by Ruth Griffiths

Prince Albert Winter Festival is one of the longest-running outdoor winter events in Western Canada. The format has changed during the past century, but the festival has retained its northern flavour with events that echo the traditional lifestyle such as dog sleds, jigging, fiddling and King Trapper competitions.

The 2018 Prince Albert Winter Festival kicks off with the Fiddle Show on Feb. 15 at the Rawlinson Centre. You can find times and prices at www.princealbertwinterfestival.com. As usual, a Winter Festival button is required for admission to all events.

While you’re at the Rawlinson Centre, step next door to the Mann Art Gallery to see the Winter Juried Art Show. Local artists display their creations free of charge until March 24.

The Rock Show Experience is back again this year Feb. 16 and 17 at Prince Albert Exhibition Centre. The concert features performers in the characters and personas of the musical artists. It will be a Rock ‘n Roll journey through your favourite tunes.

The Voice of Prince Albert is Feb. 17 and 18 at the Rawlinson Centre. You’ll also find the jigging competition at the Rawlinson Centre on Feb. 18. There are prizes for male and female competitors from six years old to 60 plus.

Family Day on Feb. 19 is the first day of a week-long school break. Families can head out to Little Red River Park for Family Sliding Day. There will be free hot dogs and hot chocolate 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Country North Show will again be at the Rawlinson Centre with concerts Feb. 20 to 22.

Voices of the North will have four shows at the Exhibition Centre, Feb. 22-24.

The Winter Festival stays true to its historic northern roots and moves outdoors on the final weekend with a multitude of family events Feb. 24 and 25 at the Alfred Jenkins Field House site. There will be a fish fry, Kids Fun Zone, snow sculptures, sleigh rides, outdoor movie, craft sale, sled dog races, King Trapper Events, a bonfire and fireworks.

The final event of the festival is a Gospel Show on the evening of Feb. 25 at the Rawlinson Centre .

by Ruth Griffiths

A few years ago, researchers found that middle-aged people who attended church regularly, lived longer. A more recent study in Utah may have confirmed that theory.

Dr. Julianne Hold-Lunstad and her colleagues at Brigham Young University posed the question: What reduces our chances of dying the most? They studied tens of thousands of middle-aged people. They discovered that two features of our social life are better predictors of longevity than lifestyle choices such as diet and exercise.

From least to strongest, here are the factors their research showed that promote long life:
• Clean air
• Hypertension medication
• Lean versus overweight
• Exercise
• Cardiac rehabilitation
• Flu vaccine
• Quit drinking
• Quit smoking
• Close relationships
• Social integration

Close relationships are those people who would take you to the hospital if you are ill, give you a loan or sit with you during the dark night of the soul. This handful of people, if you have them, are a strong predictor of how long you will live. You might have those close relationships within your biological family. Or you might have grown those relationships within your social network.

Social integration is how much you interact with people as you move through your day. Do you talk to the man walking his dog? Do you chat with the clerk at the supermarket? They discovered that these interactions don’t necessarily have to be agreeable… it’s the interaction that benefits us.

One of the things that amazed me when I started attending my church in 1981 was the advanced age of the congregation. I was encouraged by the lively conversation and the vitality of people well into their 90s.

Now this study by Dr. Hold-Lunstad confirms my belief that by interacting regularly with my church family, I am adding years to my life. Her research also suggests that the coffee time after my fitness class may be just as important, or more important than time spent sweating in the gym. Of course her study isn’t saying that clean air and blood pressure medication aren’t important, it’s just that living a happy, integrated life seems to be a better predictor of longevity..

by Ruth Griffiths

It’s all too easy to identify our unhealthy habits. It’s a little harder to figure out where that habit came from and why we continue that behaviour.

After you have made your plan to change a habit, you need to identify what triggers your current habit. For smoking, for example, triggers might include waking up in the morning, having coffee, drinking alcohol, stressful meetings, going out with friends, driving, etc. Most habits have more than one trigger. Make a list of all the triggers you can think of, no matter how large or small.

