Posts from — November 2008

Healthier living means making healthy choices, both at home and at work. Many employers recognizing that healthier employees are more productive and place less strain on health insurance premiums have adopted company sponsored wellness programs. These programs include everything from work place fitness centers and health screenings to offering incentives for quitting smoking and losing weight.

If you are fortunate enough to work for an employer that sponsors a wellness program it makes sense to take advantage of the perks that they offer. But, the fact that your company doesn’t offer a wellness program does not mean your efforts to get fit, lose weight and live well, have to be put on hold during the work week.

Here are a handful of healthful tips that will support you in living well during your 9-to-5:

Take a Stretch Break — Pause at least once every two or three hours to get up from your desk and stretch. You can bend over and touch your toes or you can clasp your fingers and raise your arms overhead. Stretching improves flexibility and increases circulation. It is also a good way to clear your mind and relieve any stress that may building up in your neck and shoulders.

Avoid Eating at Your Desk — One way to reduce your consumption of empty calories is to declare your desk area or work space a food free zone. If you think about the food usually consumed at your desk, it tends not to be healthful. Limiting your intake of unhealthy snacks is critical to achieving your weight loss and wellness goals. The key to limiting your intake is closely monitoring your portions. It is almost impossible to pay attention to how much food you are consuming while you are answering emails and talking on the phone. That’s why developing the habit of eating away from your desk can lead to a healthier (and possibly slimmer) you.

Spend More Time at the Water Cooler — Make it a point to stay hydrated throughout the day. This is important for two reasons. Often times when you think you are hungry you are in fact thirsty. Drinking lots of water is one way to stop the hunger pangs that often derail your weight loss and wellness goals. Secondly, according to F. Batmaghelidj, M.D., author of You’re Not Sick, You’re Thirsty! , “Water is the main source of energy formation in the body. Even the food that is supposed to be a good source of energy has no value to the body until it is hydrolyzed by water and energized in the process.”

Control Clutter – One the biggest threats to our overall health and well-being is stress. And nothing triggers stress like being surrounded by piles of papers and stacks of clutter reminding you of everything you need to do. Pausing periodically throughout your day to organize your desk and tame the paper tiger will go a long way in improving your overall sense of well-being.

Find a Partner – Making a commitment to live well while at work is not easy, and you will need support. Finding a co-worker who has similar goals and is willing to encourage you in staying focused on your goals can be your secret weapon in the battle to adopt a healthier lifestyle at work. You can meet at regular intervals to discuss your progress, offer suggestions in overcoming specific challenges and celebrate your victories. The most important thing you can do is hold each other accountable for doing what needs to be done in order to live a healthier workaday life.

Health preservation, vitality, and longevity is what wellness nutrition is all about. But there are different ideas on how to actually get there. The pharmacudical companies have their ideas. Nutrition companies have theirs. What is your idea ?

Healthy eating is based on our enjoyment of foods, cultural influences, and social aspects of life. Nearly everyone loves grilling in the summer, but it can pose potential health risks. It is our belief that a successful program, designed to make ones life richer in all facets, needs to embrace all streams of health and wellness. To be as balanced as one needs to be you should be open to every option.

There are many things you can do in addition to treatment to improve overall health and wellness. National Institutes of Health and some of America’s most prestigious medical societies take money from the drug companies and then promote the industry’s agenda. The drug industry has bolstered its position by marketing directly to the health-conscious consumer, leading younger and healthier people to consider themselves at risk and to start taking medications. Why depend on meds when you can have a good healthy life using vitamins and or cooking healthy foods .

Eating disorders can pose serious health dangers. When you start thinking about using a diet to lose weight or improve your general health condition, it helps to know how each diet works, its positive and negative effects on your body.

Employers increasingly are realizing the value that worksite wellness programs deliver as an effective tool to improve employee health, increase productivity, reduce absenteeism and lower health care costs.

A 2003 report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) highlighted how important it is for employers to incorporate health promotion as part of their business strategy. The report asserts that preventable
diseases place a heavy toll on business, including lower productivity and higher health insurance costs.

The HHS estimates that $1.66 trillion was spent on health care in 2003. and it attributes a majority of those costs to chronic diseases and conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity and asthma. Sadly, the money allocated for preventing or controlling these conditions is negligible.

In a recent article, American Cancer Society CEO John Seffrin reported two thirds of cancer deaths in the United States could be prevented through lifestyle changes in diet, exercise, cancer screening and “especially” tobacco use. A well-designed worksite wellness program, provided by your health benefits company, serves the best interests of both employer and employee.

Bottom line return on investment

Ron Goetzel, a nationally recognized expert in the field of health management, data analysis and applied research, said in a recent interview that with an investment of $100 to $150 per employee per year in health promotion, an employer can expect an average return on investment of approximately $3 for every $1
invested ($300 to $450 savings per employee per year).

Goetzel says, however, that these returns are not typically realized until two to three years into the wellness program.

Legislative incentives

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has been an outspoken proponent in seeking legislative solutions for a strained health care system.

