03 Apr
admin Personal Wellness No Comments

Dimensions of Wellness: Nurturing Emotional Wellness

This month’s topic is emotional wellness as we continue our series on the eight dimensions of wellness.  Emotional wellness is defined as the ability to successfully handle life’s stresses and adapt to change. Healthy habits in the realm of emotional wellness benefit relationships and productivity and decrease stress, enhancing overall wellness in the physical, social, environmental, and occupational dimensions of wellness. Nurturing emotional wellness helps to avoid relationship issues and difficulties at work. It impacts physical and mental health by decreasing risk factors for hypertension, cardiovascular disease, stroke, depression, and anxiety.

Laughter is “good medicine” and has been shown to decrease stress, improve mood, and enhance overall emotional wellness. Connecting with friends who make you laugh or watching funny movies and videos with friends and family connects in the emotional, social, and environmental realms of wellness. Practicing an attitude of gratitude is another way to build positive emotions to balance the challenges of life. A healthy habit of speaking or writing 3 things you are grateful for is a great place to start. Balancing positive and negative emotions is one of the benefits of practicing mindfulness. Focusing on feelings in a non-judgmental way helps us prioritize changing things that fall within our control.

Taking time to self-reflect impacts emotional wellness. Examining things in life that trigger fear and regret helps guide you to personal conflict resolution. Focus your time and energy on areas that require attention for positive change. Develop a self-care routine to provide scheduled space in the day to balance your emotions. A bit of personal quiet time for meditation or a hot bubble bath nourishes the mind and calms the soul. Nurturing resilience helps you bounce back when life does not work as planned and shifts focus to learning from mistakes. Opening growth opportunities by practicing resilience decreases guilt while clarifying a path toward conflict resolution.

Trauma is stored in the brain as memories. Emotions can trigger memories and result in a physical response. Recognizing this mental and physical connection provides coping strategies to help balance both physical and emotional wellness.  Loss is a type of trauma with emotional and physical consequences. Coping with loss by sharing thoughts and feelings with a trusted person and listening to others share their emotions builds community and promotes understanding leading to healing.

Prioritizing healthy choices in exercise, nutrition, sleep, and stress management impacts overall emotional wellness. Back to Life Physical Therapy and Coaching Services will assist in processing and prioritizing strategies to find your balance and invest in taking care of yourself! Reach out today for a free consultation.

