Holiday Gifts That Happen to Be Healthy

A round-up of HEALTHY HOLIDAY gifts for everyone, including yourself. And yes, a new vibrator is on the list.

This is the transcript of Podcast Episode 159. If you prefer to listen- here’s the link.

One of the seasonal things I’m routinely asked to do for media outlets I work with is to come up with a list of Healthy Holiday Gift ideas. I don’t know about you, but when I go gift shopping, I am usually not thinking about buying something healthy. I am usually thinking about buying something I would like to get. I have a very expensive habit of buying a gift, and then getting one for myself. Anyway, I was asked to come up with gift ideas for my regular segment on the WGN Morning News in Chicago. So, I am going to share that list with you along with a few bonus suggestions that were not “appropriate” for a morning news show.

There were two criteria to make it to this list. One, it had to be something that I already own or would like to own. Second, there had to be a scientifically proven health benefit to using these gifts. Which eliminates the fabulous, to-die-for pair of suede boots I’ve been eying. Although, it’s not a total stretch since happiness is good for health, and I would be very happy if someone got me those boots.

I want to mention that none of these products have paid me, and I get nothing for mentioning them. But I am happy to accept any money or gifts they might want to send me in gratitude.

Mocktail Recipe Book

First on my list is a mocktail recipe book. There has been a growing trend for people to stop drinking or drink less. That’s a good thing. I think most people, whether they act on it or not, are aware that alcohol is not particularly good for humans.

Beyond the empty calories and contributing to chronic insomnia, alcohol is linked to cardiovascular disease, liver disease, and stroke and significantly increases the risk of breast and other cancers.

Interestingly, the “no or low” alcohol approach is mostly trending in the 18–34-year-old crowd. Older adults, if anything, are drinking more. And, if I am going to be honest, over the last couple of years I have fallen into the drinking more group.

Here’s the thing. My husband and I love to cook, and we love to eat out and I realized that having cocktails and wine with dinner had gone from a couple of times a week to almost every night. Aside from the negative impact on my health, it’s hypocritical of me since every day I tell women that they should try and cut down on their alcohol intake. My goal was not to eliminate alcohol from my life, but I knew I needed to drink less.

I was kind of curious about non-alcoholic cocktails. Somehow my browser knew what I was thinking- which is creepy- and ads started popping up from Ritual™, a company that makes alcohol-free spirits. But their marketing algorithm worked since I went out and bought not one, but two bottles - a bottle of Ritual™ scotch and a bottle of Ritual™ vodka.

I got home and poured myself a little fake Scotch on the rocks, and gagged with my first sip. It was vile. So, I dumped it. Ditto the vodka. But then someone told me that those non-alcoholic spirits are not meant to be drunk by themselves- they are to be used with a mixer to make a mocktail. And sure enough, I made myself a spicy Bloody Mary using Ritual vodka, and it wasn’t awful.

On Thanksgiving, instead of drinking two gin and tonics, I had two fake gin and tonics. I then had wine with dinner. Real wine. So, I ended up drinking half what I normally would. And since then, I have dramatically cut down on my alcohol consumption. I’ve been sleeping better and lost around four pounds without making any other changes.

You don’t need to eliminate alcohol from your life, but substituting mocktails for cocktails will cut down on consumption, which is always challenging during the holidays. And, not that it is anyone’s business, but you don’t need to explain why you are not drinking since no one will know. So, gift idea #1 is a mocktail recipe book, with a bottle of non-alcoholic vodka, and maybe throw in some Waterford crystal barware. A beautiful glass makes everything taste better.

Foldable Bike Helmut

62% of all head injuries and fatalities from bike accidents occur because the person riding the bike wasn’t wearing a helmet. In the United States, 80,000 people a year visit an emergency room for cycling-related injuries. Most are head injuries, and most occur in people who are not wearing a helmet. Over 1000 bicyclists die every year.

What kills me is when I see a family out for a bike ride and the kids are wearing helmets, but the parents are not. Not only is this sending a terrible message – “helmets are just for kids” but think how traumatic it will be for those kids if their parents have an accident. They will never be able to unsee their dad’s brains splattered all over the street.

Contrary to what you may think, the highest risk group for head injuries are not crazy messengers careening down the street. They wear a helmet. The highest risk group is folks between the ages of 55-69.

I came up with three reasons people don’t wear helmets.

• It looks nerdy. I get that. But face it, how many 60-year-olds on a bike look sophisticated and stylish? So, get over it.

• A lot of people say that their helmet is uncomfortable. Think of your helmet like you think of a bra. If your bra was uncomfortable, would you get one that fits and adjust the straps so they weren’t digging into your shoulders, or just go braless?

