Feeling stressed, anxious, sad, or need to clear your brain? Here are a few of my favorite sites to make me smile and laugh (sometimes to the point of crying)!

• Need a card for an occasion so strange that Hallmark doesn’t even recognize it? SOMEECARDS.COM has it covered. Still can’t find what you are looking for….they even let you create your own.
• Ever feel gypped that you never find yourself in the middle of a flash mob? IMPROVEEVERYWHERE.COM brings silliness and joy to the serious folk of New York. The troupe is famous for their “No Pants Subway Ride“, “MP3 Experiments” and other fun events – check it out! CAUTION: it is my mission this summer to bring the “Black Tie Beach” event to Winnipeg….keep tuned in for details….  
• Like lists? Sometimes you just need to know the “26 Invaluable Life Lessons According to Sloths“. Be warned: you could spend a full weekend surfing through funny compilations on BUZZFEED.COM!

Now are you feeling a little better? That’s good!  🙂

Great‐West Life GroupNet™ 

Access to the online site for your group Health and Dental benefits information has never been easier with Great‐West Life’s GroupNet™ for Plan Members.

Available 24/7, this user friendly site provides the following:

• Online claim submission
• Sign up for direct deposit claim payments
• View and print your claim status and Explanation of Benefits (EOB) for the past 24 months. The EOB can be used to coordinate benefits with other insurance carriers.
• Create and print a summary of your claim history by patient and/or benefit.
• Complete and print personalized claim forms.
• Access to Great-West Life’s Health & Wellness Site

Sign up now at www.greatwestlife.com             

GroupNet™ Mobile

Information when you’re on the go from your Benefits Solutions People. Great-West Life’s GroupNet™ Mobile app lets you take GroupNet™ for Plan Members with you. You can download GroupNet™ Mobile to Android™, BlackBerry®, and iPhone.

Great-West’s GroupNet™ Mobile lets you:

• Submit claims online through Member eClaims
• Access personalized coverage information about benefits, claims and more – quickly and easily, any time
• View card information including: member ID, Drug and Global Medical Assistance
• Locate the nearest approved provider who has access to Provider eClaims, through a built-in GPS mapping tool

Member eClaims Submission

To use Member eClaims, you must be registered for GroupNet™ for Plan Members and signed up for Direct Deposit of claims payments.

How Member eClaims Works:

You will see the Submit Online Claims option once signed in to GroupNet™ for Plan Members. Claims can be submitted following these six easy steps:

1. Select Type of Claim
2. Select Provider when required
3. Select a Patient (yourself or family member)
4. Enter the Expense Details for the service received
5. Read and Agree to the ‘Terms and Conditions’ and the ‘Claim Summary and Consent’ sections
6. View or Print the Confirmation and Summary of your online claim

Once your claim has been adjudicated you will receive confirmation via an email notification or text message to your mobile phone.

Planning to fish this summer?  Travel Manitoba has a photo contest with 3 great prizes. You can enjoy your hobby, get great sun, enjoy a day or a camping trip! The first time I went fishing, it felt like I caught a whale. It turned  out to be a tiny little sun fish but that didn’t change my opinion of the battle!

Here is a great recipe from Canola Growers of Manitoba Be Well  e-newsletter for Pan Fried Pickerel fillets. HMMMMMMM

1/4 cup all-purpose flour (60 mL)
1/4 tsp salt (1 mL)
1/4 tsp pepper (1 mL)
2 lbs pickerel fillets (1 kg)
3 Tbsp canola oil (45 mL)
4 lemon wedges(4)

1. Combine flour, salt and pepper in a shallow dish. 2. Lightly coat one side of each fillet in flour mixture. Turn each fillet over and coat second side of each fillet. 3. Heat canola oil in large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. When oil is heated, fry the fillets for approximately 2-3 minutes on each side. 4. Garnish with lemon wedges and serve immediately.

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION:

RRC President Stephanie Forsyth, at the 2012 Welcome Party for Immigrant and International Students.

At Red River College, we value a healthy environment and express this through promotion of creativity, wellness, flexibility, safety and sustainable learning. RRC President Stephanie Forsyth is a strong proponent of health, wellness and life balance.

As she did last year, Stephanie recently provided some insight into her personal beliefs, attitudes and activities on the subject.

Who are some of the people in your life that you look up to as Wellness role models?

My partner. She is the epitome of health, placing a high priority on physical fitness, healthy eating and mental health.

Children often act as good wellness role models, due to their ability to play, take on new things, and laugh and enjoy themselves. Are there some lessons or experiences that you can draw from your own childhood, or from being with children when it comes to Wellness?

I have the gift of two elementary-aged children in my life who have been great in keeping me focused on taking time each day for play. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t spend at least 30 minutes playing football, baseball or road hockey, or some other active activity with them.

Wellness is sometimes broken up into physical, mental and spiritual aspects. How do you try to balance these areas in terms of your own personal wellness?

It can be pretty hard to balance and schedule physical, mental and spiritual fitness. My partner and kids remind me of the importance of wellness; I want to be around for the long term – for them and for myself.

