News

By Elizabeth Harrison, Grace Cottage Health Coach
as originally appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer’s Graceful Health column, April 7, 2017

You probably know already that too much stress can make you sick. Chronic stress puts a tremendous load on our bodies, increasing our risk of getting a whole host of diseases, including high blood pressure, diabetes, and digestive troubles, to name a few.

And no doubt, you have direct experience with stress. We all lead busy lives, and it can be challenging to take time for self-care. It’s important, though, and I would like to offer a few simple stress reduction techniques that can make a huge difference. None of these are time-consuming or costly, and they don’t require any special equipment.

By Dr. Maurice Geurts, Grace Cottage Family Health

February is the month of Valentine’s Day, when we focus on emotions of the heart. February is also American Heart Month, a time when we are encouraged to consider the mechanics of this important organ.

Fortunately, most of the time, our hearts do their work silently and reliably, without any effort on our part. We shouldn’t take them for granted, though. Our hearts do need our attention, as certain lifestyle behaviors do often lead to malfunction.

The most common disease of the heart is the one over which we have the most control.

By Jorda Daigneault, Grace Cottage Family Health Nurse Practitioner

Think you can’t run a 5K? You’re not alone. And yet, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.

Take, for example, this story from the home page of the “Couch to 5K” website:

“With the help of the Couch to 5K program, in less than seven months, I went from a 47-year-old, 104kg, 30 cigarettes a day sort of guy, to an 82kg, 0 cigarettes, running 45 to 50 kilometers a week sort of guy. Ten months after finishing C25K I completed my first marathon. Since then I have run another 5 marathons, as well as 9 ultra-marathons including three over 100km.”

Maybe you think this is all hype, some marketer’s made-up story to sell the program. I know otherwise—because I’m a success story too.