me. But I didn't stop drinking soda. I kept drinking it for no other reason than pure habit. And when I convinced myself this practice was not necessary in my life, I cut it out.

Perhaps I'll tackle chocolate next. Or exercising more. Who knows. I'm just happy I accomplished one small task. And I hope you'll consider taking baby steps in your pursuits for better health. Just remember, we didn't hop up one day and start sprinting in infancy. It took years to fine-tune our ability to run on our own. And it may take years to carve out a healthful way of living.

I love it when seven of something lands before me, offering me potential material for the Sunday Seven series. In fact, it just happened. And I can't wait to start writing about the Seven Levels of Healing common to cancer patients and those who love them.

I have a new book. It's called The Journey Through Cancer: Healing and Transforming the Whole Person by Jeremy Geffen, MD.

Dr. Geffen knows cancer. He lost his father just three months after a stomach cancer diagnosis. He became an oncologist. He founded a cancer research center. He travels and speaks and writes about health and wellness. And inside the pages of his newly revised and updated paperback, he details the Seven Levels of Healing -- a blend of conventional and complementary principles-- and the true stories of cancer patients who have directly experienced them.

It occurred to me while first flipping through this book that I might read it in its entirety and then write a review of the material. Then I determined it would take much too long for this approach. With two small children, a few jobs, an exercise routine I must revisit, and all the other bits and pieces of life that keep me occupied, this would be quite an undertaking -- the actual reading, the remembering, the writing. Somehow, this would be too much to manage. But small steps. I think I can handle small steps. So this is how it's going to work.

I will present to you in this post the Seven Levels of Healing. I don't know much about them yet -- although by title alone, I am sure I have lived most of them in my own cancer journey. So I will simply lay the groundwork. And then I will start reading. And as I read, I will write. This will be my own one-woman book club -- with an open invitation for new members. Read my posts and reflect on them. Agree. Disagree. Leave comments. Buy your own book. Read with me. Apply what you learn to your own life. Share what you learn with others. The possibilities are endless as I journey my way through this new book in search of peace, clarity, and comfort -- all of which flow from these seven levels.

Level One: Education & Information
Level Two: Connection with Others
Level Three: The Body as Garden
Level Four: Emotional Healing
Level Five: The Nature of Mind
Level Six: Life Assessment
Level Seven: The Nature of Spirit

And so that's what I have to offer for now. I'm sorry to keep you hanging. But rest assured, I am hanging right along with you, eager to find a moment to dive into this book. To sink my teeth into the words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters. To relay it all to you. I can't wait -- to really understand the Seven Levels of Healing.

Stay tuned for:
The Journey Through Cancer: Introduction

I really do believe deep down in my gut that I will survive breast cancer -- that I will witness the wonder of my children growing up, that I will be married long enough that the years blur together, that I will live to a ripe old age. But I still have moments of doubt -- moments powerful enough to make me think I should not have a third child, just in case cancer comes back. To combat these moments -- that seem to surface more now that my treatment has stopped -- I try to keep busy, keep my mind occupied, keep living. My steps for surviving in the short-term include writing, journaling, exercising, relaxing, and spending time with family. But I also follow some steps for long-term survival -- steps that transcend the moment and give me purpose and direction. And here are seven of them.

I have had many moments in my life where anxiety and panic have filled my mind. But this is normal and necessary really as life delivers all kinds of situations that produce all sorts of emotions.

I can recall vividly anxious feelings before a school exam but this is what motivated me to study and prepare and to pass the exam with flying colors. This anxiety gave me a push, a kick in the pants -- in a good, healthy way.

Without a bit of panic, I may not have cared. I may have been aloof to the importance of doing well in school. But while life has presented me with a good amount of this healthy emotion, it has also tossed an abundance of unhealthy anxiety and panic my way -- the kind that has consumed my mind and twisted my insides. The kind that made peaceful living seem impossible.

Susun Weed is an international authority on herbal medicine and natural approaches to women's health. Weed teaches herbal medicine, ethnobotany, pharmacognosy, psychology of healing, eco-herbalism, nutrition, and issues of women's health to medical schools, hospital wellness centers, breast cancer centers, midwifery schools, naturopathic colleges, and shamanic training centers, as well as speaking at many conferences. She is the author of four books, Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year; Healing Wise; New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way; and Breast Cancer? Breast Health! The Wise Woman Way.

Some chapters of Breast Cancer? Breast Health! The Wise Woman Way are published online. At Weed's site, she has a series of articles published, including Eight Steps for a Woman Dancing with Cancer. Here are a few of the steps she recommends for women facing breast cancer.

• Submit. Give up. Make room for the miracle.
• Inform yourself. Listen to your intuition. Examine all the options, but only use what feels right to you.
• Accept support. Surround yourself with loving friends, healing music, special colors, prayer and affirmation.
• Maximize the healthy qualities of your diet.
• Increase you exercise level. Take a yoga or tai chi class weekly. Walk daily. Get a weekly massage. Pamper yourself with activity.
  

To read more about the steps, and other articles, you can visit Susun Weed's comprehensive site of herbal information and psychology of healing for women's health.

Winners lose, - heroes cry
Wise men listen, - let sleeping dogs lie
The same is easy, - it's hard to change
Although the parts are there, - just rearranged

When things get old and lose there salt
And it's time to go,
ain't no one's fault
It's hard to let go,
harder to remain. -- Romancing the moon lyrics

Michael Troy, guitarist, singer and songwriter, is a two-time Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma cancer survivor whose music reflects the lives of New England's hard-working common folk. In 1998, he was diagnosed with cancer, and then again with a recurrence seven years later. After chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant by stem cell replacement, he is again cancer-free.

According to those who have met him, or have listened him perform live, Troy is a magical storyteller with a gift for melody, a deep rich voice, excellent finger-pickin' skills and the ability to compose outstanding stanzas of substance. I discovered Troy while visiting Art of Survivorship, a place to discover phenomenally talented artists and musicians -- who also happen to be cancer survivors. My father, who was a musician and world traveler, once told me that music is a universal language that allowed him to be anywhere in the world and find a common connection with the people there through music. Music does seem to speak to a deeper part of who we are, and allows us to join others who are on healing paths.

Steps For Living and Art of Survivorship Matthew Zachary and Adam Dachman will be guests on Dr. Bernie Siegel's radio program, Mind Health Medicine, hosted by Positive Radio Network, on May 2 at 9am PST. Zachary, a long-term brain cancer survivor, and founder of Steps For Living and Art of Survivorship, and Dr. Adam Dachman, surgeon, accomplished pianist, composer and singer/songwriter both work to raise awareness for the special issues facing cancer survivors and bring resources to the cancer survivorship community with art and music. Art of Survivorship supports and features artists and musicians who are cancer survivors. If you are unable to listen to the show when it airs, you will be able to  find it listed in the Mind Health Medicine radio program archives.