Author: Spire Advertising

The winter doldrums can bring any of us down, especially as winter drags its slushy feet into the months we expect to be like spring. With the decreased amount of sunlight and chilly weather, we tend to hunker down in the house for long stretches of time. A cup of hot tea and a warm blanket is great comfort, but after a while, being cooped up inside can wear on your emotional, physical, and mental well being. Here are some tips for how to make sure your whole body stays healthy and fit during these long winter days.

Eat a Healthy Diet
Your immune system has a lot it’s up against during the months we spend indoors. Providing your body with the right amount of healthy nutrients keeps your whole system in tip-top shape. Choose a diet filled with fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains, and try to avoid eating lots of sweets and processed foods.

Foods like mushrooms, garlic, citrus fruits, herbs and spices, yogurt, apples, bananas, onion, and chicken soup all support your immune system.

Stay Active
When it’s cold out, the idea of bundling up and going for a walk might not sound that appealing, but exercise is an important part of your ongoing wellness. Even a short, brisk walk can go a long way toward keeping you fit.

The Salvation Army Kroc Center in Ashland has an indoor track that is open to the public for free, or even take a stroll around the local Home Depot or Walmart to get your steps in. Thirty minutes of physical activity a day can help you maintain or lose weight, improve your mental health, reduce anxiety, lower blood pressure, and improve your quality of sleep, according to the National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Get Outside
Okay, it’s cold, but winter is also one of Ohio’s most beautiful seasons. Explore the paved paths of Freer Field or Byers Woods, or strap on your mud boots and tromp around Sandusky Woods and other serene parks in Ashland County. Just being out in nature is proven to improve our mental and physical well being.

Reduce the Spread of Germs
With cold, flu, Covid, and other viruses more rampant during our winter, indoor months, good hygiene, hand washing, keeping your distance from others who are sick, sanitizing frequently touched surfaces, and avoiding touching your face can reduce your chances of getting sick and spreading illness in the community.

Stay Hydrated
Water is our body’s purification system. It flushes our system of waste and toxins through urination, perspiration, and bowel movements. It helps us maintain the right body temperature. It lubricates joints and protects sensitive tissues. But in the winter, because we’re not as active, we might not notice being thirsty or dehydrated as easily, and older adults don’t sense thirst as well as younger people, which also can cause dehydration to go unnoticed.

The amount of water adults need varies from person to person, but the best way to ensure you stay hydrated throughout the day is to drink a glass of water with every meal, when you take medication, and when you are socializing.

The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommend about 15.5 cups (3.7 liters) of fluids a day for men and about 11.5 cups (2.7 liters) of fluids a day for women, keeping in mind that about 20% of our fluid intake comes from food. The old recommendation to drink 8 glasses of water a day is a reasonable goal.

Make or Listen to Music
Studies have shown that listening to music over a long period of time has a cumulative effect on our mental health, reducing levels of depression. Another study says that listening to “feel good” music for just five minutes can make you feel happier, more satisfied with life, and more joyful.

The effects are even greater when you are actively making music. Singing, dancing, and drumming all release endorphins and can alter your mood. So, turn on your favorite tune, sing along, and get your moves on!

Be Creative
Sign up for a painting or ceramics class at the Tin Can Chandelier. Pull out a sketch pad and pencil. Write a poem. Journal. Bake. Knit. Whittle a stick. Creativity is another natural mood booster that can reduce stress, lower anxiety and depression, and improve overall satisfaction in your life.

Read a Good Book (or Series of Books)
The days are long, especially these cold, winter days, and while it might be tempting to sit for hours binge watching your favorite Netflix series, it might not be the best choice for your mental well being. Reading, on the other hand, has been proven to sharpen your cognitive abilities, reduce stress, and lower levels of anxiety and depression. Find a good series or pair up with a neighbor to share a good story, and then get together to talk about it (now you’re socializing and reading, two things that are good for your mental health).

Connect, Laugh, and Be Grateful
Make time for friends. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just invite someone over for a cup of coffee or tea, or meet them out at Downtown Perk, Goldberry Roasting Company, Vines Bakery, or one of our amazing Ashland restaurants. Socializing is good for your mental health.

And laughter, especially laughter with a loved one or friend, is indeed good medicine. But so is gratitude. Incorporate a habit of gratitude into your life, and you’ll discover that gratitude is a natural fuel for joy, and joy a natural fuel for more gratitude. Instead of a downward spiral of anxiety and sadness, it’s an upward spiral of joy and gratitude.

And Get Enough Sleep
Sleep needs vary from person to person and from each stage of life, but most adults need around 7-8 hours of sleep a night in order to function well. Go to bed and wake up around the same time each day, even on the weekends, to keep your body in rhythm and fully rested.

You can make the most of this cold weather season and keep healthy at the same time. For more mental health resources, visit the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County.

Journalist and author Sam Quinones documented the growing drug problem in America in articles, interviews, and in his most recent books of narrative nonfiction, The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth (2021) and Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic, which was selected as one of Amazon.com’s Best Books of 2015 and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County is thrilled to welcome Quinones to Ashland as the keynote speaker for our RSVP Conference.

Quinones has a history of immersing himself into the setting of those whose lives he covers to fully understand what their experiences are like. He lived in Mexico for 10 years as a freelance writer, covering stories on the country’s politics, immigration, gang members, and taco vendors. While in Mexico, he interacted with drag queens and recovering drug addicts, street gangs and congressmen, polygamous Mormons and promoters of the Tijuana opera scene.

Following his stint in Mexico, Quinones worked from 2004-2014 as a reporter for the L.A. Times covering immigration, drug trafficking, neighborhood stories, and gangs. Out of this season came his award-winning book, Dreamland.

