St. Boniface has established a Health
and Wellness Ministry to serve the physical needs of our parishioners.
The Parish Health and Wellness Ministry
staffs regular blood pressure screenings, provides health related
information, and promotes physical wellness throughout the parish.
Oktoberfest Booth
The Parish Health and Wellness
Ministry also maintains a bulletin board in the
Church Vestibule with LOTS
of Health information available.
THE HEALTH AND WELLNESS TEAM is continuing
with some helpful ways to fight loneliness and make friends. The
suggestions so far were: Join a book club, Volunteer, Take a night
class and Get a dog.
Carpool to work. Hey, it works for
elementary school kids. Many kids meet their best buddies on the school
bus: 1) they live in the neighborhood, 2) they are on the same schedule,
3) they know the same people. Not only is this technique eco-friendly, it
makes sense on many levels: you already know a lot about these people,
and if you don’t you can always ask someone in your office who knows them.
Connect with your alumni association.
Alumni associations are gold mines for potential friends. You already
have a major experience in common: you can rehash old times as a
conversation starter if you need one. Plus many associations sponsor
community service events, workshops, or trips that you can take advantage
of even if you don’t need friends.
Hopefully some of the suggestions made will give you
ideas for yourself or to help others. If you put yourself out there, you
may get rejected many times, but you may also find your best friend.
Every day life is full of potential friendship moments. Take
advantage of them!
THE HEALTH AND WELLNESS TEAM will continue with some helpful ways
to fight loneliness and make friends. The first two suggestions were: Join a book club and Volunteer. As we continue on here are the
next few suggestions.
Take a night class. That’s where you can supposedly meet
men (or women) if you find yourself single in your late 30s or 40s or
50s. If you take a class in something that you are interested in, you’re
very likely to find potential friends with similar hobbies.
Get a dog. Dogs are people magnets, and usually nice-people
magnets. If you walk your dog in certain neighborhoods, you will meet
approximately five to ten friends per mile. Hope you try one of our
suggestions if you are trying to make friends.
THE HEALTH AND WELLNESS TEAM
would like to suggest some helpful ways to fight loneliness and make
friends.
Join a book club. If your neighborhood doesn’t have a
book club, you can usually join one as part of the local library, or the
community center. Many newspapers will post book club notices, as well.
Don’t forget, we have a Spiritual Book Club at St. Boniface! Hey, you
could even start one!
Volunteer. Have you ever considered how many
charities to which you could give your time? At St. Boniface there is the
St. Vincent de Paul Society. Or how about CAIN (Churches Active in
Northside) on Hamilton Avenue.
Here are two easy ways to start making friends. We’ll suggest some more
in the future.
HEALTHY THOUGHTS: The Health and
Wellness Team would like to start the year by giving some tips
for better living. With an abundance of health information
readily available these days, it is easy for messages to get lost in the
shuffle. We will try to help by giving some easy tips to help you lead a
more healthy life:
Don’t clean your plate. Leave a few
bites on your plate from meals and snacks and you could lose up to 10
pounds in one year. Taking three fewer bites of a hamburger, muffin or
burrito subtracts 75 to 100 calories from each.
Go easy on the
fries.The standard United States Department of Agriculture
serving of French fries is 10 fries. A typical large order of fries
contains about 100 fries, which translates to 530 calories.
RESOURCES TO GET MEDICATIONS & DURABLE MEDICAL
EQUIPMENT:
Medications: If you need medications
but do not have health insurance or your insurance does not cover
prescription medications, prescription assistance programs are available.
You can call the Jordan Center Health (513) 557-2730, or the St. Vincent
de Paul Charitable pharmacy at (513) 562-8841 to get your prescriptions
and to apply for prescription assistance. Also, you can go to the
Partnership for Prescription Assistance website
www.pparx.org/about.php or call 1-888-477-2669 to learn about hundreds
of prescription assistance and drug company programs. Durable
medicalequipment: If you are in need of medical
equipment, we have numerous items available at St. Boniface such as
walkers, canes, etc. If we don’t have the item you’re looking for, we’ll
help you find the equipment you need. Please call Mary Jeanne Feldkamp,
Parish Nurse, at 541-1563.
