Lifestyle & Wellness

Sleep is impor­tant for your over­all health and well­be­ing, yet it seems like many of us can’t get enough of it. Between work, fam­i­ly, and the every­day stres­sors of life, you might not be get­ting the sleep you need.

Fruit Sal­sa and Cin­na­mon Chips

March is Nation­al Nutri­tion Month. This year’s theme is ​“Per­son­al­ize Your Plate.” Ang­ie Zanger-Geisel­man, Nutri­tion Ser­vices Coor­di­na­tor and Reg­is­tered Dietit­ian with Quin­cy Med­ical Group (QMG), offers some tips to help you keep nutri­tion a priority.

Many of us find our­selves in front of a com­put­er, smart­phone, or oth­er dig­i­tal devices on a dai­ly basis. With the ongo­ing COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion, you may have relied on tech­nol­o­gy even more to pass the time or stay con­nect­ed with friends and family.

Flu sea­son has offi­cial­ly begun. Tak­ing steps to pro­tect your­self is impor­tant, espe­cial­ly as the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic continues.

You might be jug­gling more than usu­al these days. From work to fam­i­ly to keep­ing up with the world’s events, your mind may be on overdrive.

If you’re strug­gling to move past your wor­ry­ing thoughts or find your­self over­whelmed, prac­tic­ing mind­ful­ness may help. Mind­ful­ness is described as being active­ly present in the moment, with­out apply­ing val­ue judgments.

March is Nation­al Nutri­tion Month, and this year our well­ness chef has a chal­lenge. Every year Nutri­tion Month has a theme, and this year is eat­ing healthy bite-by-bite. This can mean eat­ing one more piece of fruit a day, look­ing more close­ly at labels, or in this case, eat­ing out less fre­quent­ly. Prepar­ing foods at home can not only help us to have bet­ter vari­ety, but also to eat foods with less sodi­um and sat­u­rat­ed fats.

BMI is a tool but not the end-all-be-all defin­ing fac­tor of our lives. BMI or ​“body mass index” is a mea­sure of someone’s weight in kilo­grams divid­ed by their height in meters squared. The num­ber this gives us is used to gauge if some­one is poten­tial­ly car­ry­ing excess fat for their size. BMI alone does not take into account dai­ly habits, mus­cle mass, water reten­tion, or a vari­ety of oth­er fac­tors. At the end of the day, this num­ber is, well, just a num­ber. What­ev­er your BMI is should not keep you awake at night. Instead of stress­ing about your BMI, I rec­om­mend focus­ing on behav­iors that can improve mobil­i­ty, ener­gy lev­els, flex­i­bil­i­ty, or nutri­tion status.

Today, it is no secret that oats are a health­ful break­fast option. Oats area deli­cious and packed full of fiber, iron, phos­pho­rus, and more! This whole-grain is ver­sa­tile and can be used to make oat­meal, home-made gra­nola bars, ​“ener­gy bites”, stuff­ing, and overnight oats. How­ev­er, there are many dif­fer­ent types of oats in the gro­cery store, and this can be con­fus­ing for some­one who has nev­er used oats before. Here are some tips on how to choose which oat is best for you and your cook­ing needs.

Some foods nat­u­ral­ly con­tain sug­ar, which is okay! Foods like fruit and milk nat­u­ral­ly have sug­ars that give them the taste we love. The thing is, although some foods nat­u­ral­ly con­tain sug­ar, they also con­tain nutri­ents like Vit­a­min A, Vit­a­min C, cal­ci­um, and more depend­ing on the item. We get ben­e­fi­cial nutri­ents when we con­sume these foods that out­weigh the fact that they con­tain some sugar.