I can’t believe we’re in the final month of 2024! We are inundated with media messaging to buy goods and gifts for the approaching holiday season and combined with political unrest worldwide, I find it too much! This month, I am winding down, taking time to clear out excess stuff in my house, work and head to rethink my focus for 2025!
What’s happening in this Newsletter:
Article: Utilizing Social Activity Resources for Your Wellbeing
Nutrition: Discovering Phytonutrients To Get You Through Holiday Indulgences
Recipe: Phytonutrient Heaven Cake to Celebrate with family and friends
Weekly Sessions: Practice Together this week Tuesday and Somatic movement on Wednesday at 10am.
Article: UTILIZING SOCIAL ACTIVITY RESOURCES FOR YOUR WELLBEING
Health and well-being are linked!
There are many things that affect our health, It’s more than a just clinical diagnosis. It can also include non-medical concerns that will be impacting your health.
Non-medical concerns are associated with your wellbeing that influence health outcomes such as loneliness, isolation, housing, income or discrimination. They will include the conditions in which you live, grow, work, worship, and age.
How you engage in the world is of part of your health and wellbeing.
I am one supportive resource that can help you with the wellbeing part of your health.
I offer one-on-one or group activities. They include mindfulness-based stress reduction -meditation, movement, nutrition, art-making, and walking. I also have many other skills in the arts and community engagement activities that I worked at for over 30 years.
Another name for it is Social Prescribing! It is prescribed by doctors, nurses and other health professionals.
Social prescribing is a structured way of connecting people with a range of local, non-clinical services to engage in social activities that serves the whole person for better health and wellbeing.
Health practitioners work with people to help them rediscover their sense of purpose, their sense of connection in the community. This is most prominent with seniors, people who don’t have access to proper healthcare or newcomers.
It’s been happening in the U.K. for many years and its impact of social prescribing shows fewer visits to emergency hospitals and visits to the doctor. Research has also shown that people around the world regularly consult doctors for problems that are primarily non-medical. Canada is no exception.
Social Prescribing has steadily gained traction over the past decade mostly since the pandemic. It’s now used in dozens of countries, including Canada.
It could save the health system money when a doctor can discern that the issue is not medical and more wellbeing, there’s now an option. Patients are less likely to return to see a doctor over-and-over again for non-medical needs when they can be elsewhere.
In 2019, Ontario began piloting 11 community health centers for non-medical interventions and tracked their impact. The results continue to be highly successful.
Listen to an interview on CBC about a month ago about social prescribing.
Check out my weekly sessions in Practice Together, or in presentations topics, workshops, group programs or nutrition counselling. My bi-weekly blog post and articles also reflect healthy aging topics and activities. Read more about me here.
If you have connections, I’d appreciate referring me to community centres, YMCA’s, health centres, yoga and Pilates locations and with doctors, nurses, other health practitioners to share my skills and passion for nurturing people’s better wellbeing.
Nutrition: DISCOVERING PHYTONUTRIENTS TO GET THROUGH HOLIDAY INDULGENCES
The holidays are coming up and it’s an exciting time of year for celebration!
Do you get so wrapped up in the festivities that you want to “throw caution to the wind”, letting yourself go and overindulging in rich foods because you don’t eat them any other time of year? Why not partake in late night celebrations with family and friends. It’s a special time of year and you shouldn’t feel guilty!
Perhaps the rest of the year you are on a schedule or set rules for yourself “to be good” for whatever that means to you! Can you get off that holiday roller coaster in the new year and reset your inner system?
Coping with the holiday season for anyone can cause stress and it does play a major factor in triggering emotions, sapping your energy and distracting you from your goals.
One way to keep yourself focused on your healthy lifestyle is thinking about phytonutrients!
Phytonutrients are the nutrients in fruits and vegetables that give you energy, build muscle to keep moving, make your hair and nails look good and much, much more….
You were likely told that fruits and vegetables are good for you and that you don’t eat enough of them. Do you know why? Vegetables and fruits are loaded with flavonoids and bioflavonoids part of the family of phytonutrients.
It became my personal goal many years ago to be the vegetable go-to-person when it came to bringing a dish for potlucks, holidays or special events. I wanted to explore how to make vegetables taste good and be a focus at a table.
Vegetables and fruits contain beautiful colours, textures, and offer a wealth of good health for you. They are made up of Bioflavonoids and Flavonoids.
Bioflavonoids are in all fresh whole foods, that are dense in nutrients that keep us functioning and support our immune system. There are also know as “Vitamin P”.
