Wednesday, February 1, the Better Breathers Club will be meeting from 3:00-4:00. Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Sarah Brockholder of Hamilton Warsaw Clinic will be discussing mindfulness and pain management. This is a FREE service available for those with COPD and their family, friends and caretakers.
Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique. It is a way of focusing on pain with curiosity and without judgment instead of on how badly we want the paint to stop. Mindfulness keeps one from thinking negative thoughts like “nothing ever works” when you expect something to ease the pain and it doesn’t or at least not as much as you would like it to. Mindfulness also brings awareness to how many times, intensity or cycle of pain, instead of just feeling like you were in pain all day. Breathing techniques will allow you to refocus the negative thoughts, which instinctively come to mind, into what are more important to focus on at that point in time.
The Carthage chapter of the Better Breathers Club meets every other month in the conference room at the new Memorial Medical Building. Better Breathers Club is a welcoming support group for individuals and caregivers dealing with COPD, pulmonary fibrosis, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases. Each meeting is designed to help individuals learn better ways to cope with lung disease while getting the support of others in similar situations. The Carthage chapter is a resource available for individuals in Hancock County and the surrounding areas.
So join us on February 1, 2017 to share and talk with others who suffer. Come see how mindfulness can benefit those who suffer from COPD and these closest to them. Refreshments will be provided. The Better Breathers Club meets in the conference room at the new Memorial Medical Building located at 1450 North County Road 2050 in Carthage, Illinois.
For more information on the Carthage Area Better Breathers Club, contact Tyler at 217-357-6836. The Better Breathers Club is brought to you by Memorial Hospital Pulmonary Rehabilitation Department. To learn more about the American Lung Association’s Better Breather Club go to www.lung.org.
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