|
1577
West Ridge Road
|
2280
East Avenue
|
|
Rochester,
NY 14615
|
Rochester,
NY 14610
|
|
Phone:
(585) 865-7446
|
Phone:
(585) 473-4913
|
|
Fax:
(585) 865-7531
|
info@employeehealthsystems.com
Stress busters: 20 Little things you can do to lower stress immediately!
Stress management does not necessarily require major changes in our lives--only minor adjustments. The psychiatry team at the University of Washington at Tacoma offers the following suggestions:
1. Go
to bed 15 to 30 minutes earlier at night. You will feel much more refreshed
in the morning!
2. Reduce or eliminate caffeine consumption. Caffeine is a major stimulant.
3. Jot down your thoughts in a daily log or journal. It may help give
you a new perspective on your life.
4. Build some personal time into your schedule each day during which
you choose to do something that is relaxing or refreshing. Taking 15
minutes to read the newspaper or taking a hot bath are two popular choices.
5. Improve your appearance. Get a haircut, manicure or new outfit. Looking
better will help you feel better!
6. Nourish your friendship circle. Call an old friend or send a card
to someone who might be going through some hard times.
7. Limit activities with "negative" friends or acquaintances
who reinforce bad or stressful feelings.
8. Try to be optimistic during challenging situations at home or at
work.
9. Learn to appreciate those closest to you. All too often, we tend
to take their postive traits for granted and focus on traits we wish
we could "change."
10. Don't feel that you must find tasks to do at home on your day off.
A lazy Sunday afternoon often yields a refreshed and renewed outlook
on Monday morning!
11. Visit a local nursing home on occasion and get to know one or more
residents.
12. Explore your creativity! Take a class in something that you might
find challenging but rewarding. Example: One harried businessman discovered
joy and serenity in learning calligraphy.
13. Learn to say no! Never give an immediate answer to someone's request
for your time or assistance. (Note: This does not make you a selfish
person.)
14. Go to a movie...particularly a mystery or thriller in which you
can "lose" yourself and become absorbed.
15. Avoid chronic perfectionism! It's OK to be perfectionistic about
some things, like taking medications in just the right way at just the
right time. But don't be bothered by fuzzballs under your bed!
16. Spend some quality time with your family pet. Research studies have
consistently documented the calming effects that pets can induce.
17. Don't procrastinate! Remember that we tend to postpone those tasks
we find burdensome or threatening, but they continue to loom on the
horizon thus causing stress. Tackle them and get past them!
18. Schedule "worry time" every few days during which you
can focus exclusively on things that might be causing you concern. Attempt
to come up with one workable idea which may impact positively on each
problem.
19. Revisit childhood memories. Too often, we spend all our time "slaying
dragons" in our day-to-day lives. Take some time to reflect on
happy childhood memories and the tension will melt away!
20. Take time to visit your local library. Enjoy browsing through magazines
that you would ordinarily not come into contact with.
Choose Now To Live The Life You Want
Mastering
others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power. The TAO
"In
the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipling ourselves."
- Bernard Baruch
Exercising
self-discipline is the means to learn self-discipline. If you practice
self-discipline in small matters, you will eventually be able to exercise
self-discipline whenever the situation calls for it. Our ability to overcome
procrastination increases each time we chalk up a victory, big or small.
Often
people base their actions--or inaction--on their feelings. Not feeling
like doing something now actually gives you an opportunity to demonstrate
to yourself that you are not a captive to your moods. Negative moods often
disappear quickly when you take firm action. It is best to think of negative
emotions as byproducts of your inactivity, not as a reason to procrastinate.You
are the master of yourself if you are committed to always doing that which
it is important to do, independent of your mood at the time. This does
not mean you should suppress your emotions; rather, you do not need to
pander to them or to allow your emotions to control you.
Writing
visible reminders not to procrastinate and placing these where you will
see them frequently is often quite helpful. Reminders may be short phrases
or famous quotes that you place on your bathroom mirror, the dashboard
of your car, in your purse or wallet, by the telephone, on your calendar,
on your bedroom wall, or whatever locations you find most effective. Repeatedly
seeing a message in writing intensifies its impact.
It
is also important to write a list of your short-term goals, as well as
a list of your life-time goals, and to place these lists where you will
see them frequently. This should influence your daily and weekly planning.
Planning is an essential tool in the battle against procrastination. You
need to set aside a time for planning on a daily and weekly basis. Writing
down your plans is often a critical ingredient in executing them.
Additionally,
it is important to rigidly schedule a block of time every day to work
on something that it is not essential to accomplish that day, but nevertheless
is important to achieving your long-term goals. Further, it is critical
to visualize your goals frequently. If you do not take the time daily
to visualize what you truly want, you reduce the tension between your
most cherished life visions and your daily behavior. This usually maintains
your habitual behavior and results in ineffectiveness Emerson said, "The
greater part of courage is having done it before." If you have not
yet had the opportunity to do something that is important to you, the
next best thing to having done something is having done it before mentally.
During
the holiday season, as you contemplate the coming year, I hope that you
will find the courage to behave like the person you see in your mind's
eye in relation to your desired personal changes. May you arrive at the
next holiday season having accomplished the objectives you are currently
setting. Best wishes for a New Year filled with exciting discoveries of
your capacity for personal transformation.
Source: Alisa Phelps, PhD
U.S. Supreme Court approves random drug tests in high school
In
a landmark desision, the U.S. Supreme Court recently approved an Oklahoma
school district's policy of testing public high school students who participate
in extracurricular activities. A Supreme Court decision in 1995 allowed
random drug testing of public high school athletes.