Flavonoids are concentrated in the skins and outer portions of fruits and vegetables and are nutrient-rich to consume. Flavonoids are from a large family of over 5,000 polyphenol, plant compounds that carry out key functions in plants, such as attracting pollinating insects, fighting environmental stresses and modulating cell growth. For humans, they impact the body in multiple ways specially to regulate cell signaling.
Some other facts:
• Fresh fruits and vegetables are the best sources of flavonoids and bioflavonoids.
• The more colorful a food item is, the richer it is in flavonoids.
Colour is so essential to your health! Adding a variety of colourful foods on your plate each meal is super healthy!
• Bioflavonoids are also found in herbs, spices, beans, nuts, chocolate, seeds, tea and wine.
• Flavonoids are shown to exhibit anti-inflammatory, anti-thrombogenic, anti-diabetic, anti-cancer and neuroprotective activities.
• Flavonoids are best absorbed in their raw forms.
• They’ve specifically known to help prevent and naturally treat varicose veins, hemorrhoids, cardiovascular problems, hepatitis, bruises, cold sores, allergies, hypertension and more.
• Fresh foods are the healthiest and safest way to obtain bioflavonoids from dietary sources rather than supplements.
• Bioflavonoids have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, can naturally boost the immune system. A 2022 editorial published in Frontiers in Immunology relayed that “flavonoids impact immune responses to pathogens and other antigens, regulate intestinal mucosal immune responses, and modulate anti-tumor immunity”.
• Types of phytonutrients are identified by their colour such as carotenoids, anthocyanidins, flavonoids, polyphenols, indoles, lignans and isoflavones to names a few and each provide enormous health benefits.
When you look at the bigger picture of your health, its not so difficult.
Download this chart of phytonutrients offers a breakdown of benefits with definitions:
BE THE ONE WHO BRINGS A BEAUTIFUL, COLOURFUL AND VIBRANT VEGETABLE or FRUIT DISH TO YOUR HOLIDAY EVENT!
Recipe: PHYTONUTRIENT HEAVEN CAKE or BERRY VOLCANO CAKE WITH WHITE CHOCOLATE SAUCE (from My New Roots)
This cake signifies the beauty of phytonutrients, colourful, full of textures, delicious, rich, and good for you! Create this dessert as a centrepiece for your holiday event or a special occasion serving it to family and friends.
I love this simple lemon cake loaded on top, surrounded with the varied textures and colours of berry fruit and their luscious flavours. The sauce, is made with a rich cacao butter and hemp seeds that gives it a silky topping. Be creative on how you dress it up and maybe add another sauces such as Strawberry Date Sauce or a Blueberry Ginger (
I mentioned above, the many types of phytonutrients identified by their colour such as carotenoids, anthocyanidins, flavonoids, polyphenols, indoles, lignans and isoflavones to name a few and each provide enormous health benefits. Fresh fruits and vegetables are the best sources of flavonoids and bioflavonoids .The more colorful a food item is, the richer it is in flavonoids.
Get the recipe and enjoy!
Weekly Sessions: THIS WEEK PRACTICE TOGETHER on Tuesday and Somatics movement on Wednesday at 10am
This week, join us for Practice Together on Tuesdays at 6 pm and Wednesday at 10 am.
Sitting all day long the body gets stiff and grumpy. After a busy day when the mind is overactive and the body is itching to move is a good time to apply gentle movement and get the heart pumping and body stimulated before you settle down for the evening. Becoming aware of your breath while moving, slows down the heart rate, calms the mind and regulates the nervous system. Gentle movement releases tension in the joints and body. Try sitting in stillness and relaxing into the experience of meditation.
On Tuesdays, for the first 25 minutes, we practice qigong movement sitting and standing followed by a meditation for 25 minutes.
Qigong is an ancient health practice that originated in China some 3000+ years ago. It includes slow, graceful, movements synchronized with the breath to relax the mind into a calm state. It also helps to improve mental focus and prevents as well as treats ill health and disease.
This week on Wednesday we practice Somatic movement to release stress from the body and improve posture, alignment and functionality (from injury, stress or overuse). You can read more about somatic movement here
Access the calendars here to register for this week’s sessions:
• Mindful Tuesdays at 6:00 pm
• Somatic Movement on Wednesday, at 10:00am
You’re first visit is FREE!
We meet virtually on zoom so you can join us from wherever you are!
To register for any of the sessions, click on the date you want, add your email and you will receive an email confirmation with the zoom link. It can also be copied into your calendar.
Pay what you can or join the calm membership and take as many classes as you wish for $35/month (meditation or somatic movement).
I look forward to sharing these practices and events together!
Enjoy your time with family and friends and a Happy and Healthy Holiday season for you !
My best in health,