I try to stick to a routine of physical fitness by engaging in some physical activity at least 30 minutes to an hour each day; generally that involves doing something with the kids. When we are not out doing a sport, we hit the community centre as a family – my partner and I are in the gym while the kids are in swimming lessons or enjoying the pool.

I also try to avoid the ‘grab and go’ meal approach. I keep a small stock of healthy snacks in my office, and focus on meals that give carbs and sugars a miss.

It’s easy to become stressed in my job, so it’s important to focus on mental and spiritual fitness. For me that comes in the form of talking and connecting with family and friends, and by taking time out for reflective practice – e.g. reviewing the events of the day and thinking about the lessons learned, ways to enhance my performance, as well as acknowledging the things achieved.

To do these jobs, you need to be grounded and have mentors or ‘thought-partners’ you can turn to.

I find that ‘grounding’ in the Indigenous view of the world, the values of which are almost universally held among Indigenous people. These are values of community, relationship, harmony, wholeness, respect, interconnectedness and reciprocity – reciprocity between people and the natural world (the Buddhists might say ‘mindfulness’), and the circular nature of life – the natural cycles that sustain all life.

This Indigenous view was taught to me by Elders and knowledge-keepers through conversations, ceremony and story-telling, and there are particular Indigenous people who have remained my guides and ‘thought-partners’ today.

Some people will seek “creative” activities as part of their Wellness mix, whether this be writing, photography, acting, gardening or storytelling. Are there any creative activities that help you maintain a sense of wellness?

I express my creativity in cooking and gardening. I enjoy cooking with fresh vegetables and herbs from the garden to use in dishes like lettuce wraps, salad rolls and pad thai.

How important do you think it is to set Wellness goals?

It’s very easy to get off track, to let health and wellness priorities fall to the wayside. It’s very easy to not put ourselves first a few times a day or a week.

I have found it important to set small attainable goals – for me that currently means eliminating carbs like bread and pasta from my diet, as well as all sugar (with the exception of course of dark chocolate!) and having meetings while walking about. As I spend most of my day engaged in meetings, either one-on-one or in small groups, I am striving to have more ‘walking and talking’ sessions when I am meeting with someone one-on-one.

Given how busy life is, do you have any strategies for “making time” for Wellness activities as opposed to “taking time”?

I schedule wellness times in my calendar and try to stick to them.

The Wellness Committee at RRC tries to foster a wellness culture on campus through the Wellness blo, and activities like the Wellness Walk-a-thon, the Rebel Run and the Chili Cup. In what ways can the College continue to build upon the Wellness culture on campus?

It’s good to see College staff engage with each other across the organization, as it helps build community and organizational health. Community engagement is critical to the health of an organization. It would be nice to see monthly events held, even informally. These help build awareness and understanding of each other as individuals, not just co-workers.

Building this sense of community is challenging, however, as we sometimes forget that organizations are ‘living’ ‘human systems’, not words or organizational charts on paper. Our emphasis needs to be on people and the relationships that we have to one another. Too often we get focused on tasks and timelines and the end products, and forget that the process of working together is often more important than the end goal. If we focus more on these relationships at work and how we are working together, I believe we will become a more compassionate College, and will exhibit even greater patience, kindness and understanding with one another. Read More →

It’s official, there is now an RRC team registered for the Color Me Rad run/walk on July 21! What is Color Me Rad? The website has a very “colorful” way to describe what it is….basically you run/walk 5km and throughout are attacked with color bombs. Really for no good reason, other than it’s silly and fun!

All proceeds from the race go to Camp Manitou, and everyone is a winner as this is a fun run/walk. Read More →

A Graduation Speech

Anyone who has signed up for DailyGood.org will have come across the Graduation Speech by Nipun Mehta, given at the May 2013 graduation at Harker School in California. If you haven’t read it, it is worth the time it takes to read. It’s inspiring in what seems at first to be a contradictory way. He introduces himself with good news and bad news. The good news is oh so brief while the bad news sounds rather hopeless at first. But Nipun keeps talking and offers some interesting solutions that he calls Keys. If you don’t want to read the whole speech, inspiring though it is, one thing worth looking at is the ServiceSpace web site, something he started about 10 years ago. It is about generosity – as Nipun says while paraphrasing the Dalai Lama, “It is in giving that we receive.”

Greater Good

When I think of personal wellness, just one of the aspects (there are plenty more) that comes to mind is related to feeling helpful and useful to others. For me being helpful doesn’t come only from empathy, it actually is selfish in a way – it feels good, it gives me a purpose, it allows me to believe that my activities and beliefs are meaningful.

If you are interested in the many aspects of living a Meaningful Life, go and explore the Greater Good site. It is chock-full of podcasts, videos, links, and printed information that will inspire, inform, and possibly lead you to even better wellness in your life.

Games, anyone?

There is a new type of game that sounds very intriguing and may well help players feel more connected to the world as a whole. I’ve never been a gamer of any kind but I may become one when I try some of the Games Aiming to Change the World. A couple of the game links just provide information about the game but most of the links take you right to the game where you can take on the challenge if you so choose.