For every trigger, identify a positive action that you are going to do instead. When you first wake in the morning, instead of smoking, what will you do? What about when you get stressed? When you go out with friends? Some positive actions to deal with your triggers could include: exercise, meditation, deep breathing or organizing your day.

Identifying your triggers and planning a positive action will give you strategies to defeat the urge. Urges are going to come — they’re inevitable, and they’re strong. But they’re also temporary and beatable. Urges usually last about a minute or two, and they come in waves of varying strength. You just need to ride out the wave, and the urge will go away.

For example, if you are trying to stop snacking after supper, some strategies for making it through the urge are deep breathing, take a walk, exercise, drink a glass of water, phone a support buddy.

You have identified the habit you wish to change and written down your plan. It includes the triggers for that habit and the behaviours you are going to substitute. Be very clear why you’re doing this. If you are not doing it for yourself, is this something you really want to do?

The benefits of changing a habit need to be clear in your head. For example, a friend successfully lost over 20 pounds because she was going to have knee surgery. She knew her recovering time would be much shorter if she were carrying less weight on her new knee.

Write down all your obstacles. If you’ve tried this habit change before, you’ve likely failed. How did those failures stop you from succeeding? Write down your plan to overcome every obstacle you can think of. Be prepared by finding solutions to your obstacles before you encounter them.

Remember, success doesn’t come overnight. It can take six weeks to learn a new, healthier habit. But you are worth it!

by Ruth Griffiths

Most of us live our lives on autopilot. We have a series of habits that get us through the day without too many decisions. But some of our habits are unhealthy.

You may have chosen to change a habit that doesn’t contribute to your health and happiness. The first step to changing a habit is making a plan.

Pick just one habit to change. Many people fail at their New Year’s resolutions because they tackle too much change at a time.
Start small. The smaller the better, because habit change is difficult, and trying to take on too much is a recipe for disaster. If your goal is to exercise 30 minutes each day, you can do it 10 minutes at a time. Don’t wait to go to the gym. Build the exercise into your everyday activities. Park the car at the far end of the lot and push your groceries through the snow for a great workout.

Put it on paper. Just saying you’re going to change the habit is not enough of a commitment. You need to actually write it down, on paper. Post that paper on your fridge door.

Make a plan to achieve your goal. Include your reasons for changing, the obstacles you might face and how you will overcome them. List people who will help you achieve your plan.

Pick a healthier habit to replace the habit you are trying to change. If you want to cut out snacking while you watch TV, what are you going to do instead of eating. Maybe you could drink herbal tea or chew gum.

Go public. Tell everyone about your plan. Post it on Facebook. Make this your Big Day. It builds up anticipation and excitement and helps you to prepare.

Telling other people about your plan will encourage you to stick to your plan and allow them to support you in your desire to become a healthier you.

by Ruth Griffiths

Many of us make New Year’s resolutions that involve personal change. If you are like most people I know, you have already fallen off the wagon. Don’t despair; it’s never too late to learn a new habit.

When we want to make personal changes, most of us try to change too many things at once or set goals beyond our reach. When we make a mistake on the way to reaching that goal, we feel like a failure and just give up.

Take exercise as an example. I might set out to do 150 minutes of moderate activity each week. But life gets in the way and I might not reach that goal one week. That’s not my cue to abandon my exercise goals.  It just means I need to figure out where my plan went wrong, refine the plan and then get on with it.

There’s nothing magical about New Year’s Day for personal change. You can choose any day to begin your journey for change. But the best day to change is “today.” Don’t put it off to tomorrow, because tomorrow never comes.

Most of the things we want to change in our lives come under the heading of “bad habits.”  A habit is just something we do over and over without thinking about it much. 

Unfortunately, it is almost impossible just to “cut out” a habit. The hole in your life left by not doing that behaviour will fill up at light speed. For example, what happens when I say, “For the next minute don’t think about doughnuts.” You not only need to eliminate a behaviour, you need to find a substitute behaviour. So instead of thinking about doughnuts, drink a glass of water.

Keep your plan for change as simple as possible. In fact, three basic steps are all you need.

1. Write down your plan.
   
2. Identify the triggers for the behaviour you want to change in yourself and decide which behaviours you want to substitute.
   
