Health & Wellbeing

Dr Jo Coldron Tavyside Health Centre, Tavistock

Volunteering & helping others

Dr Jo Coldron explains how we can help others, and also benefit ourselves in the process.

It has been an intense few months for primary care at the forefront of the coronavirus vaccine roll-out. There have been many joyous moments and it’s been so wonderful to see, even briefly, so many of our patients again who have been isolating and shielding. I’m proud of and hugely thankful to all my colleagues, staff, and the band of volunteers, at Tavyside Health Centre stepping up again and again to spend their weekends helping vaccinate our patients; and I know this is replicated in so many GP surgeries, hospitals and vaccination centres around the country. Although these shifts are long and hard work on top of the day job of continuing to provide the same medical care to the community as we always have, they feel invigorating; the communal way of working side by side to attain a clear and important goal allows relationships to flourish in a different way to the more isolated, standard working day. Be certain that every thank you from the patients is keenly felt and hugely appreciated by the whole team. We continue to have many enquiries about how people can help us and the community with the vaccination drive, which although going extremely well, is still only in its early stages – a marathon, not a sprint. This is what we are advising people: If you are a registered health care professional who is currently or was recently involved in vaccinating as part of your job you may be able to help your GP practice directly after a few hours of covid vaccine specific training. If you aren’t an experienced vaccinator but wish to access training the best route at present is to contact Together for Devon who are coordinating the training and registering of volunteers at togetherfordevon.uk/join-the-vaccine-team. Surgeries may also need help with non-medical roles however, and it is worth contacting them if you feel you may have something to offer. Despite the enormity of the task there are only limited ways to help with the vaccination program but there are so many other roles that you can volunteer for to help the NHS and our patients, for example delivering prescriptions, driving people to appointments, talking to people on the phone and checking if they are all right. To find out more about these roles go to the NHS Volunteer Responders website at nhsvolunteerresponders.org.uk/. You can also register yourself, or someone you know, for support on the same link or by phoning 0808 196 3646. This pandemic and the required lockdowns have hugely impacted many in our wider community and it will require all our combined skills and energy to recover from this. If you want to help but don’t quite know where to start looking, try the West Devon Borough Council or Plymouth City Council websites or the NCVO site at ncvo.org.uk/ ncvo-volunteering/i-want-to-volunteer. This desire to help people isn’t just altruistic - it’s well recognised that acts of kindness and giving are good for us and actually make us healthier. Actively taking a moment to focus on someone else and do something positive for them can decrease our stress, improve our self-esteem and happiness, decrease our isolation, make us more active and improve our physical health. It is absolutely a win-win situation. These acts of kindness can take the form of volunteering time and skills to build back our communities, but they don’t have to be that grand. For those with time constraints or their own health limitations these acts of kindness can be smaller, but no less powerful. Perhaps checking in on an elderly and isolated neighbour, or calling a friend to see how they’re doing. To make these acts of kindness as powerful for your health as possible think about what you enjoy, and try and incorporate that into your deeds. If you love films pick a great DVD and send it to a friend to watch; if you love cycling accompany a neighbour on a ride; if you love cats search for the cutest cat picture to send to your friend to make them smile – the possibilities are endless because they are personal to each of us.

There are some really lovely ideas about how to spread kindness at the following website www.mentalhealth.org. uk. Have a look at the pages ‘Acts of kindness during the coronavirus outbreak’ and their ‘Kindness matters guide’.

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Motivate for success!

Have you ever dreamed of running a marathon? How about climbing Kilimanjaro or doing the Three Peaks Challenge? Have you set ambitious plans to get fitter and lose a few pounds, then after a few weeks in the gym, felt unrewarded, or unsure if you are making the fitness gains that you wanted? Goals are great, and having something to aim for in life and in fitness can be the motivation that we need to make the changes that we want to see in ourselves. When it comes to fitness, every year people set themselves goals and challenges with the aim of keeping themselves motivated, but unless these are really strong and meaningful, and their training is purposeful and intentional, and they are focused and dedicated in their training, it is highly unlikely they will achieve them. How do we create meaningful goals? And then how do we go about crafting a training programme for them, which limits the risk of dropping out? Try this - ask yourself some questions (and be honest). What do you want? Do you want to look better? Not breathe so hard walking up a hill? Complete a triathlon? Climb a mountain? Or keep just up with the kids? Think about your dreams as a child - what sort of person did you want to be? Answering some of these questions starts to make your goals meaningful. Achieving any goal is about maintaining motivation. So, making your goals strong, committing personally to them and thinking what it means to you to achieve them, will ensure that when things get tough or you feel that you’re not getting close to your goal, you will have the resilience to get through and keep pushing forwards. Once you have a meaningful goal you will need to then break it down into training aims. Don’t go mad and have multiple goals going on at the same time! Pick one as you will never achieve all of them; like juggling balls, you can only hold so many before you drop them all. Training aims outline the next stage of designing a training programme, based on the real components of your goal, for example there is no point doing lots of heavy weight training if your goal involves running a long distance (you will need to do some, but you mainly need to run!). This is what we mean by purposeful and intentional training, training that is right and incremental, and helps you build gradually to your training goals.