According
to the New York Times, the 5-4 decision will allow the broadest testing
to date of high school students. In their opinions, justices appeared
open to the possibility of considering drug testing for all public high
school students.
Justices
Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Anthony
M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer, constituted the decision's majority. Representing
the majority, Thomas wrote that "testing students who participate
in extracurricular activities is a reasonably effective means of addressing
the school district's legitimate concerns in preventing, deterring and
detecting drug use."
Justices
Sandra Day O'Connor, David Souter, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg
dissented.
It
is estimated that more than 50 percent of public high school students
participate in extracurricular activities.
Lindsay
Earls, the high school student who brought the lawsuit, and the American
Civil Liberties Union argued unsuccessfully that the "suspicionless"
drug tests violated the U.S. Constitution's protections against unreasonable
searches.
The
case name is Board of Education of Independent School District No. 92
of Pottawatomie County v. Earls
For a copy of the court's opinion, visit www.supremecourtus.gov.
Making Your Workplace Healthier
In
the early 1900's, the City of Chicago suffered an epidemic of typhoid
fever which was eventually traced back to an infected waitress named
Mary who had spread the disease to all her patrons, who in turn infected
their families, friends and co-workers.
In
today's workplace, there are many "Typhoid Marys" who unknowingly
spread colds and influenza throughout their places of work. The U.S.
Centers for Disease Control reminds us that we can minimize the spread
of illness at work and at home by adhering to a few simple precautions:
Wash your hands: Cold germs are transmitted via sneezing and coughing onto your hands, then onto telephones, doorknobs and office equipment. In a recent study, the most infected objects in the office were computer keyboards. Wash your hands throughout the day and especially before eating or snacking. Use warm water and any type of soap. Remember that it's the friction from vigorously rubbing your hands combined with the soap that kills germs and bacteria.
Don't self-infect: Keep your hands away from your nose, mouth and eyes and cover any cuts or skin splits on your hands with bandages.
Stay
home if you're sick:
If a high fever, severe muscle aches, headache, sore throat, chills, dry
cough and less commonly vomiting come on fast, you've probably got the
flu! Pneumococcal pneumonia also stikes fast, causing a productive cough
and chest pain that worsens with deep breaths. The common cold, on the
other hand, comes on gradually, with a runny nose, possibly a sore throat,
low-grade fever and usually a dry cough. You may not be doing anyone a
favor by dragging yourself into the workplace when you're just too sick
to be productive. Don't be a Typhoid Mary!
Practice
"preventative maintenance."
You do it with your car, so do it with yourself! Get plenty of rest during
the cold and flu season; focus on good nutrition (fruits, vegetables,
protein) and get your flu shot!
Sources: Lawrence Cone, M.D., Chief of Immunology, Eisenhower Medical Center; John Cameron, Nurse Practitioner for Employee Health, Rancho Mirage, CA; U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Employee Services.
Depression and Unhappiness Are Not the Same
To
the Editor:
Dr.
Peter R. Breggin makes several statements about psychiatric illness
in "Psychiatry Doesn't Cure Unhappiness" that need correction).
First,
Dr. Breggin claims that depression and unhappiness are the same entity
and that they result from "life experiences." Depression is
an illness that involves far more than unhappy feelings. People with
major depression can experience varying degrees of insomnia, appetite
loss, decreased libido, impaired concentration, fatigue, hopelessness,
helplessness and suicidal feelings.
Stressful
life events are neither necessary nor sufficient for the emergence of
depression in many patients; some individuals, presumably those with
a heavy genetic loading for depression, can develop severe depression
in the absence of any significant psychosocial stressor. Psychiatric
illness, like other medical diseases, represents complex interactions
between biological, psychological and environmental factors.
With
successful treatment of depression, suicidal thinking and behavior,
along with depression's other symptoms like insomnia and poor appetite,
improve and can disappear entirely. Antidepressants are both safe and
effective in the treatment of depression; numerous studies that compare
placebo (a dummy pill) to active antidepressant in depressed patients
have shown that the response to antidepressant is in the range of 60
to 70 percent versus a 20 to 25 percent response to placebo.
While
there have been a few reports of increased suicidal thinking and behavior
in patients taking Prozac, a careful analysis of the data by the Food
and Drug Administration and other researchers revealed that the rate
of suicidal feelings and acts in patients on Prozac was no different
than for any other antidepressant medication and that the rate of suicidal
symptoms actually decreased in patients taking antidepressants compared
with placebo.
Dr.
Breggin's comparison of antidepressants to guns is reckless and medically
irresponsible. When used correctly, antidepressants are very safe and
nontoxic. The older tricyclic antidepressants can be very toxic in a
suicide attempt by overdose as are numerous other medication like Tylenol
and digitalis. Fortunately, the newer antidepressants like Prozac and
Zoloft (the serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are generally mach safer
than the older tricyclic antidepressants in overdose.
Finally, when Dr. Breggin writes that depression is "another word for a particular kind of human unhappiness," he discourages many of the millions of Americans who suffer with depression from seeking treatment with the misleading advice that they suffer from nothing more than the universal unhappiness that we all experience. This is just as medically irresponsible and wrong as the internist who tells patients complaining of stomachache that they just have a "nervous stomach" when many may have a serious but treatable ulcer.
Richard
A. Friedman, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
N.Y. Hospital-Cornell Medical Center
New York
The above articles were gathered from a variety of news sources.
Employee Health Systems 2003
|
1577
West Ridge Road
|
2280
East Avenue
|
|
Rochester,
NY 14615
|
Rochester,
NY 14610
|
|
Phone:
(585) 865-7446
|
Phone:
(585) 473-4913
|
|
Fax:
(585) 865-7531
|