Retreat, Review, Renew and Rewrite The New Year Now

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Dr. Michel Arloski

The New Year is already here! Photo by M. Arloski

The ancient Celtic Calendar rings in the New Year at the very end of October with the holiday of Samhain. Looking at a Northern European year’s climate through largely agricultural eyes this makes perfect sense. The last of the harvest is done and it’s time to prepare for winter and a long rest for the land.

For the self-reflective person this is a good time to review the old year and prepare for the new. Don’t wait until the new year has already arrived! From a coaching perspective it’s a perfect time to look at what our “wins” were, to seriously acknowledge our accomplishments on all levels, personal and professional. It’s a time to give ourselves credit first, boost our self-esteem and celebrate. Let’s practice some Positive Psychology on ourselves!

We also will take a sober look at what we wanted to see happen that didn’t. Here it’s time to leave our Inner Critic or Gremlin (http://www.tamingyourgremlin.com/) out of the process, and instead get in touch with that part of ourselves that truly cares about us and tells the truth (not the lies of the Inner Critic). Did we live the year in harmony with our values, with our true priorities? Are we still spinning our wheels in a lifestyle improvement effort, or job/career, or relationship? What will it take to get some “traction” in the new year?

2012 is coming at us fast and New Year’s Day is really too late a time to begin planning for what we want in the new year. We always find truth in the old saw “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” Having a plan is much different than setting the famously ineffective “New Year’s Resolutions” or just having a “bunch of goals”. A plan, whether a wellness plan for lifestyle improvement, or a plan for your career development, personal growth, or whatever needs to be an integrated plan that is based upon your values and your true priorities in your life. It needs to be entirely congruent with who you are and based upon attained clarity about what you want.

In the Northern Hemisphere the seasons right now lend themselves to this process, if we let them. We might consciously want to engage less in the franticness of “The Holidays” and instead practice both our relevant faith reflected in these holidays, and also practice a time of reflection, replenishment and personal renewal. In fact, if you are a person of faith, how better to celebrate and acknowledge these holidays than to dedicate some time to your own spiritual renewal?

Sit, sip, relax and reflect.

This is a great time for hot cups of tea and journaling. This is also an excellent time for taking stock of our selves in a mindful and conscious way. My best shorthand definition of Wellness is that it is living our lives consciously in ways that enhance our health. Perhaps this is the perfect time to take a day dedicated to no “work” and to no work around the house. Solo time allows us to look within uninterrupted. In today’s high-speed world we may actually have to work hard initially to extract ourselves from the distractions that surround us. Take a day with no cell phones, iPods or Pads, where we can get re-acquainted with an old best friend called our own souls. Have a technological Sabbath.

This can also be a wonderful time to get together with friends, not just by putting on a way-too-much-work party, but spending time together one-on-one. Our children (even adult children) thrive on this one-on-one time with us, and so do our friends. Reconnecting with these people helps us reweave the net of community that supports us, and lets us contribute to that web of support as well.

Retreat, Review, Renew and Rewrite

Create your own personal retreat.

Retreat

Take time for yourself however you can. Give yourself permission to. Set aside not just a couple of hours, or just one day, but instead mark your calendar for some self-reflective, get-away time more than once. Pull back from everyday obligations, asking for help to do so if need be. You may find that you even need a complete change of scenery, whether it is a local park, a coffee shop or a weekend or two in a cabin “away from it all.” Stretch, unwind, get a massage, hike in nature, breath deep. Don’t permit your “gremlin” to accompany you.

Review

Bring your old calendar, your laptop, your journal, pen and paper, or whatever works for you to look back over the old year. Be kind and compassionate with yourself. Allow yourself to feel your feelings, but don’t let irrational guilt get a foothold and grow in this quiet time. Be honest with yourself and look for the SDB’s (self-defeating behaviors) that slowed you down or held you back. Look for the missed opportunities and the overlooked resources that you did not make use of. Hindsight really is 20/20, unless you let your “gremlin” do the looking for you.

Renew

This can be a time for replenishment, for re-charging your worn-down batteries and resupplying your energy. In the bestseller The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-schwartz/the-way-were-working-isnt_b_574039.html) the point is continually made (and hard evidence cited to back it up) that our biggest mistake is not experiencing stress in our lives, but not allowing ourselves adequate “volume and intensity” of recovery from it! We function best with rest and renewal. This means not only adequate sleep, but also reconnecting with what renews our own spirit and sense of self. One of the greatest ways to improve self-esteem is through creative self-expression. This can be a time to reconnect with hobbies long neglected. It can also be a time for our renewal through contact with the natural world, where we are merely another creature in the ecosystem, instead of an asset pursued by a busy world.

