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Warmth in Winter! February is often one of the coldest months of the year, so we all need to find some warmth to comfort us. Staying in our own homes to keep warm is a tempting way to achieve this, but this may not be good for our overall health. It’s hard to believe, but according to information in Patient.info, research has shown that ‘Reduced social contact, being alone, isolation and feelings of loneliness are associated with reduced quality of life’.  This risk is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day and having an alcohol use disorder. https://patient.info/doctor/mental-health/social-isolation-how-to-help-patients-be-less-lonely An easy…

Our Health & Wellbeing In consultation with Axbridge and Wedmore Medical Practice and with the support of Wedmore Parish Council here is this month’s item relating to our health & wellbeing. Feeling comfortable in our own skin! We don’t talk much about this in the winter, but then we obsess about it in the summer! I’m talking about our skin. It’s the largest organ of our body and covers about 1.5 to 2 square meters, according to the National Library of Medicine.  Click here for more information. Apart from keeping all our other essential organs inside, rather than exposed, it…

Our Health & Wellbeing In consultation with Axbridge and Wedmore Medical Practice and with the support of Wedmore Parish Council here is this month’s item relating to our health & wellbeing.  Also published in December's Isle of Wedmore News It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year! This is how Andy Williams sung about Christmas in 1963. It’s a joyous song, full of visions of a perfect festive season. Here are a few more of the lyrics.  ‘There'll be much mistltoeing, And hearts will be glowing, When loved ones are near.’ ‘When friends come to call, It's the hap-happiest season…

Our Health & Wellbeing In consultation with Axbridge and Wedmore Medical Practice and with the support of Wedmore Parish Council here is this month’s item relating to our health & wellbeing.  Also published in November's Isle of Wedmore News An unexpected turn of events.  We really enjoy visiting National Trust properties; other brands are available! We love the leisurely walk around a stately home with its opulent trappings. We can imagine the life of wealth and privilege for those upstairs and a life of hard toil for those downstairs. Then there is the relaxing stroll around the immaculately manicured gardens…

Reliable, relevant, accurate and easy to read information on the internet – is there such a thing? Yes, there is, but it is not always easy to find! Some sources look legitimate, but may not be. The NHS App and website are key sources of information you can trust about health & wellbeing. For locally produced information, try this website which has been developed by NHS Dietitians in Somerset. There are webinars providing information on some health conditions, mainly related to nutrition. Patient Webinars | Access to reliable nutrition information. Also I have recently found this source of reliable information…

Friendship and friendliness It was the International Day of Friendship a short while ago – a day dedicated to promoting friendship and fostering understanding between people, cultures, and countries. It was a reminder that through friendship we can create a more compassionate and united world. At an individual level too, we know that friendship is good for our own health. A recently published study by Pezirkianidis and colleagues, pulling together evidence published in peer reviewed academic journals, confirmed that adult friendship was found to predict, or at least be positively correlated with, wellbeing (link:  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36760434/). In particular, friendship is a crucial…

July is THE month to be ‘aware’! If we were ‘aware’ of all the ‘awareness days’ in July, we would not have time for anything else! They are numerous! Did you know there is a ‘Love all Budgies Day’ on 1st July? What about ‘International Bikini Day’ on the 5th and ‘Don’t Step on a Bee Day’ on the 10th! I particularly like ‘Lipstick Day’ on the 29th! Here is one we all need to be aware of – ‘International Kissing Day’ on the 6th. But I am being frivolous! There are many awareness days which would be good to…

Let’s find out how our bodies work! We are such complicated beings! Our mind, body, emotions are all inextricably linked together to create who we are. We have so much in common, but we are all so different – each of us is unique. For most of us, for most of the time we function well, or well enough! But sometimes things go wrong and this is when we want to be fixed! There are many different ‘fixes’ and each one has been researched, tried and tested. We can help with this research, so we can help more people find…

Wedmore News May 2025 Dementia Action Week: 19th - 25th May You may have noticed that our themes often relate to an ‘action’ week and this month it does too. Knowing a person with dementia or being a person with dementia is familiar to many of us.  Hearing that diagnosis can be very daunting, but the support available has improved so much in recent years – it’s by no means perfect, but it’s improving all the time.  According to the Alzheimer’s Society, 91% of people affected by dementia say there are benefits to getting a diagnosis. Perhaps it’s worth clarifying…

Wedmore News April 2025 Health awareness themes for April ‘They say knowledge is power, so this April we’re asking everyone to share important information about bowel cancer’. This is the introduction to Bowel Cancer UK’s website page. Axbridge & Wedmore Medical Practice have asked me to include this topic in this month’s item on health & wellbeing – to share important information with you.  Bowel Cancer | Bowel Cancer UK  According to Bowel Research UK ‘more than 42,000 people annually are diagnosed with bowel cancer and it is the 2nd most prevalent cancer that affects both men and women’. I expect many of…