Mark Your Calendar!

Sleep<<page 

Sleep deprivation can significantly tax the body. We need adequate rest so our cells can recharge for the next day. Lack of sleep can carry negative consequences cognitively, emotionally, and physically. The CDC recommends we follow these sleep guidelines:

“SPRING INTO WELLNESS” HEALTH FAIR

Newborns: 14–17 hours

Infants: 12–15 hours toddlers: 11–14 hours

Preschoolers: 10–13 hours

School-aged children: 9–11 hours

Come to Milwaukee Catholic Home for our annual “Spring into Wellness” Health Fair on Thursday, March 16th from 10 am - 3 pm at 2462 N. Prospect Avenue. The event includes free health screenings such as blood pressure checks, diabetes testing, cholesterol pre-screenings, and eye exams, as well as massages, reiki, door and raffle prizes, goodie bags, and more! Contact Linda Cardinale at 414.220.3216 or lcardinale@milwaukeecatholichome.org to learn more.

Teenagers: 8–10 hours

Adults: 7–9 hours

Older adults (65 and over): 7–8 hours

Supplementation

Taking supplements such as a daily multivitamin can be a good way to consume key nutrients that your body needs. While such supplements can benefit the immune system and your overall health, it is always wise to speak with a doctor before incorporating them into a daily regimen.

Takeaways

Our immune system is our best friend when it comes to fighting disease and maintaining overall health. We can help it in its efforts by living a more balanced lifestyle, eating healthy foods, exercising daily, and getting enough sleep. At Total Health and Fitness, we create custom nutrition and fitness plans that help individuals young and old adopt healthy, sustainable habits for a happier body and mind. The key to health is within your reach.

Building Up the Natural Immune System

For many of us, this is the first time we have seen such widespread concern over illness and the proposed measures to combat it— and the return to school for kids throughout the country doesn’t exactly help matters. While we can take precautions to avoid contracting disease, once it enters our bodies, it’s our own immune system that is left to fight the battle. When such a battle ensues, we want our internal army to have all the reinforcements it needs.

These are great tools to raise awareness. Family stories help us learn about where we come from, how we see ourselves in the world, and how these views may not serve us in healthy ways. They also offer an opportunity: family, friends and members of our communities may share insights and information—and perspectives— that we haven’t considered.

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Assisted Living

Checking in with others can give us new insights on old stories. Storytelling, or what I’ll call “re-storying”, can be a creative way to challenge how generational trauma affects us—or offers an opportunity to see things in a new light—a step towards healing.

It’s up to each of us to take that first step. A growing acceptance to speak out about generational trauma—on screen, in families and in community—can lead to new conversations about the ways that history impacts us today. Once we understand how the past shows up in our lives, we must change our stories to undo the patterns we’ve learned.

Five keys to breaking the pattern:

Assisted living provides a great alternative for seniors who need some additional help with medication, grooming, dressing, eating, etc. Assisted living has two options including; Residential Care Apartment Communities (RCAC), which allows seniors to live in their own apartment, but only offers 28 hours of care, and CommunityBased Residential Care Facility or CBRF. This type of community is an ideal living option for seniors who need more assistance that what can be provided by an RCAC, offering care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Assisted living communities tend to offer more of a residential, home-like environment, as well as provide meals, social activities, housekeeping and transportation.

1.Change your own story. How has your own story been impacted by the traumas of your family’s past? Identify the patterns that show up in your life.

Specialized Care Community

2.Broaden your perspective. Once you see how you’ve been conditioned to act or respond based on your family history, you might ask yourself: is this behavior working for me in the present? Is that story still true for me today?

3.Reflect on their stories. If you have living parents and grandparents, talk to them about their childhood. Poverty, war, abuse and addiction may have made their lives unsafe. What factors impacted them?

There are some CBRFs that specialize in caring for one kind of illness. One of the most common is an Alzheimer’s or memory impairment care community. In specialized assisted living communities, the environment, staff and programming is specifically designed to meet the unique needs of those individuals who are living there. Like a non-specialized assisted living community, a specialized care community also provides 24/7 care, social programming, meals, housekeeping and transportation are generally provided.

Nursing Home

Conversely, if there’s no one in the family you can talk to, dig into history. Are there family albums to look at? Oral histories from community members? Public records that could help you understand the culture of the time and place they grew up in?

4.Embody empathy. Don’t blame them. Consider how you would have acted in their situations and how their woundedness might have contributed to their actions.

This is probably the most commonly known, but often confused type of senior living option. It’s also one of the only options that used to be available to seniors. Nursing homes provide 24-hour skilled nursing services for seniors who need rehabilitation after a surgery, or require care for issues like feeding tubes. The levels of hospitality services in nursing homes vary greatly depending on their targeted clientele.

5.Speak your truth with kindness. If you choose to share what you’re learning as a new story with others in the family, do it in a way that doesn’t villainize or shame. Recognize everyone was doing the best they could with the information they had at the time.

Armed with information, insights and understanding, you may be the one to break the family cycle and begin a new story of healing—leaving not pain, but love in its wake.

Whether you’re looking to down-size your home or a community to meet the needs of an aging parent, there is a senior living community to meet your needs. Being prepared and understanding the options available will help you to choose what type of senior living community is best for you or your loved one.

About the author Robin Stevens Payes is the author of four novels for middle grade to YA readers. She offers workshops on storytelling and is in the process of launching a company that focuses on relationship solutions for mothers and their teen daughters.

Byline: Jan Rupnick is the director of public relations for CRL Senior Living Communities. CRL owns and operates state-of-the-art senior care residences that deliver the highest quality, cutting-edge level of care in specially designed therapeutic environments. The company meets the needs of seniors with independent living, assisted living and Alzheimer’s/dementia care communities.