Rewrite

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” Henry David Thoreau

The time to rewrite your script is right now. Plan & coach for the new year now, not in January! Realize all the choices you truly do have. Envision the year as you would like it to unfold. Determine what has to change about the way you are living your life currently in order to actualize that vision. From that create a real plan to move forward with it.

Select areas of your life you’d like to improve, where you’d like to grow. Look at the year coming and list the opportunities that it contains. How can you make the best use of them? Look at the barriers you can already anticipate and begin looking at strategies and resources to help you find your way through them.

Avoid simply creating a gigantic “To Do” list. Building a huge list of things to accomplish is like creating an overhang of stress ready to crash down on you like an avalanche. Your tendency will be to simply stay off the mountain! In other words, when you create a daunting “list” the safest route is to avoid working on it at all. As an old friend, and stand-up comedian, once said about priorities, “If they’re priorities, there can’t be very many of them. Otherwise they’re not priorities!”

We can’t anticipate everything in the year ahead, but we can consciously plan (see “conscious calendarizing” in my book Wellness Coaching For Lasting Lifestyle Change (http://www.amazon.com/Wellness-Coaching-Lasting-Lifestyle-Change/dp/1570252211/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321300279&sr=8-1) to include the downtime we need. Plan to take those vacation days. Plan on days for rest and renewal, replenishment and relaxation. Include that in your list of “accomplishments” at the end of this next year, and be well!

Please add your comments, ideas, here to enhance the experience of all readers. Thank you!

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Pre-diabetes – A Wellness Opportunity To Help

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Dr. Michel Arloski

79 Million Americans are on the road, not to wellness, but to diabetes.

There is an opportunity for wellness and wellness coaching to impact the lives of millions of people in a life-saving way. 79 million Americans are estimated to have a condition called pre-diabetes. Usually symptom free, without intervention they will develop full-fledged Type II diabetes within ten years and possibly endure physical damage to their heart and circulatory system along the way. Yet, according to the American Diabetes Association, if a person is successful at lifestyle improvement they can completely avoid the onset of diabetes 70% of the time. (http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/prevention/pre-diabetes/)

Our culture drives diabetes in many ways. Remember when 16 oz. was too much?

A 2010 study on pre-diabetes in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine shows shocking news. They found that in 2005-2006 almost 30% of the U.S. adult population had pre-diabetes, yet only 7.3% of the pre-diabetic people were aware of it! About half of those with pre-diabetes reported engaging in some kind of risk-reduction behavior, but only about one-third of those with pre-diabetes had received advice from their healthcare provider about the lifestyle behaviors they could change. Researchers found adults with prediabetes were more likely to be male, older, and have lower educational status than those without the condition. They were also more likely to have an immediate family member with diabetes.
(http://diabetes.webmd.com/news/20100302/prediabetes-precautions-often-ignored)

Reaching this population of vulnerable people will take a multi-layered effort across society and the healthcare system. The first step in this preventative approach is to increase awareness through accurate diagnosis. There is no substitute for the annual medical exam. Physicians can determine if one has pre-diabetes by testing your blood glucose levels. However there needs to be follow through on the physician’s part (or their clinic/office) to both advise and, ideally, connect their patients with lifestyle improvement/behavioral change resources that can help them be part of that 70% possibility of success.

We can encourage clients, friends, people we know to take charge of their own health starting with awareness of what is going on inside of their own body. A very successful approach to wellness is called “Know Your Numbers” and makes good sense for all of us. It urges us to know our scores (and what they mean) on five indicators: blood sugar levels, blood pressure, cholesterol levels and body mass index. Checking these numbers regularly, even if you don’t feel sick can help you avoid these silent killers.

The lifestyle improvements required to avoid pre-diabetes developing into diabetes are actually quite basic.
• Improve one’s diet,
• lose weight
• and become more active.
Adding thirty minutes a day of moderate exercise, like walking, can have astounding results. Combined with a 5-10% weight loss studies found that such lifestyle changes yielded a 58% reduction in diabetes. (NDIC -http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/DM/pubs/insulinresistance/)

From the awareness that one may be pre-diabetic to achieving lasting lifestyle improvement can be a challenging journey. It is a journey best taken in the company of others, not alone. Success at lifestyle change works best with a wellness plan that identifies the specific health behaviors you want to improve, keeping an objective record of your progress, and consciously developing the connections with others who can help support your journey. Wellness coaches can be the professional ally that is often lacking to help people succeed in lasting lifestyle change.

Group and individual wellness coaching for people who share this challenge should be promoted through workshops, seminars, and simple brown-bag wellness talks. Wellness coaches who want a niche within the field of health and wellness would do well to explore helping people with diabetes, pre-diabetes and those who would benefit from learning if they are, indeed, pre-diabetic. Diabetes educators who become trained in effective behavioral change methodologies (wellness/health coach training) can increase their effectiveness tremendously.