Dreamland garnered much recognition when it was released. The book catalogs the explosive impact of addiction on communities across the country. Combining his abilities as a storyteller with his fact-gathering expertise as a reporter, Quinones deftly narrates the catastrophic consequences of prescribing the highly addictive painkiller OxyContin in the 90s and the massive influx of black tar heroin throughout the nation, and how these two collided to ravage towns across the U.S. to this day.

Quinones’ follow-up book, The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth, which was published just last fall, documents the next stages of the opioid epidemic. How has the situation evolved, and what is being done in communities hit by addiction, mental illness, and homelessness? The book investigates how drug use has been transformed in the last few years, particularly how the synthetic drug fentanyl is infiltrating communities and destroying lives.

To write The Least of Us, Quinones hit the road again, to investigate Mexican drug traffickers and the towns across the United States that are rallying with fierce hope and relentless faith to rally around those who are most often forgotten and discarded by society, “illuminating the striking truth that we are only as strong as our most vulnerable.”

Quinones will speak at the MHRB of Ashland County’s annual RSVP Conference on March 30, 2022. Mark your calendars and come prepared to be challenged and inspired by hope for the future of our communities.

Register for the RSVP Conference today and watch this short clip to learn more about Quinones’ most recent book:

When traumatic events happen in our lives, it can be difficult to move forward. Trauma impacts our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health, and without the guidance and support of our families, mental health professionals, and our community, we can resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms to handle the damage trauma inflicts on us.

The Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County works closely with several systems in Ashland County to assist families and young people impacted by trauma. To help individuals impacted by trauma, these systems use a trauma-informed strategy called Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI).

What Is Trust-Based Relational Intervention?
TBRI is an attachment-based, trauma-informed intervention that is designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable children. Using TBRI, parents, and guardians can learn how to help children develop resilience following traumatic events.

TBRI uses three different principles:

Empowering Principles to address physical and environmental needs,
Connecting Principles for attachment needs and engagement, and
Correcting Principles to disarm fear-based behaviors.
By following these principles, families can understand better why a child is behaving in such a way and address that behavior with empathy, compassion, and the tools to meet the needs of that child.

Connecting Principles
Trauma can disrupt our ability to connect with children, and the disruption can come from both directions. Connecting Principles invite the adult in a relationship to analyze what they bring into various interactions with their children that might be impacting the health of that relationship and offer guiding strategies to build healthy attachment between a parent and child.

When an interaction with a child isn’t going how you hoped it would, it’s helpful to take a step back and be mindful of how you’re feeling in this moment. Our own physical and mental well-being impacts our ability to interact well with others. Are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you distracted?

Just as our present circumstances can impact our interactions with children, so can past events. Did something happen to you in the past that is triggering a response in the present moment? What does your own childhood tell you about the behavior you are currently experiencing?

There’s so much more encircling every interaction we have with our children than just this one conversation. Mindfulness strategies help us assess what is going on in our own lives and in our own past that may be contributing to the tension of the moment.

In addition to Mindfulness Strategies that can help you be more aware of the added dynamics between you and your child, Engagement Strategies are practical tools that can help you connect with people and form healthy attachments.

Engagement Strategies are easy things you can try today to connect with the kids in your life. Strategies like valuing eye contact, behavior matching, playful engagement, healthy touch, and authoritative voice are all tools you can use to create connections.

Empowering Principles
Our physical environment plays a significant part in how we respond and recover from trauma. Empowering Principles contribute to this process by addressing a child’s environment and physical health to make sure these needs are met.

Ecological Strategies acknowledge the challenges that trauma poses to a child’s ability to transition from one task to the next in their day and in their life. These strategies establish an environment that allows children to be successful and heal by providing structure and familiar, comforting routines. This scaffolding establishes rituals that become points of connection and attunement throughout their day.

The external environment addressed by Ecological Strategies is matched by the internal health needs addressed by Physiological Strategies. These strategies help a child’s brain and body excel. Research shows that over 85% of children from hard places have some sort of sensory need beyond that of a child who has not experienced early developmental trauma. Therefore, understanding how to interpret behavioral outbursts as possible sensory needs and then meet those needs is key in providing felt safety for our children.

TBRI recommends that children should eat a protein-rich snack every two hours, drink water consistently, and have a sensory-rich experience at least every two hours. This routine helps create stabilization in a child’s brain and body, which limits behavioral meltdowns and emotional outbursts.

Correcting Principles
When behavioral problems arise, TBRI provides a framework for correcting that behavior. It employs two strategies: Proactive Strategies and Responsive Strategies.

Frequently, a child’s behavior has to do with how a child has learned (or has not learned) how to get their needs met. Our children need to be taught the skills they need rather than be punished for not knowing the appropriate manner to behave. We can lead a child to develop those appropriate behaviors by adjusting our own approach to correction.

Proactive Strategies are taught to children during calm times when there isn’t a behavioral problem, and Responsive Strategies provide tools to parents or guardians when a child is in the middle of having a behavioral outburst. These tools offer research-based methods to calm a child and teach them skills to eliminate problematic behaviors in the future.

One approach to this strategy is the “re-do.” When the behavior isn’t what you expect from them, this provides your child a chance to try the behavior again in a playful and engaging way.

For example, your son yells, “Get me juice!”

You might respond with, “Whoa, buddy! Are you asking or telling? Why don’t you try that again, please?”

This approach avoids escalating the situation. No one is in trouble, your day keeps moving forward, but we have taken an opportunity to rewire the brain around the correct way to do things. It is far better to emphasize and practice the right way of doing things than it is to dwell on the wrong way.

TBRI is a powerful model for helping our young people recover from trauma and grow into healthy young adults. To learn more about TBRI and what it entails you can check out the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development’s website and YouTube channel, read The Connected Child by Drs. Purvis and Cross, or attend the Hope for the Journey simulcast training near you.