03 Mar
admin Personal Wellness No Comments

Dimensions of Wellness: 10 Tips to Enhance Physical Wellness

Wellness is a holistic approach to overall health. The US National Wellness Institute co-founder Bill Hettler established six dimensions of wellness in 1976 consisting of physical, emotional, intellectual, occupational, social, and spiritual. Researchers have added two additional dimensions of wellness: financial and environmental. Overall wellness must include equal attention to all eight dimensions of wellness. Physical wellness can be defined as recognizing the need for physical activity, nutrition, and sleep. This definition covers three of our pillars of overall health! Building healthy habits through conscious effort keeps the body functioning at an optimal level, forming the basis of our coaching programs. It encompasses a specific focus on choosing to avoid personal risk factors while forming a wellness mindset to enhance quality of life. 10 Tips to Enhance Physical Wellness
  • Nurturing physical wellness begins with understanding unhealthy patterns and triggers. Self-assessment in the areas of movement, nutrition, and sleep helps with appropriate goal setting to achieve a larger health goal. When cardiovascular health is the goal, prioritizing movement can be as easy as getting out of the office on lunch breaks to take a walk instead of eating at the desk and working through lunch. Make it more fun by inviting coworkers along for accountability.
  • Building health habits requires a change in your surroundings to improve your ability to make healthy choices. Cutting back on sugar-laden beverages and drinking more water is one example. Even diet drinks with artificial sweeteners can trigger a craving for more sugar. Start by substituting water for one meal a day.
  • Building muscle through resistive exercise helps improve metabolism and provides more muscle mass to burn the fuel you consume. Functional strengthening is easy to incorporate into your day by scheduling a movement break every 2 hours. Try desktop push-ups for the upper body or repeated sit to stand for the legs. All movements help keep the body performing optimally.
  • Physical wellness is directly impacted by the quality and quantity of sleep cycles. A prolonged lack of sleep is linked to obesity, insulin regulation, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and stroke, just to name a few. Finding solutions to better quality of sleep can be found in exploring your sleep environment. Temperature, light, and physical comfort in bed all impact the quality of sleep.
  • As we age, metabolism slows and often results in steady weight gain. Lean muscle mass decreases with age, our activity levels decrease, and food breaks down differently. Finding a personal balance in strength training, aerobic activity, healthy eating, and appropriate sleep all help to keep metabolism steady and the body functioning more efficiently.
  • Alcohol consumption can be a trigger for weight gain and poor sleep. Limiting alcohol helps to cut empty calories, especially at the end of the day to “wind down”. The extra sugars cause insulin to spike at night and sleep cycles are interrupted. These negative effects on physical wellness can be avoided by setting boundaries to when and how much alcohol is right for your health and well-being.
  • Making smart nutrition choices can be easier than you think. Healthy eating involves cutting back on unhealthy processed foods and choosing more variety. Cutting back on sugar and processed oils will make a big impact in controlling cravings. Snacks are not needed to keep the body energized. Instead, focus on 2-3 healthy meals with a variety of proteins, fruits, and vegetables.
  • The physical benefits of sleep include increased mood, energy, and attention span. When the body is refreshed and restored at night, the days become more productive. For those who have tried every diet and exercise program out there, changing sleep habits is most likely the key to unlocking physical wellness.
  • Change is easier to achieve with appropriate support and community.  Get the whole family involved in taking a walk or bike ride after dinner. Use shared interests with friends and family to get more active. And don’t forget to set a steady bedtime free of distractions for the kids and yourself!
  • Illness and pain can derail physical wellness leading to a significant decline in physical health. Coming up with alternative movement strategies is one way to avoid the downward spiral. Finding enjoyable activities in low-impact environments can reduce pain and build endurance after an illness. Slow steady progress can be made with water exercises, stationary cycling, or light stretching routines. Find a starting point and track out slow but steady progress to recover after injury or illness.
Physical well-being is the starting point for establishing an overall wellness plan. Growth comes from challenges in all areas of life. Physical wellness requires planning for the future through choices to provide the strength and endurance to deal with the daily challenges of life.
03 Feb
admin Personal Wellness, Time Management No Comments

Time Management: Enhancing Health and Wellness

There are twenty-four hours in a day and seven days in a week. How are you maximizing your time? Managing time is an essential building block to enhance health and wellness. It is a skill that requires personal attention for appropriate application based on personality, lifestyle, and individual goals. Accomplishing more with less effort occurs through honing time management skills. Prioritizing, organizing, planning, and scheduling provide the framework for building the healthy habits required to achieve personal goals. Effective time management provides a sense of overall well-being and is easily applied to our four pillars of health. It places control over your schedule to balance work and life.

One of the top benefits of improving time management is its effect on stress. High levels of stress wreak havoc on health and negatively impact sleep.  Prioritization is the process of organizing tasks in order of importance. A simple application includes establishing three top priorities for the day. This healthy habit helps accomplish tasks in order of importance and can be applied to work as well as personal time by designating two work priorities and one personal priority for each workday. Build on this habit of prioritizing sleep with a brain dump before bed to celebrate accomplishments and prioritize for the next day.

Organizational skills improve the efficient use of time and result in surprising health benefits. Clutter steals time and adds to frustration and anxiety. Start small with one area of focus to help declutter. A daily routine of putting things in their place helps keep the house in order and frees time on weekends to schedule more of the activities that bring joy and reduce anxiety. Including these movement activities in your movement menu helps add scheduled “exercise time” to your work week. Consider adding music to dance your way through cleaning the kitchen, making mundane chores more enjoyable while lowering stress.

Planning is the cornerstone of time management. Utilizing tools to facilitate planning depends on your personality and personal preferences. Written and digital options for planners improve organization and facilitate efficiency. Meal prep and grocery lists are the perfect application to hone planning skills while enhancing health goals. Meal planning based on your weekly schedule provides the structure for meal prep, prioritizing healthy choices, and decreasing temptations while in the grocery store and throughout the week.