“As a nation, we have a ‘sick care’ system that is focused on helping people after they get sick, rather than a ‘health care’ system which focuses on keeping healthy people healthy,” he says.

Harkin introduced the Healthy Lifestyle and Prevention (HeLP) America Act of 2004. One of the initiatives under Title II – Healthier Communities and Workplaces, provides tax credits to businesses that offer comprehensive programs to promote employee health and grants for small business.

Worksite wellness, getting started

Implementing a worksite wellness program with your health insurance carrier can be accomplished with simple, low-cost strategies.

Offer incentives for participation.

Create a wellness campaign.

Schedule seminars on nutrition, diabetes and cholesterol.

Establish programs such as fitness, sleep diary, smoking cessation and injury prevention.

Offer chair massages or simple stretching exercises to do at the desk.

Change vending machine options to offer healthier, low-fat snacks and drinks.

Work with a health insurance carrier that can implement, manage and maintain your program. Actively promote employee participation.

A successful worksite wellness program can boost company morale, enhance productivity, reduce organizational conflict, attract superior workers and lower the rate of employee turnover. The case for establishing a worksite wellness program is well worth the effort.

Recently I was involved in assisting in the curriculum development for a wellness program for indivuals with chronic medical conditions at a Chicago area clinic. The process was a marvelous opportunity for me to distill 25 years of work in the fields of healthcare, coaching, martial arts, yoga, meditation, psychology and philosophy into a cohesive package. As so many individuals are interested in the issue of wellness, I thought I would share my thoughts with you as well. While the early parts of this article speak to those with medical conditions, the latter parts outline my model of wellness independent of medical status.

What do health care professionals define as wellness?

It may come as a surprise to you, but with volumes of criteria established to diagnose medical and psychological illnesses there is no uniform working model of wellness! If you are not content to define health and wellness simply as the absence of disease (or pain), I could not agree with you more. No doubt you have met many individuals in your life who have no apparent disease condition but who are not living balanced, healthy lives. Similarly, there are many examples of individuals with chronic medical conditions who appear to have transcended their disease state to embody what many of us would identify as wellness.

Can I achieve wellness if I have a chronic medical condition?

Wellness does not require that you be free of all medical conditions. That is good news for those of us with bodies! In addition to the reality that accidents and illnesses can impact us profoundly, we are all aging and, of course, we do eventually die. While at least the last two are natural processes, we are not always comfortable discussing these issues in our culture. You may even be wondering why I would bring this up in a discussion on wellness!

Wellness is about embracing the natural unfolding of life.

The author, Byron Katie, states, “When I argue with reality, reality wins, but only 100% of the time.”

If you have a medical condition, it IS a part of your life. Understandably, you have likely spent a good deal of time on a quest to return to “your” life, the life you recall and identified with before your physical condition changed. Your physical condition was a misplaced chapter, maybe accidentally put in your life from someone else’s book! Now, if you could just find the editor-in-chief to take it out so that YOUR story can continue as you were writing it…

Wellness is about embracing YOUR life as it unfolds.

That doesn’t mean that you should become passive or give up. You may be familiar with the Serenity Prayer:

God give me the courage to change what I can

The strength to accept what I cannot

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Wellness is about learning the difference between what you can change and what you cannot and focusing your energies wisely.

You are so much more than the story of your medical condition. Whatever you are experiencing now IS your life. How you relate, or don’t, to your body’s condition and how you embrace or reject exploration your experience will determine the quality and richness of your life, regardless of the state of your body at any given time.

Even if a cure is not possible, healing is always within your reach!

Toward a Model of Wellness:

Most simply, wellness brings a sense of wholeness. Medical conditions are not a uni-dimensional phenomenon. Chronic medical conditions affect an individual physically, socially, psychologically and spiritually. Wellness is an integration of mind, body and spirit so that one has a sense of balance and harmony in life.

Wellness is a lifestyle. As you know, the world appears to be getting more complex every year. Developing a wellness lifestyle will allow you to revitalize and re-energize yourself so that you can continue to thrive in the face of the ongoing external demands of life, preparing you to cope with the changes that tomorrow inevitably brings.

Wellness is more than developing self-soothing techniques to get you through a rough day. You may have heard about or been taught self-help or stress management techniques that focus you internally and teach you ways to improve your self-care. Some people commit to taking hot baths or listening to music regularly to relax. Others write affirmations and stick them on their mirrors to promote positive thinking. Others may take up journaling. While these types of techniques are useful and certainly have their place in decreasing stress they can fall short for many people. First, new habits are hard to maintain. Just look at how many New Year’s Resolutions end up abandoned in 3 weeks time! Secondly, too often these techniques are used in isolation and don’t seem to relate to how a person is living day to day in relation to their family, their workplace or their circle of friends. The techniques then become little more than bandages for larger problems in a person’s life.

Wellness promotes self-understanding. You are not your body. You are not your thoughts. You are not your emotions. One key aspect of wellness is to learn how to control your thoughts and emotions. This does not mean that you stop having them, but that you stop being controlled by them. Being able to stand outside yourself and gain understanding of your life situation and your reactions to it is a critical piece of gaining control in your life.

