Tagged With "Toxic Stress"
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Re: Move your way to a better day: How exercise can combat stress, anxiety, and depression
Regular exercise can boost your self-esteem, enhance your mood, help you relax, and alleviate mild depression and anxiety symptoms. Exercise can also help you sleep better, which can be hampered by stress, depression, and anxiety. All of these workout advantages can reduce stress and give you a sense of control over your body and life.
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Wits Wellness research is looking for participants
Wits Wellness research is looking for participants A research team from the University of Illinois is looking for participants for the WITS Wellness Research Study . Any person 50 years and older who has not been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia is eligible. Participants can receive up to $60 for their participation in the study. The study will include 12 weekly health and wellness sessions at various locations across the state. The sessions will be fun, with interactive...
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Extension Foundation Announces 2021-2022 New Technologies for Ag Extension Projects
The Extension Foundation will be supporting 20 projects across Cooperative Extension as part of its third year of the New Technologies for Agricultural Extension (NTAE) program. This program is made possible by funding from USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through a partnership with Oklahoma State University and the Extension Foundation. This program serves all Land-Grant Universities in the United States. The combined award going directly to all projects is...
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Drought can lead to more than the summertime blues in farmers
Press Release f or Immediate Release: September 17, 2021 Contact: Jenn Patterson, MLitt, GPCAH Center Coordinator Jennifer-j-patterson@uiowa.edu , 319-335-4207 Drought can led to more than the summertime blues in farmers It comes as no surprise to Midwesterners that farmers are vulnerable to extreme weather events, but have you considered additional ways to combat occupational stress when it comes to drought planning for yourself and your ag community? Jesse Berman, Assistant Professor at...
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Pat Holmes
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Important Resources for Family Resiliency: The Red Cross Service to Armed Forces Workshops
Written by: Lucas Blankenship, Master of Public Administration Student West Virginia University and MFLN Military Caregiving Concentration. As a member of a military family myself, I remember all too well the stress and strain that deployment and reintegration can have on military members, their families, and those close to them. Often, we think of how we can help those in the military community. How can we serve those who serve? One way is accessing services, resources, and programs offered...
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Tips and Tools for Content Creators
Extension educators are content creators. Whether they prepare PowerPoint slides for a webinar, write a blog or social media post, prepare for an interview, or assemble a newsletter, they are constantly striving to create content that is current, relevant, and actionable. At a recent online conference, the Plutus™ Impact Summit, the following eight tips for personal finance content creation were shared: Address “Pain Points” and Goals – Help people by addressing topics that are causing them...
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Healthy Relationships Matter for Military Families
Healthy relationship skills can make a big difference for the strength and resilience of military families. Military Family Service Providers and Extension Educators are a unique position to be able to provide research-based skills for couples and co-parents that will help them strengthen their relationships. Learn about an upcoming 5-part webinar series that will provide you with information, tools, and resources to help military families nurture and maintain a healthy relationship.
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Extension Educators play an important role in helping families and communities recover from the pandemic
by Karen Shirer, Ph.D. A colleague recently shared a CDC report that highlighted a startling and tragic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on families. Researchers found that approximately one in 500 children experienced the death of a primary caregiver due to COVID-19. The authors stated: “ for every four deaths from COVID-19 , one child is left without a parent and/or grandparent who provided the child’s home and basic needs, including love, security, and daily care.” This study examined only...
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Ways to Help Military Families This Holiday Season
Title Picture Attribute: US Air Force [Timmy Payne admires his work on his family Christmas by Airman 1st Class Jessica H. Evans, Dec. 5th, 2015, CC0] The holidays are a time when getting together with friends and families is always important. Reconnecting with the ones we love can be rejuvenating and highlights what’s important to us. However, for military service members and their families, the holidays can be tough and it’s not always possible for service members to be home with family...
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A Good Night’s Rest is Best
Written By: Andrew Crocker, M.S., Senior Extension Program Specialist, Gerontology and Health, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Way way back in the 1980s (HA!) the dairy industry had a marketing slogan that went, in part, “…it does the body good.” There are probably a lot of things that we can insert into that phrase, right? Vegetables. Seat belts. Exercise. Sleep? We often do not think a lot about sleep – until we cannot do it – but we will spend about a third of our lives asleep,...
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Movement and Mental Health
As the pandemic continues, the rates of mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression steadily continue to climb. During times of quarantine, while working virtually, or when managing a new schedule, it is easy to forget about adding movement to your day. Sedentary activities like watching tv, video gaming and computer work are dominating our current society while mental health is on the decline. One approach to lowering bouts of anxiety and depression, improving mood, and gaining...
