October is breast cancer awareness month.
Breast cancer affects one in nine New Zealand women over their lifetime. On average, 9 NZ women a day are told they have breast cancer. Men can also get breast cancer.
We’ve made up 2 limited edition gift sets and donations from them, and every pouch of SO:Uplifting sold during October will be sent to the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ.**
What do the BCFNZ do, and why do they need our support?
They fund the latest technologies and equipment for New Zealand’s hospitals, ensuring Kiwis have access to new treatments as early as possible. And they fund the training for the health staff to use the equipment. They support clinical trials, and lobby for wider access to trials of new drugs. They fund world-class Kiwi researchers to develop new treatments, including a vaccine that could prevent cancers spreading beyond the breast.
They actively support patients recovering from treatment and those living long term with breast cancer, to improve their quality of life and extend survival.
BCFNZ also provides education and awareness about the importance of early detection with a goal to reduce the number of women dying of breast cancer. The Foundation has produced a range of targeted materials approved by its Medical Advisory Committee. These are available free of charge, but the foundation obviously needs money to produce these resources.
Here’s a handy acronym from one of their resources that they ask us all to share with the women in our lives (though men can get breast cancer too):
BRAS
Which stands for:
B – Be breast aware. From 20, know how your breasts normally feel. Understand your family history. If your mum or a close relative had breast or ovarian cancer, talk to your doctor.
R – Reduce your risk. Make healthy lifestyle choices*, have alcohol free days, exercise regularly and maintain a healthy body weight.
A – Act promptly. Show your doctor any unusual breast changes straight away.
S – Screening mammograms. BCFNZ recommends regular screening mammograms every year from 40 to find cancer early, before a lump can be felt. Ageing increases your risk.
Here’s the link to their breast awareness information for all ages.
* One of our takes on a healthy lifestyle is to manage stress and try to maintain a calm nervous system. There are different ways to do this that might suit your lifestyle. Some of our favourites are:
Taking a short time each day (sometimes as little as 5 minutes, or 0.006% of your day) to meditate. This could be time spent focusing on deep breathing, or listen to a free meditation track on your phone.
Writing in your gratitude journal often, daily if you can. This has been shown to have beneficial effects on your physical health.
Getting outside early in the day. If this is for only a 5 minute walk, so be it, you’ve still done something beneficial for yourself.
Using your magnesium oil spray every evening as part of your bedtime routine. Magnesium has so many benefits, including calming the nervous system.
If you did each of these, that’s still under 15 minutes out of your day!
** We are donating:
For every SO:Uplifting pouch sold - $1.25
For every single pouch gift set sold - $5
For every double pouch gift set sold - $7.50
PLUS - The Breast Cancer Foundation NZ is our Charity of the Month for October so will receive 2% of all sales for the month.
So thank you ever so much for your support.
If you can't support us with a purchase, you can still help the cause by:
Best wishes
Dionne x
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