While it seems like every month has a cause attached to it, January's awareness theme is rather important to women's health: Cervical Cancer Awareness Month. Cervical cancer prevention is simple, and deserves as much recognition as breast cancer or any other cancer for that matter.

Know the wonderful sense of calm that follows a belly laugh? The ultra-satisfying feeling like you just smiled a thousand smiles and did a hundred crunches? That afterglow is an instant boost that can also have lasting positive effects on your health and well-being. You've probably heard the saying laughter is the best medicine, but scientific research has only recently turned toward documenting the effects of laughter on physical health.

It's a new year. And while that doesn't necessarily mean a brand-spanking-new you, it does mean that an ideal opportunity has arisen to let go of a little bit of the old you in order to make space for something else – hopefully better – in your life. Start by physically stimulating your body to let go of accumulated waste, and watch as that affects your mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. After all, it is all connected.

Everywhere you turn these days, it seems like there is someone who needs your help, from the millions hungry in Africa and those suffering from natural disasters around the world to the homeless and hopeless in America, right in your backyard. The overwhelming number of people who could benefit from your help often creates a sense that nothing you could do matters – but in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Never doubt the power that one person – or even one smile – can have on the world.

There are always lots of expectations when the New Year rolls around; and 2012 may bring even more, you know, with the rumored apocalypse and all. So it's probably advisable to be as healthy as we can this year. For those of us who enjoyed a few too many of Santa's cookies, this New Year may bring extra efforts to slim down and clean out the ol' system before the thaw, but make sure your cleansing is doing more good than harm by avoiding these five most common mistakes.

Just because a food seems healthy doesn’t mean it is. Peer into a bowl of cereal. What might seem like a healthy, good-for-you breakfast may not be what you’re sitting down to eat.

Most of us have experienced something we can't quite explain. Call it synchronicity, déjà vu, or even an honest to goodness extra-sensory phenomenon—we all know That Feeling, that moment when we realize we're not in Kansas anymore and that the meaning of life is little more than a giant freaking mystery, even especially when we're caught up in the daily distractions. Seeking to separate from the surplus of modernity's veiled illusions and experience the power of a wildcrafted Amazonian medicine reportedly capable of great healing and insight led me on a South American journey. The medicine is called Ayahuasca.

Welcome to a new year. Here's to hoping it brings you joy, love and good health. And while I can't help you much with the joy and love, I can give you a few tips on how to kickstart your health and detoxify from all that chocolate and champagne. Here's a basic detox plan for the new year -- how long can you stick with it?

Surely Dickens penned, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" in the dead of winter. Surely winter offers us many benefits (retreat and introspection, fire-roasted chestnuts, snow days) and of course, many detriments as well (darker and shorter days, slipping on ice, frostbite). And no matter whether you love or loathe wintertime, there's no question that it's harder on us than those other three seasons. But, we can have bit of summer, spring and fall during winter's coldest hours in the form of pure essential oils.

Somewhere along our American Journey, we've convinced ourselves that birds make for a healthier meal option than cows or pigs. But nothing could be further from the truth; in fact, eating chicken may hold more dangers than its fellow barn mates. While organically and ethically raised animals are always a better option than not, there's still plenty of reasons chicken is not a health food. Here are eight.