Sports... Damar Hamlin of the Buffalo Bills has been cleared to play Football

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, just four months after collapsing on the field as a result of cardiac arrest during a Monday night football game, has now been fully cleared to play. The NFL star is not wasting any time preparing for next season.

Damar, who is 25 years old, has been working out in the offseason at the Buffalo Bills' practice facility this past week.

During a recent press conference, Damar said that he is just thankful to be alive.

"The wow moment is every day just to be able to wake up and take a deep breath and live a peaceful life, to have a family, to have people around me that love me and that care about me and for those people to still have me in their lives, they almost lost me, I died on national TV in front of the whole world. The biggest blessing of it all is for me to still have my people and my people to still have me."

Right after Damar died on live TV during a football game, both teams at the time, the Buffalo Bills and the Cincinnati Bengals knelt on their knees and began to pray for him, even some sportcasters.

After this terrible event happened during the game, it started days of continuous prayer that was public for the whole world to watch, and the prayers were answered as Damar now has made a full recovery.

Buffalo Bills' General Manager, Brandon Beane, says that Damar is now in a real good head space; his mind is clear and totally focused on football. This will make his return to the game exciting.

All eyes will be on the Buffalo Bills' safety this fall as he goes into training camp. He and the Bills will try to put this behind them and focus on the upcoming season, as they are still one of the Super Bowl favorites.

This just goes to show what prayer can do for you and just how powerful prayer is when the body of Christ comes together as one and prays together to our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Recipe

• 1 ½ c whole wheat Flour • ½ c Flour • ½ c packed br. Sugar

• ½ tsp Salt • 1 tbsp b. Powder • 2 tsp b. Soda

• 2 tsp Cinnamon • ½ tsp Ginger

• ¾ c unsweetened Applesauce • ½ c canola Oil • 1 tbsp vanilla Extract

• 2 c grated Carrot (3 med) • ½ c Raisins • ½ c flaked Coconut

• ½ c chopped Walnuts

• Preheat oven to 400 deg; Spray 12 muffin tins with baking spray

• In large bowl, add first 8 ingredients; whisk well

• Add in next 3 ingredients; whisk just until combined

• Fold in last 4 ingredients; stir until combined.

• Divide batter into muffin tins

• Bake at 400 deg for 10 min, reduce to heat to 350 deg and bake for another 10 min.

• Cool in pan for 5 min.

Are you Stressed Out? Here are 7 ways to help you Relax and Protect Your Health

Itreally doesn't matter what we may be worried about, it could be the cost of living, or the disappointments in life, work, home, negative thoughts, the state of the world today. Whatever it may be, stress can prove to be very toxic to our bodies and our minds.

Stress activates a potent combination of hormones that impacts us, like our heart rate, digestion, and fat storage. Some medical research progressively points to bad health triggered by chronic, continued stress, such as risk of obesity, heart disease, depression, dementia and diabetes. Psychologist Elissa Epel, Ph.D. said, "We're all under too much stress whether we notice it or not."

Dr. Epel has researched on how stress can damage our bodies; she says it goes on down to the cellular level. Stress in the body triggers a chain reaction in the human body; this can shorten the telomeres, the protective caps on the ends of our chromosomes. The shortening of the telomeres often signal an earlier start of disease and death. But the good news is things can be turned around before the telomeres start to shorten. In Dr. Epel's book, "The Stress Prescription," She recommends these seven things we can do to reduce stress in our lives:

1. Embrace Uncertainty: Dr. Epel, says, "How much can you relax if you don't know what will happen tomorrow or if you don't know how plans will go later? Because it turns out, when we're intolerant of uncertainty, we're much more vulnerable to anxiety and depression when stressful things happen."

Research that was done during the COVID 19 pandemic showed us that people who said they were okay with the uncertainty of what would happen, people who said that they were okay even if they didn't know how the virus would end, they all showed that their stress was much less than those who weren't. Dr. Epel said, "We all have different levels with how comfortable we are with uncertainty, about the future, and we like to think that we control things a lot more than we do."

Dr. Epel recommends that we stop worrying about what will happen tomorrow, and start focusing on today. She said, "Our brain is not really geared to be worrying about such big things that are in the future. We really just want to worry about what's right in front of us."

This is what Jesus Christ said for us to do in Matthew 6:25: "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?" He also said in Matthew 6:34: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

2. Let God have What You Can't Control: Dr. Epel referred to the Serenity Prayer that helps with this practice. The prayer says, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."

This prayer is credited to an American theologist, Reinhold Niebuhr. It was a sermon that was read at the Heath Evangelical Union Church in Massachusetts in 1932, and it is part of many 12-step programs. Dr. Epel said, "That prayer has so much wisdom and that's why it sticks around."

3. Find Excitement in Challenges: Stress can be put under control when we start changing our feelings of fear to feelings of being strong. That involves changing our thoughts. One thing you can do is, rather than thinking, "This is so stressful, I hate this feeling," change your thought to "This is exciting! I can appreciate this feeling!" Also replace negative thoughts like, "If I don't pull this off, everything will be ruined," with, "I can only do my best, everything else is out of my control."

When we face challenges in the future, it will help to just relax and remember past victories and start believing you will be able to rise above all the current challenges. Dr. Epel says, "Emphasize your resources and what you can do and how you can overcome the demand."

4. Metabolize Body Stress: There are certain things that we can do that can help the body train for flexibility. Dr. Epel suggests practicing "hormetic stress," this induces short, repeated bursts of acute stress; this kind of stress you can easily and naturally recover from. These exercises, especially the high intensity training (HIIT), a blast of cold water for anywhere from 15 seconds to one minute at the end of a shower, and intense heart, such as sitting and relaxing in a hot sauna for around a half an hour. Dr. Epel said, "these things help us stress better by not having an over activated stress response."

5. Immerse Yourself in Nature: Staying away from computers and phones and their connections to the world that can instantly get rid of stress.

Pulling the plug on our computers and phones from our everyday lives and going on a trip, ocean, woods, down by the river and just enjoy nature and the beauty of the world can really help us reduce our blood pressure and anxieties. We can also make and design our own refuge, haven in our own homes that can achieve the same results. They can include a prayer closet; we can get away from the everyday stuff and just focus on the things that really matter, including God. Dr. Epel says, "I believe prayer can do this too. If we can develop spiritual urgency, not wait until we get sick and feel spiritual urgency, but actually now. Realize the miracle of life, the fragility of life."

6. Experience Deep Rest: Deep rest includes slowing our normal breathing so more oxygen will cross the area between our lungs and blood vessels, which causes nitric oxide levels to start rising; this causes blood vessels to expand, which lets blood and oxygen travel much quicker through the body. This process will cause both our blood pressure and our heart rate to go down, which will help our stress levels to drop.

Dr. Epel suggests that we get a good sleep every night, and during the day, we should be practicing breathing exercises, such as inhaling slowly through the nose with mouth closed very deeply, so the ribs expand to the sides, and then slowly exhale through our mouth.

7. Create Bliss

Bookends: This means starting and finishing every day by feeling joy. This can be fulfilled by getting up every day with a sense of thankfulness and thinking about what we are so looking forward to that day. Then, at the end of every day, think about all the things you are thankful for and focus on all the positives that happened during the day.

Also, make an effort to see people. Dr. Epel, says, "That is one of the ways we cope with the big stressors especially well, is really through relationships, supportive, relationships. That includes people we don't even know. Kind acts to strangers, in one study, had beautiful effects on gene expression for inflammation."