Friday, January 25, 2019

Healthy living for a healthy mind!

Living healthy and sleeping right are some of the best methods to keep your body strong and make it last long!  First one should start with a proper diet, avoid processed and fast foods.  Not everyone has time for home cooking, but you should at least start the day with some fresh produce like a banana or an apple.  Eating healthy isn't enough to keep yourself in peak condition, proper diet must always be followed with exercise.  Dietitians and Fitness experts alike recommend working out 4-5 times a week for about 20-30 minutes, whether it be jogging, swimming, lifting weights, any form of exercise is better than no exercise, just make sure to keep a consistent schedule.  As always, you should consult your doctor before attempting any drastic changes in diet or exercise, you need to make sure its something your body can safely handle.




When the day comes to an end, everyone should get around 7-8 hours of rest each night.  However you may have trouble getting to sleep either because you have insomnia, or noises in the night interrupt the REM cycles in your sleep.  What is REM sleep? Its a unique form of deep sleep identified by "Rapid Eye Movement."  One way to maintain consistent REM sleep is by using white noise machines.  White noise is used to drown out distracting noises through the night with a uniform sound, because if you sleep in silence, your hearing is much more sensitive and you will be disturbed at the slightest sound.  Some white noise machines are very expensive, but one of the cheapest methods (and one that I use) is just buying a 10 dollar box fan from Walmart and set it to low through the night.  Other white noise machines can produce relaxing sounds like crickets, rain, a flowing stream, and many other sounds that might better suit you.








Now white noise machines might not work for everyone, as an absolute last resort you can talk to your doctor about getting some sleep aids.  Melatonin is a vitamin that you can purchase over the counter and Zquil is another sleep aid readily available without prescriptions, both of these are designed to aid in falling asleep and staying asleep until you are rested.  If you are going to attempt sleep aids, I would highly recommend speaking with your doctor first, then try it on a weekend so you can see how it affects you before you take it on a night before you have to go to work.  If your sleep aid is too powerful you can sleep through your morning alarms.

How ever you make choices to improve your life style, one should always consult their medical professional before making commitments.  It's their job to know how your body works, and they'll be the best resource to getting you on track to better health!


Friday, January 4, 2019

New Years Resolutions

Happy New Years everyone, I hope your first week of the new year is going well! Have you gotten used to writing 2019 yet? Me neither!  Man, 2018 was a crazy year full of highs and lows, one can only hope that we can make this year better than the last.

It's January so that means this month is Glaucoma Awareness month! Glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness in people over the age of 60, and is the condition where fluid pressure within your eye damages your optic nerve.  As modern medicine stands, there is currently no cure, but many treatment options are available.

There are a couple variants of Glaucoma with different symptoms, like Open Angle and Acute Angle.  Open Angle Glaucoma causes severe tunnel vision and patchy blind spots in your center or peripheral vision.  Acute Angle Glaucoma can cause eye pain, blurred vision, halo's in light sources, eye redness and severe headaches.

Unfortunately even with treatment, people with Glaucoma will still suffer from total blindness in about 15-20 years.




This year we are starting a new Evening Support Group session, on every 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month from 6 pm to 7 pm.  Come on over, its totally free, we just require an RSVP before you attend. Learn about dementia, what fellow caregivers like yourselves have to handle on a daily basis, and even about some tips on what you can do for help!

Hey Remember that I Spy Give Away? Well, we had a lot of great submissions and it took some deliberating but, I would like to Congratulate David Carpenter for winning I Spy!


It was a lot of fun and we hope to see you guys for the next giveaway when we host it!