Seminar offers advice for maintaining balance

Eating right and losing weight, lowering stress levels, battling depression -- these are just a few aspects of life that many people deal with on a daily basis and the main focus of "Dancing Through Life: Balancing Work and Personal Life," a community seminar conducted Tuesday evening at Mercy Health Center in Fort Scott.

During the seminar, area health care professionals offered tips to about 30 local men and women for achieving a well-balanced life. The seminar was the first of four quarterly meetings scheduled over the next year as part of The Body, Mind and Spirit mini-series planned by Mercy officials.

The programs, including the Tuesday seminar, are aimed at providing valuable information to people of all ages who live in a stressful, multi-tasking society. There are four primary components to the mini-series: emotional health, physical health, nutritional health and spiritual health.

A different health care professional presented each component of the Tuesday seminar. Audience members were also given literature explaining how to make proper shopping, cooking and food choices.

Mercy Physician Group family practitioner Roxanne Jones talked to the audience about the ways stress and battling depression can affect a person's daily life.

"Stress impacts our lives in many different ways," Jones said.

There are both physical and emotional forms of stress that people deal with, she said. Physical symptoms include decreased energy and loss of appetite, while frustration, irritability and anxiety are just a few of the emotional symptoms that people can encounter. Sometimes, stress affects not only the person, but those people around the person, as well, Jones said.

"Friends, family -- it's all encompassing," she said.

Depression, a physical illness related to a chemical imbalance in the brain, affects about two out of every 10 people, Jones said. Some of the physical aspects of depression include sudden weight loss or weight gain. People with depression should seek a balance in life by not obsessing over details, monitoring physical health, and making time for leisure activities, Jones said.

Licensed Family Counselor Margaret Humphrey, a nurse practitioner and psychotherapist in Fort Scott, said she uses the Holmes-Rahe Social Readjustment Scale, a stress indicator test that reveals the level of stress a person is dealing with each day and that person's chance of developing a stress-related illness.

Stressors drain energy, and there are certain situations in life that people can "unplug" or think about in different ways, Humphrey said. This situation can be likened to what happens when too many electrical cords are plugged into an outlet -- overload.

Being aware of these stressors and getting proper nurturing can help a person prevent mental and physical overload and burnout, she said.

Humphrey also talked from experience about dealing with several stressors, including the juggling of many jobs, the loss of a loved one, and other daily time-consuming tasks.

"I had to relax more, eat better. I realized I've got to do something," Humphrey said. "You get careless. You have to learn how to unplug, or what to plug in."

Mercy Health Center registered dietitian Joy Purkepile talked about the importance of good nutrition and a healthy diet.

"I've battled it (eating habits) day in and day out," Purkepile said. "What is the appropriate weight? What to eat and what not to eat. You are it," she told the audience. "Eating right is the key."

Stress in a person's life usually comes with what is called emotional eating, too much eating out, and large consumption of convenience foods, she said.

"A lot of socializing and enjoyment comes from eating out," she said.

The second program in the series, titled "New Beginnings," will focus on grief and coping during the holiday season and is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 16. A future meeting will deal with issues that teenagers face today, with other meetings to be conducted every few months. The Body, Mind and Spirit mini-series is an initiative implemented Mercy Health Center and the Community Education Committee.