St. Boniface has an established 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.

Check the bulletin board in the front of church for LOTS of health related information from the Health & Wellness Ministry.

CRISIS & SUICIDE HOTLINE
513-281-2273

Psychiatric Emergency Services
513-584-8577

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 medical equipment: 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 tightly woven 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.