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Health, Wellness Workers Speak To Rotary Club

From left are Becky Robbins, Nellie Brown, Carrie Wieder and Marion Beckerink, Rotary Club of Jamestown president.

The Rotary Club of Jamestown welcomed guest speakers Carrie Wieder and Nellie Brown recently to talk about stress and self care.

The speakers were introduced by Becky Robbins, program chairwoman. Wieder is a licensed master social worker who began her tenure at Erie County Medical Center in 2015. She worked on inpatient behavioral health floors before transitioning to the immunodeficiency Services clinic. She’s been part of the Center of Occupational and Environmental Medicine Clinic for the past six years. She studied at both St. Bonaventure University and the University at Buffalo where she received her master’s degree in social work. Brown is a certified Industrial Hygienist and is the Workplace Health and Safety Program Director of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She also provides expertise for the Cannabis Workforce Initiative. As a certified industrial hygienist, she provides virtual and on-site training and technical assistance on a wide range of occupational safety and health hazards.

Weider spoke first and provided details on what the ECMC Center of Occupational and Environmental Medicine Clinic entails. Through a state grant, the clinic is one of nine across New York state that provides occupational health services for employers, with the ECMC clinic covering the five counties of Western New York (Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, and Niagara). The clinic includes board certified doctors who understand workers, worker health, and how best to help, assess, treat, and then also prevent workplace illnesses and injuries. Their mission as a clinic is to reach all companies throughout the region. She explained the benefit of bringing the worker wellness program to companies is the fact that the program is well rounded and covers both medicinal as well as mental health and education. Anyone interested in learning more about the services is encouraged to reach out to Wieder at cwieder1@ecmc.edu or by calling 716-898-4967.

Brown then spoke about stress and how to treat it. She explained both good stress and bad stress and her presentation focused on the latter and how we can respond to both short-term and long-term negative stress. Short term stress is dealt with through the “fight or flight” response. Stress affects the body quickly, she said, secreting hormones like adrenaline and noradrenaline, increasing heart and breathing rates and dilating blood vessels out to the limbs. More sugar is also secreted in the blood stream, so energy increases.

For long-term stress, Brown said people have evolved with a way to deal with it, known as the vigilance response. The vigilance response was developed through evolution when early man had to deal with stresses that went on for weeks or even months, like extremes in the weather, or how to get through a long, cold, winter with not much food. Those dealing with a stressor for extended periods can have their body and mind shift over into the long term or chronic stress mode, which can have an intense toll on the body including reduced hormone production, lack of sleep, and weight gain.Ways to deal with long-term stress include relying on humor, getting more exercise, spending time outdoors, getting more sleep, and developing and maintaining personal relationships.

Both Brown and Weider also took time fielding several questions from club members in the audience following the presentation.

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