The final piece to enhancing time management is the scheduling component. Scheduling all aspects of work and life ensures balance to build healthy habits through habit stacking. Sleep is the first area to build into your schedule. Research is clear that consistent sleep schedules lower stress and improve overall health, so set boundaries to protect your required sleep cycle. Habit stacking involves scheduling items that accomplish a health goal in more than one of the pillars of health. Scheduling a walk after lunch combines movement and nutrition goals, while exercises involving mindfulness and meditation added to a night routine can address movement, sleep, and stress management. 

Invest in yourself by discovering the best time management strategies for your lifestyle. Which area of time management needs your attention to enhance your health and wellness? Reach out for a free consultation to discover how to apply these powerful tips and get back to the life you desire.

04 Jan
Boundaries for health and wellness
admin Boundaries, Personal Wellness

Setting Boundaries to Protect Health and Wellness Goals

As a new year begins and the season of overindulgence comes to an end, getting back on track with health and wellness goals moves up the priority list. To begin the process, one top priority for this year’s health and wellness goal should be established. This requires time to reflect on the past year to define what needs to improve to feel secure and confident as you build on healthy habits. To fine-tune the process, consider choosing one area of focus from the four pillars of health, movement strategies, nutrition, sleep, and stress management. Which area is the biggest barrier to achieving your long-term health goals? Write down the top priority to provide the framework for motivation and encouragement as the year progresses.

Establishing boundaries is a critical component of protecting health and wellness goals. Boundary setting is a form of self-care and helps set limits to achieve specific goals. It is a skill that requires practice and self-awareness. Boundaries for health and wellness goals communicate an invisible line to protect physical and emotional well-being while building healthy habits. Once a health goal is established, the tools for protecting your goal will become your healthy boundaries.

Personal boundaries related to health goals can include protecting your physical and emotional well-being, time constraints, and work-life balance. Boundaries need to be clearly defined. I am going to “__________”. Filling in your blank builds a path to assist in accomplishing the goal. A health goal related to increasing weight-bearing activities to combat the progression of osteoporosis, for example, would require personal boundaries related to passive activities. I am going to limit sitting at the computer to 90 minutes. This personal boundary builds in space to sprinkle weight-bearing movement breaks into the workday.

Communicating boundaries is a crucial step to assist in accountability and protecting physical and emotional components related to your health goal.  I need you to “________”. This statement conveys your needs clearly to those in your inner circle who care about your health and well-being.  Reducing stress by improving work-life balance could be a health goal, and your boundary may involve protecting weekend activities. Conveying your need may include asking your spouse to tend to the kids on a Saturday morning to open time for a self-care activity.  I need you to get up with the baby tomorrow so I can go to the gym. Open communication to protect boundaries builds healthy relationships and healthy habits. Practice communicating boundaries first with family and close friends before applying the process to tougher situations. Communication is a skill that needs to be practiced, and most challenging situations are related to lack of communication. Freedom to remove barriers to achieving goals starts with communicating needs respectfully yet firmly.

Boundaries should place healthy choices in your hands. Having a clear understanding of your needs will help you avoid setting expectations that rely on others to fill those needs. For example, if the health goal involves lowering insulin resistance by cutting back on sugar and processed foods, your boundary could involve avoiding the break room at work to eliminate the temptation of grab-and-go snacks.

Start small with boundaries that enhance your desired outcome. Find small things within your control to build gradually and confidently toward healthy habits. A health goal to improve your sleep habits can begin with boundaries related to protecting the quality of sleep by avoiding activities that impact your sleep cycle. This can include exposure to blue light, caffeine, alcohol consumption, and evening snacking. Choosing just one area to explore cause and effect will guide your boundary setting to move forward steadily toward the long-term goal.

Get comfortable with saying no! Healthy habits require firm boundaries, and the art of saying no helps to protect those boundaries. Saying no to situations that directly conflict with a health goal is a great place to start. One example is declining the after-work invitation to happy hour to protect your weight loss goals. Saying no makes your healthy choices a priority and protects your freedom to choose.

Successful boundary setting is directly correlated with staying true to your beliefs and values, and strategies to deal with boundaries crossed.  Health goals are personal and linked to your specific needs. Having a solid sense of your identity helps provide the framework to establish goals and boundaries that align with your desired outcomes. Establish a strategy to express emotions safely and calmly when boundaries are crossed. Relationships are strengthened by effective boundaries as trust is built into the process. Self-confidence grows as small steps are made toward health goals and stressful situations diminish as relationships grow.