The last component of success is down to you - your levels of commitment and dedication to the training, your resilience to keep going (even if your brain is trying to tell you to quit) and your real desire to achieve your goals. So, set yourself strong and meaningful goals, design and undertake training that is purposeful and intentional, and be dedicated and focused to keep with it!

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With over 20 years’ experience training elite sports performers, polar adventurers, tactical athletes, first time gym goers, young people and adventure sports participants, James offers goal orientated and professional personal fitness coaching in the Tavistock, Plymouth and Dartmoor areas, as well as online programming and coaching options through his Venture Beyond Brand. Visit www.james-dyer.org or contact 07896091723 or info@james-dyer.org

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HELP THE HELP THE HELP THE FIGHT AGAINST FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19 FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19 COVID-19

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Or Or Or aged 18-64 and aged 18-64 and aged 18-64 and experiencing experiencing experiencing shortness of shortness of shortness of breath as part breath as part breath as part of COVID-19 of COVID-19 of COVID-19 illness illness illness Or aged 18-64 with certain underlying health Or aged 18-64 with certain underlying health Or aged 18-64 with certain underlying health conditions such as: conditions such as: conditions such as:High blood pressure High blood pressure Stroke or Stroke or High blood pressure and/ or heart and/ or heart disease and/ or heart disease Stroke or neurological neurological problems neurological problems disease Known Known problemsLiver Liver

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You could be eligible to join the PRINCIPLE trial and help the fight against COVID-19 You could be eligible to join the PRINCIPLE trial and help the fight against COVID-19 You could be eligible to join the PRINCIPLE trial and help the fight against COVID-19 The PRINCIPLE trial aims to find treatments that improve symptoms and reduce hospital The PRINCIPLE trial aims to find treatments that improve symptoms and reduce hospital The PRINCIPLE trial aims to find treatments that improve symptoms and reduce hospital admission for people with COVID-19 admission for people with COVID-19 admission for people with COVID-19

To find out more or register for the study, To find out more or register for the study, To find out more or register for the study, please visit www.principletrial.orgplease visit www.principletrial.org please visit www.principletrial.org

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Join the PRINCIPLE treatment trial if you have Covid-19 symptoms

Adult residents in Devon with typical Covid-19 symptoms are being urged to join the national priority PRINCIPLE trial of treatments for recovery at home. Led by University of Oxford researchers, the Platform Randomised trial of INterventions against Covid-19 In older peoPLE (PRINCIPLE) trial is investigating treatments for early-stage Covid-19 that can reduce overall recovery time and the burden of symptoms - and prevent the need for hospital admission. Previously, only adults aged 50 or over and at most risk of complications from the illness were eligible to join the PRINCIPLE trial. With the nationwide vaccine programme continuing at pace in vulnerable adults, and the remaining urgent need for evidence-based treatments for recovery at home, then expanding parts of the trial to adults aged under 50 will provide new insights into whether treatments can help those at greater risk of severe Covid-19 illness. The trial now includes participants with suspected or confirmed Covid-19 - either aged 18-64 with shortness of breath from the illness, or certain underlying health conditions that put them at risk of severe illness, or those aged over 65. Since launching in March 2020, PRINCIPLE has so far recruited more than 4,470 volunteers from across the UK, making it the largest trial of Covid-19 treatments to take place in community settings. This includes almost 200 from across the South West. The PRINCIPLE trial has so far determined that the antibiotics azithromycin and doxycycline are not effective treatments during the early stages of Covid-19. The trial continues to investigate budesonide, an inhaled corticosteroid, in people aged over 50; and it most recently added colchicine for participants aged 18+, an inexpensive anti-inflammatory drug widely used in the UK for many years as a treatment for acute gout. The research team is appealing for people with suspected or confirmed coronavirus symptoms to join the trial either online, over the telephone or via their GP practice. The trial is entirely remote, meaning face-to-face visits with the trial team in Oxford are not needed.

Professor Michael Gibbons, clinical director for the Clinical Research Network South West Peninsula, said: “We are asking for eligible volunteers aged over 18 from all across the South West to join the PRINCIPLE trial when they first experience Covid-19 symptoms, and help in the search for potential treatments. With Covid-19 still circulating in the community, and little known about the effect of new viral variants on younger adults, it is vital that we seize this window of opportunity to generate high-quality evidence to determine which treatments work, and which don’t.”

PRINCIPLE is funded by a grant to the University of Oxford from UK Research and Innovation and the Department of Health and Social Care through the National Institute for Health Research as part of the UK Government’s rapid research response fund.

To find out more about how to join the study, visit www.principletrial.org or call 0800 138 0880.

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