There’s no better time to renew your mind, body and spirt with a relaxing and rejuvenating spa treatment. Here’s a selection of spas that offer some restorative treatments to start your year off right: Forget your troubles and take a float in a sensory flotation tank at Floatopia in Dix Hills. Filled with 10 inches of water, the tank contains about 1,200 pounds of medical grade Epsom salt, which creates buoyancy, says owner James Michaels. “The water is also heated to the temperature of your...

As part of its efforts during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Adelphi NY Statewide Breast Cancer Hotline & Support Program is seeking about two dozen more volunteers to field calls. “We need people to help people who need help, basically,” said Nina Foley, hotline and volunteer coordinator for the program, which started in 1980 and averages about 30 calls a month. The breast cancer hotline is the oldest in the country, said Foley, and serves the whole state. “If someone calls our hotline...

Members of The Lighthouse Men participate in a “Spear Conflict Clearing” at their meeting in Centerport on Sept. 5, 2022. Front row, from left, John Hammer and Glenn Davidson. Back row, from left, F. Towne Allen, Bob Woody Wilson, Doug DiMatteo and Jeff Hindla. Credit: Linda Rosier As both his marriage and business were failing, John Hammer felt like his life had turned upside down. An architect who lives in Northport, Hammer, 71, said he felt betrayed, abandoned, hurt and out of control...

Hilary Topper, 60, displays the “Best Endurance” trophy she won last August when she came in last in a four-hour, 6-mile swim from Fire Island to Bay Shore. Credit: Morgan Campbell Hilary Topper grew up next to the ocean, but she didn’t swim in it. It wasn’t until age 48, after years of physical inertia and emotional upheaval, she immersed herself in fitness and, since 2014, has swum in waters from New York to St. Croix. She is still striving to improve her performance, but her goals now include...

Isabella Edelbach, 8, left, Danielle Miglino, 9, and Hayden Dejak, 8, of Girl Scout Brownie Troop #2399 meet English bulldog Davidson and earn their "pet badges" at a group session with Dogability dogs at Presbyterian Church of Sweet Hollow in Melville on Friday, May 20, 2022. Credit: Morgan Campbell At the start of her sixth Fear of Dogs session, a girl bounded into the DogAbility classroom, eager to pet Willie, a 7-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel. “I see Willie every session...

That’s what it has propelled a Merrick woman to become the top fundraiser for GMHC’s AIDS Walk New York for the past three years and the second-highest fundraiser in the organization’s history. In her 34 years of participating in AIDS Walk New York, the world’s largest single-day HIV and AIDS fundraiser, Francine Goldstein has raised $827,000. Only Rita Fischer, who raised more than $1 million and died last year, has bested her. “I always told her, ‘Rita, you’re an inspiration to me,’ ” said Goldstein...

Mindy Alpert is not one for the spotlight. As assistant coach for the girls varsity tennis team at John L. Miller Great Neck North High School, her place is on the sidelines of the court. For one day, however, Alpert is happy to have attention focused on her at the Play It Forward for Multiple Sclerosis Tennis Tournament, a fundraiser to benefit research and raise awareness scheduled for Nov. 6 at the high school; at press time, the effort had raised about $2,000. A former high school and...

David Silverman has had a lifelong dream: to ride across the country by bicycle. When he took an early retirement in September 2020 from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he worked as a partner for 31 years running the emerging technology division, Silverman decided to ride that dream to reality. Silverman’s love for cycling developed in earnest as a young teen when he would frequently pedal from his home in Oceanside to Long Beach, where he liked to ride near the beach, relishing the freedom...

Gratitude seems to come naturally to Ken Abbott: He’s thankful for the medical team that got him through his heart transplant and for the donor who gave him a second chance at life. Abbott, 54, of Centerport, is also grateful for his blood type (A-positive) and self-proclaimed smaller stature. “Those two factors helped to contribute to my not waiting as long as most people for a heart transplant,” he said. His transplant doctor, he recalled, explained to him and his two brothers that...

Having lived in his East Meadow home for nearly 65 years, Bernard Banks doesn’t plan to move. “It’s very comfortable here,” said Banks, 95. “It’s well maintained. It’s a well-built house.” Bernard, who worked as a mechanical engineer for Republic Aviation, lives with Steven, the youngest of his three sons. In addition, for the past two years Bernard has had a full-time aide who cooks and keeps him company while Steven’s at work. Bernard’s wife, Gladys, died 12 years ago. “I used to drive...

If your child would be disappointed that her hamburger came with fries instead of a salad, then read no further — what follows are secrets from Long Island parents who have raised their children to eat well and enjoy it... Jennette Watt, 46, a nurse from Roosevelt, grows tomatoes, peppers, arugula, bok choy, thyme and basil at the North Shore Land Alliance’s Roosevelt Community Garden. This year, Watt has three plots that her four sons, ages 10 to 19, help her cultivate...

Although the word “men” is part of menopause, men don’t typically figure into conversations about the subject. Dr. Frank Bonura, who recently became director of menopausal health at St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center in Smithtown, proves the exception to the rule. And not just because he’s a man, but because Bonura spent the bulk of his 50-year medical career delivering babies — nearly 10,000 of them. “It’s been my dream for the past 10 years,” Bonura said of the new position. As he began to...

Put down the phone, close your eyes and be totally still — and quiet — for an hour, maybe two. That’s how it was for Jim Goldfuss of Glen Cove when he first tried a form of meditation called mindfulness a few years ago to deal with stress and anxiety. “You would close your eyes and you would sit there and within 10 seconds, there was the urge to move, the need to twitch, the pain. The discomfort was so intense for me, that I couldn’t relax,” says Goldfuss, 52. During the fourth session...