3. Focus on doing the replacement behaviours every single time the triggers happen, for about 30 days.

by Ruth Griffiths

January is a month to make a new start … to clear out the old and begin afresh. So with good intentions, I made a to-do list that included “clear off desk”.

Anyone who visited the newsroom during my three decades at the Prince Albert Daily Herald, will know that my desk was usually buried in paper. I had a file cabinet and baskets that helped me keep things organized. But mainly I kept things in piles. I rarely threw out anything, because the only time you really need something is after you have put it into the garbage. Hidden under my desk was a large cardboard box with things that were on their way to the garbage bin but hadn’t made it yet. Many times I was down on my knees pawing through that box to find something that I was so glad I hadn’t yet thrown out.

My home office is ruled by the same organized chaos. If a piece of paper is filed, it effectively disappears. I prefer to organize things in piles. New things go on top, older things are at the bottom. It’s a system that works unless there is a paper slide that dumps everything into a jumble on the floor. Very few things get thrown out.

The extreme cold during the Christmas season kept me trapped indoors. I filled my time working through my to-do list. When I could procrastinate no longer, I tackled “clear off desk”. I was surprised to find some items on my desk that are at least three years old. Why were they still there? There were my granddaughter’s school photo proofs, funeral cards, newspaper clippings, Christmas cards with personal messages. I wasn’t ready to throw them out, but I didn’t want to file them, either. My solution was to create a memory box. I labeled it “Ruth’s Memories 2017” and dumped all the bits and pieces into the box. The desk is much cleaner and certainly better organized. But I haven’t had to throw out anything that I will certainly need only after the garbage has been picked up.

I know there is nothing very valuable in that box. The things inside only serve to spark memories. But when all is said and done, my memories are some of the most precious things I have. If I had to part with that memory box, it wouldn’t be a disaster because I would still have the memories. It’s just that the pictures and words on those papers help to make my memories stronger.
If I do one thing differently this year, I hope it is that I will make less clutter, but keep more memories.

by Ruth Griffiths

Blue Monday, the so-called unhappiest day of the year, comes hard on the heels of our big holiday blowout. It’s freezing cold, the bills are piling up and our New Year’s Resolutions are already wearing thin.

The concept of Blue Monday originated in a 2005 a press release from the UK holiday company Sky Travel. It detailed a purported formula that calculated factors including weather, debt, time elapsed since Christmas, and unsuccessful New Year’s resolutions. According to Snopes.com, “When those factors were combined and the “sadness” algorithm applied to them, 24 January 2005 was identified as the single most depressing of the year.”

The calculations were attributed to a Dr. Cliff Arnall of the University of Cardiff in Wales, who explained: “Following the initial thrill of New Year’s celebrations and changing over a new leaf, reality starts to sink in… The realization coincides with the dark clouds rolling in and the obligation to pay off Christmas credit card bills.”

The truth is, Arnall had sold out. The suspect “calculations” were created by Porter Novelli PR agency to help sell plane tickets. It seems people are more motivated to book a sun holiday when they are trying to escape the darkness and unhappiness of January.

But the mid-winter blues are a problem for a significant number of Canadians. Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real condition in which the dark days of winter affect our moods. The Canadian Mental Health Association says some people “are vulnerable to a type of depression that follows a seasonal pattern,” while about 10 per cent of people will experience mood disorders. Shorter days in fall, for example, can trigger a form of depression that lasts until spring. The depression saps your energy and makes you feel moody and sleepy.

Some people find that basking in sunlight or light-therapy lamps relieves mid-winter depression. In addition to seeking help from your doctor, there are lifestyle changes that can improve symptoms and lift your mood. You might try going outside more often, exercising, avoiding drugs and alcohol, getting plenty of sleep, and practicing relaxation.

by Ruth Griffiths

A year ago, I made predictions for 2017. Here is my assessment of the accuracy of those predictions.

1. I predicted that Angela Merkel would be returned as Chancellor of Germany in national elections in September. She has assumed her fourth term as chancellor, but is still trying to stitch together a coalition government. One point for me.
   