Why are boundaries so hard? They force us to see personal tendencies that create roadblocks to achieving goals. Acknowledging people-pleasing behaviors, guilt, regret, and fear of failure requires looking inward, which can often open old wounds. This process of avoidance begins as self-protection, yet it results in self-sabotage. A clear understanding of weaknesses guides the specific health goal and the boundaries to support a positive outcome.  Continue to assess how effectively the boundary protects or enhances your progress toward the desired outcome. Healthy habits start with small yet firm guidelines and become more flexible as confidence grows. Building healthy habits takes willpower and determination. It is a daily, weekly, and monthly process to tune into how your choices guide the outcome. Successful personal growth is a journey built on healthy boundaries to achieve healthier habits. 

04 Dec
admin Lifestyle Changes No Comments

Handling the Holidays: Protecting Healthy Habits

From Halloween to the New Year, the holiday season escalates to a frenzied pace. The additional school functions, social activities, and sweet temptations can wreak havoc on healthy habits! It takes months to develop healthy habits, and they can all come crashing down in just a few short weeks. So, how do we protect our hard work and continue to focus on our health goals during the holiday season? The answer lies in planning and preparing for all four pillars of healthy habits related to exercise, nutrition, sleep strategies, and stress management.

The planning should begin as the trick-or-treat candies and inflatables hit the store shelves. Protecting the work done all year requires building on boundaries already established and strategies to navigate the challenges this stretch of the calendar creates.  The formation of healthy habits requires personal boundaries in all four areas of health, and a commitment to your self-care routine. Self-sabotage occurs when the boundaries are not well-defined, and habits are not fully developed. This cycle leads to abandoning the process of prioritizing personal health. Strive to thrive and build on healthy boundaries with these top three priorities in each area.

Exercise Priorities

  • Use your movement menu to keep on track during the busy holiday season. Planning is key to keeping your exercise goals moving forward, so start with these healthy movement strategies every day. Add incline push-ups and squats to your morning routine to begin your day with functional strengthening.  This strategy takes away the guilt of skipping a few of your normal exercise classes due to the demands of your schedule. By starting a new morning habit of functional strengthening, you can continue to build in options during your workday keeping your evenings free for the extra demands of the holiday season.
  • Prioritize one non-negotiable exercise activity. When you are in a routine, it is difficult to let go of that routine without risking it falling off at the first of the year. Planning and prioritization are key to keeping you motivated. If you take a lunchtime walk every day, make sure to keep up with that one activity. If you work out at the gym 2-3 times a week, planning to cut back just a bit allows extra time for the long holiday to-do list. When we plan to cut back, we know it is a temporary solution to the increased demand of the season, and a plan is also in place to ramp back up when the schedule allows. 
  • Knowing your non-negotiable exercise times allows you to plan for alternative activities. This strategy provides wiggle room to cut back on certain areas while accounting for the increased movement involvement in shopping, gift wrapping, baking, and spending time with family and friends. Alternative activities could be a scheduled fun run/walk, shopping trips scheduled with a friend, or even walking the neighborhood as a family to look at all the lights and decorations. The hustle and bustle of the holiday season involves increased movement. Being mindful of this helps take the pressure off.

Nutrition Priorities

  • Healthy eating 80% of the time and allow the remaining 20% to enjoy all that the holidays have to offer.  Keep in mind that you have 21 meals a week. Focusing on the areas you can plan to stay on track with your nutrition goals will again keep the guilt and regret at bay. Prioritize breakfast as your healthy meal of the day by prepping your grab-and-go egg bites, breakfast burritos, or crustless breakfast casserole. Knowing your scheduled events also allows you to plan for healthy crock pot meals to eat healthy on the go. Plan for the 80% and enjoy the 20% at parties and office events.
  • There is a strategy to manage holiday meals. Eating around your plate makes a difference in satiety and metabolism. As you work your way through the potluck, make sure you balance your plate with proteins, vegetables, and starches. Next, start by eating your protein first, vegetables next, and finish with the starchy foods. This increases satiety and reduces the insulin response to your meal. Try this at potlucks and parties to minimize the response to your meal. 
  • You get to choose when and how you enjoy holiday treats. You can minimize the negative impact of added sweets by strategically placing them at the end of meals instead of trying and failing to avoid them. This strategy lowers the insulin spike associated with “naked carbs” and improves the body’s ability to process the sugars without storing them as fat. Don’t forget that alcohol is also added sugar and should be monitored in a similar fashion. Choose holiday cocktails with less sugary mixers, and plan to drink one glass of water for every cocktail. Don’t deprive but learn to thrive with appropriate strategies. 