• Once you get off the bike, nobody wants to carry a big old helmet. And that’s where a foldable helmet comes in

When you live in a big city, jumping on a bike is almost always faster than driving and you never have to worry about parking. So I ride my bike all the time. But I have spent enough time hanging around emergency rooms that I would be terrified to ride without a helmet. This is why I use this incredibly cool foldable bike helmet made by a company named Overade™.

My Overade™ helmet folds to the size of a cantaloupe and is easy to toss in my purse or backpack. I have been using my foldable helmet for years- and aside from the obvious benefit of protecting my brain, I tend to ride more often, including jumping on a city bike instead of calling an Uber when I’m tired of walking.

A foldable helmet is the perfect gift for anyone who rides a bike. But it is a particularly nice gift for the single cyclist who would like to meet other single cyclists. Whenever I get off my bike and fold up my helmet, someone inevitably stops me and asks me where I got it. As my friend Bela Gandi, the dating coach says, it’s always a good idea to have a prop that makes it easy for someone to start a conversation.

Silk Sleep Mask

Up to 60% of post-menopause women have insomnia. Between hot flashes, aches and pains, jumping up to pee all night, sleep apnea, and the snorer in the bed next to you, it’s amazing that that number is not closer to 100%. Sleep is important for everyone, but it is particularly important for mid-life women.

A study was recently published that midlife women who persistently get less than 5 hours of sleep have up to a 75% increased risk of cardiovascular disease, even when there was an adjustment for other risk factors.

So, yes, it’s important to fix the flashes, and your overactive bladder and tell the snorer to please get a sleep study, but it’s just as important to keep the room cool, eliminate noise, and block out ambient light. And that’s where a sleep mask comes in,

It looks ridiculous, but I don’t care. The only one who sees me is my husband and he is part of the reason I need a sleep mask since he is the one that insists on watching Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue every night before he goes to sleep. He wears ear pods, but there is still that eerie glow from his iPad. Even when he is not there, I sleep much better with my eye mask.

Scientific studies have shown that any ambient light can sabotage the ability to get good REM sleep. Sleep masks are an inexpensive way to block out those slivers of light coming through the window, along with the glow of whatever electronic devices are spying on you in your bedroom.

And then there’s your phone. I admit, my phone sleeps right next to me. How else can I play Words with Friends at 3 AM? But your sleep mask will at least keep you from being tempted to check out incoming texts, which in most cases are just from strangers asking you to rate a recent purchase or experience. I recently got a text from Home Depot to rate the extra-large bottle of laundry soap I had bought that day.

It’s not just about sleeping through the night and feeling more rested. In a 2023 NIH study, wearing an eye mask overnight improved memory and alertness the next day. We can all use some of that.

While sleep masks that say things like Go Away, or the creepy ones with wide open eyes make fun gifts, what’s really nice are silk sleep masks. You have probably been inundated with ads from Bliss™. I know I have.

Bliss™ advertises that silk sleep masks will “depuff your face, plump your skin and decrease wrinkles”.

Wow! Wear a Bliss™ mask and no need for Botox or a facelift. Except none of that is true. Just to be sure, I asked my go-to dermatologist, Dr. Ellen Gendler, who confirmed that even the most expensive silk eye mask will not give you a more youthful wrinkle-free face. So, don’t believe anything the Bliss™ people say on their website. But silk eye masks do feel nice. I got mine on sale at Saks Off Fifth for about $15.

Walking Pad

If you are willing to spring for a more expensive gift, I recommend a walking pad. Years ago, I developed upper back and neck pain from a combination of bending over an operating table all day and then hunching over my desk for hours every evening writing my first book, The Essential Guide to Hysterectomy. When I got a nice advance for my second book, Sex Rx, I used some of that money to invest in a treadmill desk. Life changing. In my acknowledgments, after thanking my editor and family for their support, I thanked my treadmill desk.

About two years after Sex Rx was published, my treadmill desk broke. Not surprising since I had walked roughly 1000 miles over 4 years. I called the company, and despite their best efforts to troubleshoot over the phone, they couldn’t get it going again. So, they said they were going to run it by a manager and get back to me.

An hour later I got a call from the owner, and he said, “Are you the Lauren Streicher that wrote Sex Rx?” I said, “Yup, that’s me”. He then said, - “That book saved my marriage. I am sending you a new treadmill desk”. I was stunned- not just that he was going to send me a new desk, but that my book made that kind of a difference in someone’s life.