2. I predicted that Donald Trump would sue Hillary Clinton. Wrong although Hillary has considered suing The Donald.
   
3. I predicted nations would spend more on cyber security. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts global spending on cyber security products and services will exceed $1 trillion cumulatively over the next five years, and increase of 12-15 per cent. One point for me.
   
4. I predicted increased labour unrest due to a slump in the economy. In September The United Steelworkers served strike notice to Evraz, a Regina steel company. There has been lots of grumbling about layoffs and wage reductions, but no major, crippling job action. Zero points for me.
   
5. I predicted the first human head transplant. Italian neuroscientist Sergio Canavero has scheduled a head transplant for December 2017, but as of mid-month, it’s only talk. Zero points.
   
6. I predicted a vaccine for HIV (AIDS) would become commercially available. In July, researchers announced an early prototype of the vaccine had triggered the immune system in an early phase of human trials. But it’s a long way from hitting the shelves of your pharmacy. Zero points.
   
7. I predicted that colder temperatures would curtail some Winter Festival activities in February. Well, it seems nothing can stop the longest running winter festival in western Canada. The Prince Albert Winter Festival will thumb its nose at the cold again in 2018. Zero points.
   
8. I predicted that Prince Albert would see an influx of fire evacuees this summer. About 600 residents of Pelican Narrows arrived in Prince Albert just before the start of school in September. One point for me. And major points for the Red Cross and others who assisted Northerners in their time of crisis.
   
9. I predicted that Saskatchewan police would be trained in the use of a device for roadside testing for driver impairment due to marijuana. The federal government is spending $161 million in training police in road-side drug testing. One point for me, I think, although I cannot confirm that Saskatchewan police have taken that training yet.
   
10. I predicted water restrictions this spring due to the 2016 oil spill in North Saskatchewan River. However, it appears that the upgrades to Prince Albert’s water system, paid for in part by Husky Oil, have met the challenge of filtering water before it reaches your tap. A water reservoir recently completed on the West Hill will also help to provide residents with backup water in the case of polluted river water. Zero points for me, happily.
    
    Well that’s four points out of 10, a failing grade by any standard.

by Ruth Griffiths

A group of children, ages four to eight, were asked, “What does love mean?” Their answers are broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined:

“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth.” — Billy, age 4

“Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.” — Karl, age 5

“Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your french fries without making them give you any of theirs.” — Chrissy, age 6

“Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.” — Terri, age 4

“Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss.” — Emily, age 8

“Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” — Bobby, age 7

“If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate.” — Nikka, age 6

“Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.” — Tommy, age 6

“Love is when mommy gives daddy the best piece of chicken.” — Elaine, age 6

“Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.” — Mary Ann, age 4

“You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.” — Jessica, age 8

I can’t find the source of this Internet posting about children’s wise words about love. During Advent, the season leading to Christmas, I have focused my columns on the themes hope, peace, joy and love. My Christmas wish is that you may find these gifts in your life.

by Ruth Griffiths

This week I find myself humming: “oh tidings of comfort and joy.” It’s the refrain from the classic carol God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

The comfort sung about in the carol is not about being comfortable, it is about being soothed… a cool comforting hand on a feverish brow, a hug for a fearful child, a clean hankie to wipe away tears. When we are healed, restored and made whole again, we react with a fountain of joy. Joy is an exuberant reaction to overcoming the pain and darkness of living.

During the second week of Advent, we celebrate peace that overcomes our basic human fears. During this third week, we celebrate joy.

I recently received the news that I have made a good recovery from my eye operation. I am euphoric. I can see well again and return to normal activities. Although not much has actually changed in my life, I feel relieved of the stress of worrying about my health. I feel joy.

Joy is a wonderful emotion, but it something I have to chose to accept. I could dwell upon the possibility of becoming sick again. I could be angry that I had to be sick in the first place. Instead, I am chosing to accept the gift of health that has been given to me and to celebrate with joy.

Joy is a choice we can make everyday. Here’s what St. Francis of Assisi had to say about living out the hope and peace in our lives with joy:

Make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is discord, union.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.