This month we are focusing on something everyone would agree causes all sorts of problems and needs to be reduced or at least managed — stress. There are many studies showing that it can lead to a heart attack or stroke, upset your digestive system, and affect your brain. Further, it is just plain unpleasant. No one has ever been heard to say, “I’m so glad I am stressed!”
It is probably also safe to say that you and everyone you know have been stressed at one time or another. It’s a universal human reality, and it is especially prevalent in our complex, anxiety-ridden, contemporary American life. Stress gets a lot of ink in research studies, newsletters, magazines, and newspapers — which means this newsletter is no exception. Like almost every other piece, online or in print, April’s
Well Now will give you a useful list of things you can do to reduce and manage your stress.
But first we want to ask you to take a different look — a viewpoint that might surprise you and may be helpful. Begin with the article “Be patient with your stress,” and then go on to read the more conventional “Handling your stress” and the PDF “5 Things You Should Know About Stress.”
You will also find, as always, a humor section — jokes and cartoons — that will help you take stress a bit less seriously. This month’s insurance article asks you to think about the use of digital technology to monitor and improve health.
May the beauty of the changing seasons lift your spirits and relieve any stress you may be feeling.
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Your smartphone and your health
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According to the Pew Research Center, 95 percent of Americans have cellphones, and 77 percent have smartphones. That’s more than 250 million people with smartphones. This means that most of you reading this have one of these amazing pieces of digital technology in your purse or pocket, and chances are you have already been using it or thought about using it to monitor your health, whether that means using an app to count your steps, or logging in to a full-fledged healthcare app.
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Be patient with your stress
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It’s not stress, it’s how you think about stress that “stresses” you out. Does that paradoxical statement make sense? Consider this.
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Observe your stress. Be mindful
. Recognize that you may have to live with it or at least with some of it. Affirm that it is part of your life. Talk to yourself and remind yourself that you don’t need to be afraid. See your stress as an opportunity for growth. Regard it not as an enemy but as something that can help you move forward. When you have achieved this healthier attitude toward your stress, then
practice
the following, not in an anxious labor to eliminate stress, but in an earnest effort to care for yourself.
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5 things you should know about STRESS
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This one’s a real nail biter
A woman was so stressed that she was biting her fingernails all the way down to the quick. When she went to the doctor, he noticed all her fingernails were gone, and asked her why she was biting them. She told him it was because she was so stressed.
So, the doctor recommend she take a yoga class, telling her that this would really help reduce her stress and break her bad habit of biting her nails. She took his advice and went to the yoga class.
Six months later she was back in the doctor’s office for her regular checkup. He examined her fingers and exclaimed how good they looked because the nails had grown out fully. He asked if the yoga class had stopped her from biting her fingernails. She said, “Absolutely. But now I can reach my toenails, so I just bite them.”
Brain Puzzle: Crossing the bridge in the dark
Four people need to cross a bridge at night to get to a meeting. They have only one flashlight and 17 minutes to get there. The bridge must be crossed using the flashlight, and can only support two people at a time. The DOCTOR can make it across in one minute, the THERAPIST can make it across in two minutes, the GRAD STUDENT can make it across in five minutes, and it takes the RETIRED PROFESSOR 10 minutes to cross. How can they all make it to the meeting in time?”
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For your long-term care needs
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Brethren Insurance Services offers Long-Term Care Insurance all through the year.
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If you're interested in purchasing coverage, you should know that eligibility for benefits is determined by the inability to meet at least two of these six activities of daily living
—
bathing, eating, dressing, toileting, continence, or transferring. Cognitive impairment can also trigger benefits.
It's difficult to think about the fact that a debilitating condition or a disabling injury might leave you unable to care for yourself, or that when you reach your twilight years, the time will come when you will need some extra care. Long-term care insurance makes sure that you will get the care you need. It helps assure that the cost of your custodial care will not eat up your savings. Finally, and this is one of the best things about LTCI, it can help protect your children and other relatives from having to use their resources to care for you.
Brethren Insurance Services offers Long-Term Care Insurance for all members and employees of the Church of the Brethren and their family and friends; and also for employees of Church of the Brethren-affiliated agencies, organizations, colleges, and retirement communities and their families and friends.
If you are interested in obtaining this coverage, contact Brethren Insurance Services at
insurance@cobbt.org
or 800-746-1505 for a free, no-obligation proposal.
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Church of the Brethren Insurance Services provides the following products - dental, vision, basic life and accidental death & dismemberment, supplemental life and AD&D, dependent life and AD&D, long-term disability, short-term disability, voluntary accident insurance, and Medicare supplement for eligible Church of the Brethren employees.
Dental, vision, and Medicare supplement coverage may also be available for eligible retired Church of the Brethren employees.
For eligibility information, call Connie Sandman at 800-746-1505, ext. 3366, or contact your human resources representative.
Medical and ancillary plans (named above) may be available to Brethren-affiliated employer groups.
Long-Term Care Insurance is available for all members of the Church of the Brethren, their family and friends, and employees of Church of the Brethren-affiliated agencies, organizations, colleges, and retirement communities.
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A not-for-profit ministry of
Church of the Brethren Benefit Trust Inc.
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Contact Us
1505 Dundee Ave
Elgin, IL 60120
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