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Lifestyles

Beating the winter blues

The Nordic countries are no strangers to the long, dark winter. Despite little to no daylight — plus months of frigid temperatures — people who live in northern Europe and above the Arctic Circle have learned how to cope mentally and physically with the annual onset of the winter blues, ...

Health notes

Health notes To include or update items in the weekly Health News list, email information to tmunnell@tribtoday.com or dbigelow@tribtoday.com. The deadline for inclusion for next week’s list is noon Sunday. ST. JOE’S AT THE MALL: • EXERCISE CLASSES — Cardio Jam, Zumba, ...

Flu or COVID-19? A test will tell you which one it is

Q. Last weekend, I was at a party in an apartment packed with people, and two days later, symptoms of the flu came on hard and fast. Now on the fourth day, my fever, which hovered around 100.6 the whole time, has come down to 99.6. My body aches, and the coughing has made my rib cage sore. I ...

DEAR ANNIE: Turmoil erupts after falling for ex’s brother

Dear Annie: If you had told me five years ago that I would fall in love with my ex-boyfriend’s brother, I would have laughed you out of the room. And yet, here I am. I dated “Mark” for two years. He moved into my home, and even after I ended the relationship, he stayed another six ...

HINTS FROM HELOISE: Avoid paper to wrap all holiday gifts

DEAR HELOISE: We’ll be spending hours wrapping Christmas and Hannukah gifts in a few weeks, using a lot of paper sourced from forest trees that would be better left standing. I hate wrapping! I’ve come up with an alternative that has saved me hours of work — and saves trees as well! I ...

TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH: Dye in CT scans can aggravate thyroid

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a male who is 58 years of age. I recently had an MRI of my cervical spine, and just this month, I had a CT scan of my whole abdomen. Since then, I have had symptoms of dry eyes, weight loss and insomnia. I wondered if the contrast dye used for the MRI or CT scan can cause ...