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Hammertime: Stressed spelled backwards is desserts

Dealing with stress and how it can also benefit you, in this week’s Hammertime
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Mike Rainone

Hammertime

No matter what age we may be there is absolutely no doubt that throughout our lives we have all suffered some sort of stress in one form or another, and yours truly has been a perfect example a compulsive ‘worry wart’ for the past 60 years or so.

These very common ‘fuss-fits and fluster’ occasions may have occurred during a tough day at work, out in the traffic rush, while trying to get through an airport or attempting to fix a flat tire in a hurry, because of illness or injury to family or friends, and usually just before a first date, getting married, the arrival of a new child, paying bills, a job interview, a medical appointment, income tax time, and on and on whether we like it or not.

The experts claim that a little bit of stress can be healthy for all of us — safely pushing and motivating us just a little bit more to put in a little more effort in both our personal and professional life, as well as completing the goals that we can share with others.

On the other hand too much stress can be very detrimental to our health and lifestyles. Of course we should never raid the fridge or rush out and buy too many desserts or sweet treats if we are getting overly stressed, but there must be some other ‘stress busters’ that will help to get us back to our jolly old selves?

While my dear wife always tells me to ‘go take a nap’ if I am having a ‘hissy fit’ or a bad day, here are 10 of the best day-to-day ways of reducing stress, as suggested by the experts in good health management.

(1) Meditate

(2) Stop and breathe deeply in tight or tough situations

(3) Reach out to your social networks

(4) Slow down just a little

(5) Keep our bodies in tune

(6) Decompress

(7) Laugh out loud a lot

(8) Sit back and crank up our favourite tunes

(9) Enjoying our favourite exercises

(10) Pausing and being grateful for what we have.

Whatever the case I guess we could all strive to give it a little extra effort to stay cool and give these methods a try, without too many desserts.

Now let’s have a little fun

• Sometimes we wish that we could go back into the past, not to change anything, but to re-live some of our precious moments all over again.

• There are those days when we may be totally lacking the Zip-A-Dee part of our Doo-Dah day.

• I thought the dryer was shrinking all my clothes, but it turns out to be the fridge.

• Loving wife to frustrated husband, ‘Well here’s the problem dear. You’ve been taking the hairball pills and giving the Viagra to the cat.’

• There are those precious times in our lives when we should be ourselves, no matter what others think. Still on your diet? Don’t worry, the centre of a donut is 100 per cent fat free.

• I am so glad that I grew up in the 1960s to ’70s and ’80s, because I did so much stupid stuff way back then and now there is no record of it anywhere.

• Some mothers will never change…whether her children are five or 55 she will always continue to ask them, ‘Where are you going and what time will you be home?’

A whole new winter fun and family adventure is now available for young and old of all ages with the opening of the super natural ice path at the Ponoka Centennial Park, which was developed with the kind support, labour, and efforts of the Ponoka FCSS, the Town of Ponoka, members of the Ponoka County East District Fire Department and other community groups and volunteers. So dig out the old blades, dress warm, and head on down for a casual skate around Centennial Park. Have a great week, all of you.

Editor’s Note

Ponoka News editor Jeffrey Heyden-Kaye’s third and last editorial related to minimum wage will be in next week’s edition.