If you look on the right side of the Games Aiming to Change the World page, there are links to related blog posts. Even if you’ve never been an instructor, you’ve been a student of one form or other. The blog post about Priming Your Brain for Academic Success covers some useful ideas whether you’re on the teaching side, the learning side or both sides of the academic world.

Irrational Decision Making

Speaking of how our brains work, apparently this rather important part of our bodies can trick us so well that when we think we are making a rational choice, it is anything but. A Behavioural economist, Dan Ariely, (a very humourous speaker, by the way) gave a TED talk (well, actually he did a study and wrote a book first) about just how irrational our decisions can be and why. Watch the TED talk video, listen to Dan Ariely, and laugh along with the audience. Decide what you think and then wonder if your brain is telling you the truth.

And more about our brains

What is the internet doing to our brains? A short video illustrating an interview with Nicholas Carr, the author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains will let you know (and it might worry you a bit.) The first 15 seconds of the video reminded me of when I first started venturing onto the internet back in the middle ages (Windows 3.1, I think). I remember having a great time looking for information on the internet but was constantly getting lost – as in losing track of what the heck I was looking for in the first place. It was a bit overwhelming. I can vividly remember my fleeting wish that I could just find what I needed in a book. My brain has since adjusted, thank goodness, or maybe not.

Some great reminders from Manitoba Health as we start to enjoy the heat.

Heat affects the body’s ability to regulate its temperature.  The body tries to keep a consistent temperature (about 37 C or 98.6 F) but prolonged exposure to heat can result in conditions such as dehydration, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.  Death can occur if the body’s temperature climbs too high.

High humidity reduces the body’s ability to cope with hot temperatures because less heat can be lost by perspiration.  People with chronic health conditions, older adults, those taking certain medications or people performing strenuous activity, homeless people, infants and young children are at increased risk for heat illness.

Be prepared to cope with the heat and remember to check the weather forecast.

Heat illnesses can be prevented by:

• drinking plenty of water or other liquids before feeling thirsty;
• avoiding too much sun and preventing sunburn;
• planning energetic outdoor activities for cooler parts of the day;
• finding a cool place to go;
• taking a cool bath or shower;
• checking on family members, neighbours and friends when it gets hot, especially older adults and people with chronic conditions;
• not leaving dependents or pets alone in closed vehicles or direct sunlight; and
• limiting alcohol consumption.

Read More →

Yes, we are finally getting some decent weather and we want to spend as much time as possible outdoors.   What’s holding us back?  In Manitoba, blacklegged ticks (deer ticks) may carry the Lyme disease bacteria.  Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that can be transmitted to people through the bite of blacklegged ticks (deer ticks) and western blacklegged ticks.  When a young tick feeds on an infected animal, it picks up a bacterium, normally carried by mice, squirrels, birds and other small animals.  You could show symptoms in three to 30 days if you are the tick’s next meal after it has ingested infected blood.  Health Canada estimates that about 10 per cent of blacklegged ticks in any infected area carry the bacterium which causes Lyme disease.

Adult male, nymph, adult female and larva of blacklegged ticks

Blacklegged ticks exist in three active stages:  Larva, nymph, and adult. Unfed larvae and nymphs are light in colour and very difficult to see.  Unfed adult female blacklegged ticks are approximately 3 to 5 mm in length; and are red and brown in colour.  Adult males are smaller than females and are uniformly brown in colour.

Read More →

Throughout the year, Red River College hands out various awards to faculty and staff for their hard work and dedication. The following are award winners who were recognized at events prior to Friday’s Gathering with the President.

Read More →

Working as a sports official, or referee, is a noisy job. In fact, a recent study suggests that referees who use whistles are more likely to suffer from symptoms of noise-induced hearing loss compared to people in a similar age group in the general population. Whistles commonly used by referees can be as loud as 106 decibels, and science tells us that regular exposure, even briefly, to sounds above 85 decibels can lead to permanent hearing loss. Nearly half of the referees who participated in the survey reported ringing in their ears after a game, which is a symptom of damage to sensitive inner ear sensory cells that can lead to noise-induced hearing loss. The findings were published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene.

Gordon B. Hughes, M.D., program director for clinical trials at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders at the National Institutes of Health, has first-person experience of the perils of loud whistles acting as a referee at club soccer matches. “Everyone on the field needs to hear the whistle, so I would blow it hard,” says Dr. Hughes. “No matter how brief the sound was, it would hurt my ears every time. That’s a warning that the sound is too loud and potentially harmful.”

So what can referees do to protect their hearing? Dr. Hughes suggests using “vented” ear molds. “They are custom-fitted to the ear canal and reduce sound by up to 25 decibels,” he says. “That reduction will let referees perform their duty while protecting their ears all day.”

Whistles aren’t the only things making loud noises at sporting events, however. Cheering fans, marching bands, or other signaling devices such as starter pistols, add to the cacophony. So, whether you’re a professional referee or a spectator, think about wearing hearing protectors to save yourself from hearing damage.

What do you do to protect your hearing? Molded vented plugs do work so you can enjoy the noise and excitment as well as protect your hearing. It is a Win Win!

Health Services