Unlike a patient in the office that I regularly see and know what happens, books are different. You write this stuff, you put it out there, and have no idea if someone reads what you wrote and if it had an impact. So, always let writers know that their work made a difference. It makes us feel really good. Anyway, I eventually burned through that desk too.

My most recent purchase is a foldable walking pad that lives under my standing desk. When I am not using it, it easily folds in half and fits under my desk, so my husband doesn’t trip over it. Which he really appreciates.

And by the way, you don’t need to get in 10,000 steps a day. That is a total myth made up as a marketing gimmick by a pedometer company. The magic number for cardiovascular benefit is in the neighborhood of 7000 steps. Anything over 7000 will burn more calories and may help you tone up, but as far as cardiovascular health, there are no additional benefits. 7000 steps is roughly 3.5 miles and if you are walking 2 miles/hour on a walking pad, that’s less than 2 hours a day. One movie.

Resistance Bands

A few months ago, I did a podcast episode with Dr. Vonda Wright, an orthopedic surgeon who coined the term musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause. In case you missed it, according to Dr. Wright:

More than 70% of post-menopause women will experience musculoskeletal symptoms and 25% will be disabled by them.

Symptoms like joint pain, loss of muscle mass, loss of bone density, frozen shoulder, and progression of osteoarthritis. All of this increases the risk of osteoporosis, fracture, and frailty down the road

Aside from the long-recognized benefits of resistance training when it comes to cardiovascular health, resistance training is particularly important for menopausal women. Core strength, muscle size, endurance, stability- if you are going to do some form of exercise to decrease the chance that you will become frail as you age and end up in a nursing home, resistance training is the way to go

Dr. Wright specifically advises that resistance training with heavier weights in lower repetition sets tends to increase muscular power more effectively than training with lighter weights in higher repetition sets.

Here’s the thing. How many people have room for a full set of free weights at home or belong to a gym that they can get to regularly? A set of resistance bands are easy to store, pack, and even keep at your desk. Multiple studies show that strength training with resistance bands can be just as effective as free weights.

I asked Dr. Wright if she agreed and if you could reproduce the same resistance you get with free weights with resistance bands. Her response:

“Lots of athletes use bands, including Tom Brady in his T2 method. That being said, I think most of us cannot build enough muscle with bands alone, but when traveling, you can get a good workout with them.”

So definitely a good gift for travelers, or folks who have no access to free weights. I keep one band in my suitcase, a band by my TV, and a band by my treadmill desk to use when I am tired of walking.

Now the edgier, sexier gifts- that did not make it to the morning news.

Elixer Play Amethyst Vibrator

One always-appreciated gift is a new vibrator. Maybe not for your boss. But women generally don’t want to shop for a vibrator and are grateful when one just appears.

Over 50% of menopausal women have difficulty having an orgasm due to changes in clitoral nerve endings.

A vibrator isn’t just to make orgasms more pleasurable, it’s to make having an orgasm possible.

When that happens, a vibrator isn’t a toy, it’s a tool to facilitate the ability to orgasm. You can buy a cheap vibrator at the corner store, but this is a gift, so I would think you would want to give something a little more special like the Elixir Play Amethyst. Not only is it a lovely product, but Elixir Play is a small woman-owned company. And I think supporting women-owned companies that make nice products is important.

Crave Vibrator Necklace

Who doesn’t love a bauble? The Vesper is a very cool necklace that doubles as a vibrator on the go. Crave, the company that makes the Vesper owes me a major thank you since not only do I frequently buy this as a gift for many of my friends, but I have promoted it on media outlets for years. Never got as much as a thank you or a gift card from them. Hello- it’s not too late.

Lube Warmer

Another very thoughtful and useful gift is a lube warmer. Think about it.

Cold lubricant on the vulva is not only unpleasant but is a vasoconstrictor. Decreasing blood flow to the vaginal walls is not going to help a vagina that’s already on the dry side. Heat is a vasodilator which facilitates arousal and lubrication.

A penis also prefers warm things. It’s the rare guy that can maintain an erection when his penis is buried in snow. I don’t know if that’s ever really been studied. I’m just guessing. But my point is, warm lube makes the experience nicer for everyone.

Just to be clear, I am not talking about lubricants that chemically heat things. I am talking about warming your lubricant. Check out lotion or massage oil warmers on Amazon as an inexpensive way to always have nice warm silicone lubricant ready to go.

And finally, consider buying a gift subscription to a Substack.

Menopause: The Inside Info is currently free, but a subscription option is coming in a few weeks. Paid subscribers will get additional posts, can attend an Inside Information Monthly Ask Me Anything Zoom, and much more!