Wagaliciousness Begins Here!

Welcome to the Dog Days of Summer. It’s the time of year when traffic is lighter, meetings are smaller, and life gets just a little bit slower for most people.

For much of my life, I thought the phrase came from the observation of how lazy and slow dogs became in the heat of summer. Maybe you thought that, too? Nope – the ancient Romans noticed that when Sirius and the sun were in close proximity, the weather became hotter and more humid. Sirius, aka the Dog Star, is the brightest star in Canis Major, or the Big Dog, constellation, hence the Dog Days of Summer.

How does your life shift in the summertime?

If you have school-aged children or grandchildren, chances are you spend a bit more time with them than you do in the rest of the year.

If you teach any kind of class, chances are your classes are smaller this time of year.

If you work in the hospitality industry or any medical field where there’s flexibility in the timing of treatments, your workload increases this time of year.

This is the month many Americans dread. We know it’s coming…it comes every year. In the back of our minds, we know we should be more proactive…we should be more organized…we should be more responsible. And yet, here we are again, in April, with that sense of dread looming over us. April 15^th. It’s thirteen days until Tax Day 2024.

For tax accountants, the entire first quarter of each year is a zoo. That means not everyone procrastinates, though many do. The website Fast Company analyzed the most common days that workers call in sick, and it’s not shocking to learn that Monday wins handily and Tax Day is usually fairly high on the list.

Guess what day of the week Tax Day falls on this year? Yep. Monday. Oh, joy…a three-day weekend spent deciphering cryptic tax forms!

Deadlines and procrastination cause stress, and that stress is usually self-inflicted. Before you feel like I’m pointing fingers, know that if I am, they’re pointed at me, too. One of my brothers casually remarked one da...

Today is the day for an observance you probably don’t know about. By the end of this newsletter, I hope you’ll be planning ways to make this day a better one for you and those you love before October 10^th 2024. Today’s observance is all about something I work with veterinary teams to improve – mental wellbeing. Welcome to World Mental Health Day 2023.

First observed in 1992, there’s been a great need in our society for decades longer than that to eliminate the stigma around mental illness. When most of us were growing up, those with different mental abilities were considered “slow” or “nuts” or just plain “weird.” We’ve made a lot of progress as research has identified different mental diseases and conditions, instead of lumping everyone into the same category and “slow learner” classes in school.

Around the world, one in 8 people suffers some sort of mental illness or condition that sets them apart from others. In developed countries, there’s more opportunity for understanding, incl...

Today is National Relaxation Day and this week is National Aviation Week. What do those two have to do with each other and why should you care? This will tie them together, ease your stress, and give you wings, so read on. 

Wilbur and Orville Wright didn’t have pilot’s licenses, and no one needs a license to chill. 

The same year that the first states – Massachusetts and Missouri – began requiring drivers licenses of anyone who wanted to operate a car on public roads, Orville and his older brother Wilbur made the first powered flight. They didn’t even have drivers’ licenses, and certainly didn’t have pilots’ licenses because those hadn’t been invented yet. Neither brother had a high school diploma, neither attended college, and yet with their fascination for aviation, their insatiable desire for experimentation, and their commitment to manned flight in a heavier-than-air motorized vehicle, they made discoveries and created systems that are still in use on airplanes today. They went i...

Countries are at war. Banks are failing. The stock market is teeter-tottering. Inflation is behaving like a spoiled brat, refusing efforts to control it. Politicians are taking dirty laundry and gleefully hanging it out for all to see. And all of this is coming in the wake of a worldwide pandemic, which created a mental health crisis worldwide.

If you’re feeling a bit more stress, world events could be playing a role. If you want to feel less stress, read on for some scientific news and some practical ways to easily lower the angst.

To say that times are uncertain is an understatement. To say that every person has to feel the pain of the uncertainty, live in the stress of the uncertainty, and rule their lives based on what can only be guesses at possible outcomes is incorrect. Not everyone has to suffer in uncertain times. As a matter of fact, visionaries, great leaders, and innovators often thrive in uncertain times, because they see the opportunities that the upheaval creates.

An ...

Are you feeling tense and stressed with too many thoughts flying around in your head? Do you have five minutes, a private space and a towel or yoga mat?

A super-fast way to calm the chaos in your mind while relieving the stress in your back is to take a yoga break and rest in child’s pose.

Spread out your mat or towel, sit on your heels, toes together and knees apart about hip-width. If you can’t sit on your heels, place a pillow between your bottom and heels. If you’re pregnant, place a pillow between your thighs to provide abdominal support.

Exhale your arms forward and long as you gently lower your chest to your thighs, place your forehead on the mat and relax into the pose.

Breathe long, slow, deep breaths and allow your shoulders to sink towards the mat as the tension in your neck eases. Stay as long as you need to, until you feel relaxed and in control. Child's pose for the win.

I’m Sandy Weaver and just like Kacey, I love veterinarians!

Is your hospital having a stressful day?

I do now and then, especially when I find something fun to chew on and mom loses her mind!

Sometimes it feels like everyone is a gas can and you’re all waiting for someone to toss a match, right? That’s a terrible way to feel and a worse way to try to care for patients.

Can you all take 5 minutes at lunch to just sit and breathe? Put the answering machine on, lock the front door and all of you get together, shut off the lights, sit quietly and take long, slow, deep breaths.

Call a “take 5 breath break” daily if you can and watch the stress fall off of you and your team like hair falls off of me.

I’m Kacey and I love veterinarians!

Did you know that the way you breathe might be making you anxious? When I pant it cools me down – when humans pant, their brain thinks something is wrong. When humans are stressed they take shallow, fast breaths and that tells the primitive part of their brain that it’s time to fire up the fight or flight engine. The brain fires up the chemical factory, flooding the body with stress hormones, causing more fear and anxiety. Pay attention to how you breathe and when you find yourself just breathing into the top of your lungs, take two minutes to breathe long, slow, deep breaths that poke your belly way out. It’ll put the primitive part of your brain out of your misery.

I’m Kacey and I love veterinarians!