In many communities healthy resources can be found for help identifying and educating around pre-diabetes, most offering screenings and educational classes on a sliding scale basis.
Hospital’s Diabetes Education departments offer classes on pre-diabetes and more.

Most professional articles on diabetes, and pre-diabetes, focus on science and statistics. We all need to remember the human element here. While people with well-managed diabetes can live lives of thriving, not just surviving, the disease can inflict some of the worst suffering imaginable. We’re not just holding down healthcare costs with our wellness work, we’re doing our best to help people avoid the pain and misery of diseases like diabetes and live the healthiest lives possible.

Please add your comments about how we can help people be successful at lifestyle improvement and preventing diabetes.

 

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The Globalization of Health and Wellness

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Dr. Michel Arloski

The whole world wants to be well!

It was the end of five long days of delivering wellness and health coaching training in Sao Paulo. My Brazilian training partners Samia Samuro and Rachel Skarbnik (http://www.ser-psi.com.br/) were thanking the participants and me for a spectacularly successful training intensive. As I took my turn expressing gratitude to all, I felt a surge of emotion that surprised me. These twenty-five people from all over Brazil had touched my heart deeply with their passion for learning wellness coaching, their sense of connectedness and their ability to express appreciation and love.

During those five days we had shared about our experiences with wellness on both the professional and personal levels. And, just as I’ve been hit by the same awareness all over the world, I found myself concluding that the challenges to health and our solutions are all basically the same. Stress, economic pressures, social problems, environmental threats, the industrialization of food supplies, the huge increase in sedentary lifestyles and workstyles, the malignant and tenacious presence of tobacco, and increased isolation are health threats that challenge us all around the globe.

“I get up and grab something really quick for breakfast and rush out the door to slam into rush hour traffic so I can commute to work. I work hard all day long in an office building sitting most of the time. I fight my way back home through the traffic, swallow something quick for dinner and collapse in front of the television until I fall asleep, then get up and do it all over again.”

This testimony to stress and a health-destructive lifestyle really impacted me when I heard it coming from the lips, not of an “average” American, but of a citizen of Bangkok, Thailand when I was there in 1996. The same story is echoed around the world in Sao Paulo, Moscow, Mexico City, Tokyo, and many other places as well. The chronic illnesses faced by wellness coaching clients that my Brazilian students spoke of were the same killers we’re all familiar with. There is a diabetes epidemic in India that is astonishing as more and more people there work in sedentary jobs and change their eating habits. The twenty-year time bomb that often is cancer is already exploding in China where more tobacco is produced and smoked than anywhere in the world. Isolation, a major health risk, is showing up as a insidious factor in illness not just in the United States but in Australia and the Scandinavian countries.

The four main noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) – cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic lung diseases and diabetes – kill three in five people worldwide, and cause great socioeconomic harm within all countries, particularly developing nations. The World Health Organization, 2011. (http://www.who.int/nmh/en/)

Because of this, Global leaders met at the United Nations in New York from September 19th-20th (2011) to set a new international agenda on NCDs. Here is a resource on their meeting outcomes. http://www.who.int/nmh/events/un_ncd_summit2011/en/index.html

Hopefully this kind of awareness and front-and-center emphasis on NCD’s will make a difference. The big challenge however, is how to get across the message of Lifestyle Medicine that health has become a largely behavioral issue. NCD’s are driven by lifestyle choices, and lifestyle is all about attitude, belief, and (bottom line here) behavior.

The solutions offered by living wellness lifestyles are being embraced with increased awareness and enthusiasm. Fortunately wellness has gone international as people find their own ways of facing these challenges and finding solutions. The wellness field itself has embraced the fact that in addition to great health and wellness education, wellness is recognizing that we need to have behavioral processes that are affordable and readily available to help people make lasting lifestyle improvement, namely health and wellness coaching. It is no panacea but it is bound to help when we provide people with the allies they need to succeed at lifestyle change where they’ve failed before.

Think Globally, Act With Possibilities!

Did you know that it requires about 33% more words to translate an English message into Portuguese? Wellness itself will always require it’s own sort of translation into the local language, culture and experience. As I taught I found myself discovering that some of my everyday metaphors might not hold up. It’s hard for someone from the tropics to relate to “walking on thin ice”. Also we have to remember that one size does not fit all. Within every country, and especially large countries, there are regional differences that can be huge. What works in Sao Paulo (one of the world’s top five most populous cities) might be completely foreign to someone from Manaus (in the Amazon), just like Americans might find that a New York City solution does not fly in Des Moines.

Our differences need to be honored, but just like our DNA, what really matters is all the same. Wellness is still about connection, meaning and purpose, and getting our needs met on the physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual levels. The Brazilians reminded me that we’re all in this together.

Please add your comments and “Possibility Thinking”!

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