JUST A REMINDER: The Health and Wellness Team
remind you to protect yourself from the damaging UV rays and skin cancer
on these hot days. Seek shade, wear tightlywoven clothing, and
avoid the intense sun from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Some people think about
sun protection only when they are planning to spend a full day at the
beach or pool. But sun exposure happens whenever you are in the sun –
gardening, fishing, hiking, riding a bike, going to the zoo, attending a
baseball game, or going to and from your car. Remember that the damage
adds up day after day, so it’s important for you to take precautions to
protect your skin day after day. For a fair-skinned person, sun damage
can begin in 15 minutes without skin protection on a high-UV day.
FOUR WAYS TO PROTECT
YOUR SKIN: This is a continuation of tips from The Health and
Wellness Team at St. Boniface. “Slip! Slop! Slap! … and Wrap”
is a catch phrase for kids that works well for adults too. It reminds
people of the 4 key methods they can use to protect themselves from the
sun. Slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen, slap on a
hat, and wrap on sunglasses to protect the eyes and sensitive skin
around them from ultraviolet light. For maximum effectiveness, apply
sunscreen 20 to 30 minutes before going outside. Use a product with a sun
protection factor (SPF) of 15 or higher. For best results, most
sunscreens need to be reapplied every 2 hours and immediately after
swimming or sweating heavily. Remember that sunscreen usually rubs off
when you towel yourself dry.
TIPS ON PROTECTING YOUR SKIN: The
Health and Wellness Team would like to give you a simple rule for
checking moles and birthmarks. The ABCD rule is a convenient guide
to the usual signs of melanoma. Here’s what you should be on the lookout
for: A is for ASYMMETRY: Half of a mole or birthmark does not
match the other. : B is for BORDER: The edges are irregular,
ragged, notched, or blurred. C is for COLOR: The color is not the
same all over, but may have differing shades of brown or black, sometimes
with patches of red, white, or blue. D is for DIAMETER; The area
is larger than ¼ inch – the size of a pencil eraser, or the area has been
growing. Remember to use sunscreen on your skin, some people only use it
at the pool, but they forget to reapply it. Remember in the summer search
out some cool relief in the shade, wear a hat, and maybe even a
long-sleeved shirt.
HEALTHY THOUGHTS: RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS: The Health and
Wellness Team suggested this as a great way to start off 2007! We said
we would occasionally present you with some ways you can “commit” a
random act of senseless kindness to someone. Several weeks ago our
suggestions were:
Collect goods for a food bank. (CAIN or St. Vincent de Paul).
Volunteer at your church and/or a local food pantry. (CAIN)
Offer to babysit for a friend in need.
Pay a compliment at least once a day.
Call or visit a homebound person. (Have you taken any of our
suggestions?)
Here are a few more:
Say something nice to everyone you meet.
Give the gift of your smile!
Transport someone who can’t drive.
Volunteer to read to students in the classroom or at your local library. Remember kindness is contagious!
FROM THE HEALTH AND WELLNESS MINISTRY: If you’re one of the
millions who can’t start their day without a sip of soda but want to
stop, help is here. Nutritionist Joy Bauer gives some interesting facts.
Imagine this: one 20-ounce bottle of soda is the equivalent of pouring
17 teaspoons of straight sugar into your body! What’s more those 250
empty calories can set you up for mood swings, energy dips and weight
gain. Did you realize that if you gave up one daily 20-ounce soda, at
the end of the year you’ll save: 91,00 calories, 7,280 teaspoons of
sugar, and potentially lose up to 26 pounds of fat! By replacing
soda with a nutritious beverage, you’ll feel more energetic, satiated,
less moody and lighter on your feet. Better beverage alternatives that
are low-calorie and enhance your health are water, flavored water, skim
milk, soy milk, green tea, chamomile tea, coffee, skim latte, skim
cappuccino, skim café au lait and low-fat hot cocoa. To learn more
about healthier eating habits, visit www.joybauernutrition.com.