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Relationship Challenges and Counseling for Military Couples
Military couples are very resilient and roll with the changes. They face many challenges that civilian couples rarely deal with, like multiple moves, deployments, and various other transitions. Challenges might also take the form of physical injury or invisible wounds of war, like traumatic brain injury, and PTSD. Sometimes spouses and children must take on caregiver roles as well. Even though there are similar issues that many military couples face, every relationship is different. And many...
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Time for a Relationship Checkup!
by Karen Shirer, Ph.D. Each year we plan to visit our health care provider and dentist for annual checkups in order to catch problems before they become major health issues. As an Extension educator, you often encourage your participants to get preventative health checkups and screenings for health concerns. But how often do we or our participants do a check-up of our intimate relationship health? The Relationship Checkup: Support for Military Couples , a recent webinar by the Military...
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Job Opening: Soil Health Extension Educator
INTRODUCTION The University of Connecticut (UConn) Department of Extension is seeking applicants for a full-time (11 month) non-tenure track Assistant/Associate Extension Educator. The successful applicant will assess, develop and deliver impactful extension programs on soil health, regenerative agriculture, and conservation practices. These programs will build an Extension program focused on creating more climate and economically resilient agricultural systems through improved knowledge of...
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Practicing Mindfulness, Meditation, and Self-Care to Combat Stress for Military Families
Stress and stressful situations are issues that everyone must deal with and affects individuals and families in a multitude of different ways. This is even more true for military service members and their families. On top of daily, normal stressors, military families must deal with the stress of deployments, transitions, frequent moving, and the possibility of injury or death for the military service member in military combat. Military families need outlets and ways to cope with stressful...
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A Philosophy for Working on Wicked Problems
A wicked problem is a term used in policy analysis to describe an environmental situation where no matter what policy actions are taken there are still going to be unacceptable losses. Examples of wicked problems can be found in climate change, endangered species, invasive species and environmental justice issues. In order to deal with the psychological stress of threat and uncertainty associated with wicked problems many people are tempted to take a strong position, such as moral outrage.
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Keeping the (Social) Work Growing this Month and Onward
The services provided by social workers are crucial to creating and cultivating individual and family wellness. During this time of insurmountable stressors at home and abroad, social workers are pillars in providing vital mental health and behavioral health services. Services that can aid family members in navigating daily anxiety, worry, and trauma. National Social Work Month March was Social Work Month, and the 2022 theme is The Time is Right for Social Work. Over the past three years,...
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What I learned from a 5-day challenge...
These days it seems everyone is doing some kind of "challenge". Truthfully, these make me pretty skeptical and after they try to sell something to you for the first 20-minutes I'm out. This time I stuck with it! Just finished reading " Soundtracks " by Jon Acuff and was curious to learn more about his work. BAM! His Overcoming Overthinking Challenge appeared on his feed and I signed up. Here are the nuggets from each session... Opening The 2 most powerful word in the English language are "me...
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An Important Tool for Strengthening Couples’ Relationships in the Wake of COVID-19
by Karen Shirer, Ph.D. In Brief Relationship education (RE) for individuals, couples and families can provide critical support in recovering relationship health after disruptive events like the COVID-19 pandemic. A new podcast series on RE focuses on three important RE programs and resources — the NERMEM , Healthy Relationship and Marriage Training and Elevate for Couples . Dr. Ted Futris shares examples for applying the model’s components to your work with individuals and families in...
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Leading Through Stressful Times Session 1: Dr Courtney Owens
Leading Through Stressful Times Session 1 Register Here June 8th 2022, 2:00 - 3:15 ET The Extension Foundation’s Impact Collaborative program is hosting a leadership series available to member institutions . Join our Leadership team for this 3-session series on June 8th, July 6th, and August 10th for conversations with special guests to get wisdom on turning volatility into vision, uncertainty into understanding, complexity into clarity, and ambiguity into agility! Extension Foundation is...
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2 Resources!
Awareness is the first step leading to personal growth. The folks at Crucial Learning have provided some great free resources to help you do just that. Influence is leadership. Discover the methods you use to lead and help others through change with the Influencer assessment! It would be hard to believe anyone left an organization because they received too much communication. Our words are a powerful force for good when used in the direction of truth and love. For every crucial conversation...
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Welcome Your Wellness
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The Human Genome Project
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The Science of Vaccines
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Summer Self-Care Webinar Series
The Community Seminar Series: Summer Self-Care What topics are covered in the series? Summer is busy, and it's easy to forget to take care of ourselves while we try to juggle what everyone else needs. Researchers from University of Illinois can help guide your summer health choices. Find a session that's perfect for you, or participate in all of them. Summer Self-Care is a collaboration between University of Illinois Extension and the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute as part of...