Reading Time: 3 minutes Dry skin, or xeroderma as it is medically known, is estimated to affect 70 per cent of Canadians in the winter months. Probably, the real number is even higher, especially when winters are as cold and dry as this winter has been in so much of Canada. Xeroderma is rough scaly skin that is flaky […] Read more
Guide Health: Coping with dry skin
Good skin care habits and a moisturizer will help, but keep these tips in mind
Creating a better place to work
Use new findings in psychology to create spaces where you and your family will thrive
Reading Time: 5 minutes It’s a basic human need to have a space where you feel comfortable, safe and secure. Having a place to rest, refresh and revitalize can help us cope with the extraordinary challenges of farming and the pandemic. While we can’t control everything in our environments, if we pay attention to what we can control we […] Read more
The 80/20 Principle. The Secret to Achieving More with Less
Guide Books Review: The 80/20 Principle. The Secret to Achieving More with Less, by Richard Koch
Reading Time: 3 minutes The 80/20 Principle. The Secret to Achieving More with Less By Richard Koch Crown Publishing / 336 pages / $21 If it feels like you spend an inordinate amount of time working for an unequal amount of reward or output, you’re not crazy. It’s the 80/20 Principle at play. Also known as the Pareto Law, […] Read more
Guide Health: Vertigo — a moving experience of dizziness
Nearly 1.5 million Canadians have been diagnosed with vertigo
Reading Time: 3 minutes Balance depends upon co-ordination between the nervous system and the senses. It’s a complex interaction. Eyesight provides input about the surroundings. Skin, muscles and joints tell us about the body’s position and our orientation in space, and the inner ear’s vestibular system tells us about equilibrium, spatial position and rotation or linear movement. When the […] Read more
Don’t retire — ‘rewire’
Retirement can be rich and rewarding. Or it can be deadly dull. The difference may be whether you connect with new resources and advisors
Reading Time: 7 minutes Some people can’t wait to retire. They have plans to replace the daily grind with more volunteering, more travel, more golf, more time with the grandkids, more time at the cottage, or whatever it may be that they don’t have the time to do now. But for others the thought of retirement is terrifying because […] Read more
Defibrillator for your brain
Guide Books Review: Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen by Dan Heath
Reading Time: 3 minutes Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen Dan Heath Simon & Schuster / 320 pages / $30 Most of us feel that the way we make decisions is the only natural way to do it. There isn’t a better way. If there was a better way, we’d already be doing it. Or would […] Read more
One-pot cooking makes meal prep a snap
Award-winning cookbook author offers tips on cooking from scratch
Reading Time: 5 minutes Getting a healthy home-cooked dinner on the table night after night can be a challenge for busy farm families. Thanks to an award-winning cookbook from Stratford, Ontario’s Jan Scott, this task just got a little easier. Scott’s Oven to Table cookbook features more than a hundred “mess-free, stress-free” delicious one-pot recipes that can be made […] Read more
Guide Health: Menopause and hot flashes
Keeping fit and watching your weight can curb menopause symptoms, but three-quarters of women will still get hot flashes
Reading Time: 2 minutes While menopause affects all women, its symptoms and timing vary greatly. With age there is a cessation of ovarian function, but it is not a sudden stop. Rather it is a waning over an average of two to 10 years. Menopause occurs anywhere from age 40 to 60 with the average age of 51. (Obviously […] Read more
Say it by mail
Send your thoughts in actual writing. It makes them become a keepsake
Reading Time: 4 minutes When you go to the mailbox and find a handwritten envelope among the bills and flyers, chances are it’s the thing that will draw your attention. A handwritten card or letter is a rare treat in this time of instant messages, texts and emails. While being able to Zoom with our family and friends during […] Read more
Guide Health: Benzodiazepines and your health
These medications can be helpful, but they should only be used for a short period of time
Reading Time: 2 minutes Discovered in the 1930s and with the first agent, chlordiazepoxide, marketed in the 1950s, benzodiazepines have been part of drug therapy for decades. Until benzodiazepines were introduced, barbiturates were the drugs used to treat anxiety and sleeplessness. But barbiturates were a worry with their narrow therapeutic margin (that is, their small or narrow difference between […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
