As it’s been tradition for us to do since 2021, from now until the end of the year we’ll be sharing our “Best Of” series, starting with our Best Of Pure Joy Wellness Blog Posts 2024!

Below, you’ll find our 10 most popular blog posts from this year – based on your engagement and feedback. As you’ll see, 2024 was a pretty transformative year for our content. We interviewed numerous experts, covered a wide range of topics, and did some serious self-reflection. I hope you enjoy this roundup, and that you learn something new, interesting, and valuable from these 10 posts.

1. Are You Sleep Deprived? An Interview With Dr. Janet Kennedy, NYC's Sleep Doctor — Pure Joy Wellness

With everything we have going on in our lives – jobs, relationships, extracurricular activities, other commitments – it’s easy for many of us to let sleep fall by the wayside. Sometimes sleep feels like the one part of our day where we can steal some time from, when really it should be the last place we look to make cuts. Prolonged periods of poor sleep have pretty devastating health effects – especially when someone enters into a state of sleep deprivation.

In this blog post, I interviewed Janet Kennedy, PhD, otherwise known as the NYC Sleep Doctor, to learn more about sleep deprivation – including how to identify it and how to treat it. Dr. Kennedy is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in treatment of insomnia and other behavioral sleep disturbances.

2. The Health Benefits of Orgasms with Dr. Laurie Mintz

Another expert post, this one from Dr. Laurie Mintz, a distinguished sexuality psychologist and certified sex therapist! Dr. Mintz’s extensive expertise and passion for empowering women sexually shed light on the transformative effects a healthy sex life can have on individuals’ lives. In this blog post, Dr. Mintz explains the many health benefits of orgasms, and makes a case for why they are a vital component of holistic wellbeing.

3. The Guide To Strength Training For Women Over 50

Age is often seen as a barrier to fitness, but for the most part, that’s a made-up and arbitrary aging belief. If there’s one piece of advice I can give you to totally transform your health and the way you feel, it’s this: start strength training. Not only will it help you maintain your vitality and independence as you age, but it will boost your self-esteem and confidence, which we could all use.

In this blog post, I run you through how to assess your fitness level and provide specific workouts with demo videos!

4. The 411 On Ultra Processed Foods

In case you missed it, The New York Times published an article about ultra processed foods earlier this year, shedding light on their prevalence and potential (negative) health impacts. The article explores the work of Carlos Monteiro, a nutritional epidemiologist from Brazil, who identified a rise in obesity rates linked to changes in food consumption patterns. As someone who has always valued nutrition and its role in longevity, I wanted to summarize this article for the Pure Joy Wellness community and give you the gist of what you need to know from these new findings.

5. Your Wellness Check: Annual Health Screenings For Women Over 50

In this preventative health-focused blog post, I shared a list of the most important health screenings and tests for women over 50. Right now, the only way we can truly investigate our symptoms and know if we’re living with a disease is by seeing a doctor and getting tested for it. Once I hit 50, I made it a priority to get these regular health checks each year, to make sure if I did have anything going on, I could catch and treat it early. I recommend you read this post and go into 2025 with a proactive approach!

6. Understanding Cholesterol: What's The Deal?

There’s so much buzz (and misinformation) about cholesterol circulating right now – specifically about high cholesterol and how it can often sneak up on us without any apparent symptoms. While this can certainly be the case for some people, it’s not as black and white of a topic as the media can sometimes make it seem. So, in the interest of keeping the PJW community happy and healthy, I wanted to explain cholesterol a bit and provide a primer for those who aren’t familiar with it. Here’s your 411 on cholesterol.

7. 5 Steps For Better Bone Health

Of all the possible health concerns that can arise as we age, I think loss of bone density is the most pressing. Bone density, also called bone mineral density (BMD), refers to the amount of minerals in a specific volume of bone. In other words, it’s indicative of our bone strength – bones with higher mineral content are denser and stronger, while bones with less mineral content are more fragile and likely to break. If you haven’t taken any measures to protect your bone health thus far in life, let this be a sign that you need to start now! These are my top five steps for better bone health.

8. My 5 Secrets For Aging Well

A few weeks ago, I turned 68! I feel lucky and proud to say that I feel better now than I did 30 years ago – and I want you to feel that good, too. That’s why I dedicated a full blog post to sharing a few of my secrets for aging healthfully. This post includes in-depth answers to the questions I get asked all the time by my clients, friends, and members of the PJW Community about aging.

9. 5 Movements For Strengthening Your Feet with Jenavieve Adams — Pure Joy Wellness

In September, our incredible in-house Pilates instructor and movement expert Jenavieve Adams shared this incredible tutorial on five of the best movements for strengthening your feet! It’s our belief that if people took the time to strengthen and mobilize their feet, just as they do other muscles in the body, they could prevent many injuries and lower their risk of falling. Think about it: if your feet can't help you stabilize and balance, and they're what's connected to the ground, your risk of falling is much higher. This post includes how-to videos from Jenavieve – it’s a can’t miss!

10. 68 Lessons I've Learned in 68 Years

Finally, we have my 68 lessons that I’ve learned in 68 years of life. I wrote this post in the leadup to my 68th birthday, as a way to reflect on how far I’ve come and what I’ve learned. I am so happy to have this community and I hope that you read this list and come away with a few valuable insights. I’ll have more for you next year, that’s a promise!

Thank you for reading this year’s first “Best Of 2024” post – next week, we’re talking recipes. Stay tuned.

Xo,

Renata