Wellness promotes a sense of flow. In our “GO GO GO” culture, we tend to over-emphasize external productivity. Many people identify themselves as “Type A” and take pride in that. As a result, learning how to pace is a big challenge for many people. Another component of wellness is to be aware, respectful of and in tune with your flow between external productivity and rest periods. A well-paced life allows for a sustainable level of productivity so that surges of effort followed by extended “crashes” no longer define one’s life.

Wellness creates a sense of connection and meaning in life. Self-care and self-understanding alone do not define wellness. You are part of a larger system. You may have a family, friends, co-workers, a church or other community. Beyond our human connections, we also have connections with nature and you may also have a sense of spiritual connection to something greater than yourself.

Wellness is mind-body-spirit integration that promotes self-care and self-understanding and connects your life to the larger world. It is a state of being joyfully and enthusiastically engaged with your life, even when it doesn’t turn out exactly as you had planned.

When approaching a whole food diet, what do you hope for? Rapid results in 30 days or are you seeking prolonged results to last for a lifetime? And, what is the untold secret between lasting results and temporary results. And why is permanent success so elusive? Why are manufactures of diet pills able to depend on us to buy their latest and greatest product?
Consider the frustration of succumbing to the pressure to try the latest fad diet, and in a few months you are struggling with the same weight problem.

Clearly the lasting diet success rate would be huge if the answer was about taking the latest pill or potion. What if your diet success generator is in your total control? This could have a negative effect on social condition that led us to believe that the cure is elusive and outside of ourselves.

Here is a new thought about getting what you want with regards to success with your diet. It is the idea to use wellness coaching to help you recondition your brain to accept a new concept permanently.

Research on the brain has shown that it has the capacity to change its biology to accommodate us, when we change our mind about our every day choices. This concept of the biochemistry of the brain changing in a positive way, to guarantee our success with new challenges is called neuroplasticity.

The Neuroplasticity concept has yet to reach the social main stream. It is never the less significant. This is so, because to get the mind to change brain biology gives control back to the individual, without the use of pills and drugs. This is huge personal control. It is bordering on the realm of the miraculous.

Here is how this mind-brain interface helps humans to meet and beat any challenge.
It is not a miracle, and it takes more effort than taking a pill, but then this is what makes it permanent and you get to keep your biological profits.

Actually there are only two things you have to do well. Be totally focused and be serious about wanting permanent change.

With the help of your wellness coach find out what habits hinders you now. Accept that it is your block to success, and then give your mind an entirely new process. The neuroplasticity theory assures that without much more effort on your part your mind will change the biochemistry of your brain to override old unwanted habits and accept the new suggestion.

There is however the hard stuff. I once had a client that felt that she was falling apart bit by bit, and visiting her doctor far too often for minor ailments. As her wellness coach, I asked her to write down everything she drank for one week. Since this seemed like a no brainer, she did it. On her next session she said to me, I was so clueless about what I drank! I was so amazed that I drank so much Coke and wine.

I than asked her what are you going to do about this insight? She had accomplished the major milestone on change – gathering information without judgment. This is close to the Buddhist practice of mindfulness. She was at the point of clarity where she took the mental effort, using her mind to give her brain new information.

With my guidance she decided what and how much she willingly desired to drink, and how well she wanted to feel. With neuroplasticity or (change of neuronal circuits) the choice created by your mind changes the brain’s biochemistry.

The joyous news about this is that with this practice in mental effort, you can accomplish just about any milestone in your life. The scientific world is very excited about these momentous findings and is even investigating using this mind-brain interface on serious medical conditions like obsessive-compulsive disorder that does not respond to medication.

If you are struggling with a new diet it is wise to accept this neuroplasticity theory – The brain continually refines its neural circuitry to meet the challenges presented. This is the breakthrough that with a bit of coaching brings you to easy lasting success.

It is good news, that your mind has the capacity to influence your brain power, to help you overcome your specific challenges with great accuracy.

Thousands of men and women all over the world have reduced their chance of getting stress-related diseases through wellness programs and general health and wellness. Corporations in the Western world have been recently implementing voluntary wellness programs in order to create healthier happier employees. This may mean providing facilities where employees can practice their fitness regimes as well as providing wellness tips through trained professionals and tailoring routines for all of the individual employees. The benefits of reducing the stress in our every day lives is endless.

Health and wellness is so important because it affects all aspects of our lives. Information is available through the Internet, media, and of course the references of our friends and family. Wellness programs suggest we use whole food supplements, Chinese herbs and the ayurvedic medicine of India. Wellness tips are a great way to start experimenting on what best works for you. This is a free guide to all alternative healing products and information so you can find exactly what you are searching for.

We provide a guide that allows you to find many qualified alternative healing providers as well as an abundance of wellness tips. You will be able to create wellness programs that are specially customized for you and your entire family. Remember, balance, health and wellness can drastically improve all areas of your life. Imagine living completely pain free and stress free, the possibility is there and available to you.

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