Sleep Strategy Priorities

  • Protecting your healthy sleep habits should be at the top of your list. Sleep is the foundation of healthy body functions. As you plan for the holidays, make it a priority to protect your normal sleep schedule. The 80/20 rule also applies to sleep as you plan to protect your sleep schedule. Planning for 80% normal sleep will keep you refreshed and energized. Give yourself the freedom to pick and choose when to schedule those late-night holiday parties to maximize your sleep. You get to decide which nights work best for your overall health and well-being.
  • Watch out for the added treats before bedtime. Sugar and alcohol are two primary culprits in interrupting your sleep cycles and robbing you of the benefits of your full 7–8-hour sleep cycle. Know your body’s response to these triggers, and plan to limit the impact on your sleep cycle through planning and perseverance. During weeknight parties, for example, choose a non-alcoholic sparking water with a garnish for a festive look without the negative impacts on sleep during the work week. Save your 20% for the weekend celebrations when sleeping later is an option.
  • Outdoor light helps keep your circadian rhythm in check. Shorter days leave us feeling groggy and grouchy. By adding outdoor light to your day, you minimize the impact. Just 20-30 minutes of outdoor light helps improve your mood and maintain your quality of sleep. This is where you can habit-sack some outdoor time by adding a walk at lunch for stress management and movement goals to benefit all three areas.

Stress Management Priorities

  • As you spend increased time with family and friends, remember your “reason for the season”. A mindful focus on why the celebrations occur helps to defuse challenging people in our lives. Preplanning an exit strategy and communicating that strategy with a trusted friend or family member reduces conflict. Control stressful situations by acknowledging your feelings, taking a pause, and allowing those feelings to guide your response. 
  • The holiday breaks add additional stress as we transition to the New Year. Finding a balance between work, kids home from school, and visiting relatives can be overwhelming. Schedule management is key to navigating your top 3 priorities each day. Planned activities for the break become manageable with the use of your daily, weekly, and monthly planner. This habit sets you up to successfully manage balance into 2024 and beyond.
  • Establishing boundaries to time, energy, and financial goals during the holiday season will reduce the risk of added stress. Plan to make or create personal gifts which could be easier on the budget. Use your scheduling tools to protect your time, and habit stack your health habits in exercise, nutrition, and sleep to control your energy levels. Building on your established healthy habits helps reduce stress and leads to a joyful holiday experience.

Back to Life Physical Therapy and Coaching Services wishes you and yours a very blessed holiday season. If you would like more information on our programs to build healthy habits for the New Year, reach out for a free conversation. Our coaching programs are exclusively offered by medical professionals in Exercise Sciences, Nutrition, and Physical Therapy. We are here to help you achieve your goals to get Back to Life and live life more abundantly.

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03 Nov
admin Personal Wellness No Comments

Balancing Grief and Gratitude During the Holiday Season

The holiday season is filled with multiple activities bringing with it a multitude of emotions. The highs and lows can be difficult to balance during the best of times, however, for those experiencing the loss of a loved one balancing grief and gratitude seems like an impossible task. The grieving process is unique to the individual and tied to the emotional and traumatic nature of the loss. The holiday season places additional challenges on those experiencing grief whether the grief is still raw, or many years have passed. The process is like mixing oil and vinegar. They are two separate and distinct fluids that only mix when shaken, and then quickly separate to their individual parts when left alone. Emotions can feel the same way during the holiday season when experiencing moments of hope and loss simultaneously or as separate parts. Finding balance in the extremes can help navigate the season successfully.

The practice of gratitude has many benefits and requires discipline to purposely focus on positivity vs negativity, especially when navigating grief. Physiologically it calms the racing heart and decreases breathing rates helping the body recalibrate when overwhelming negative emotions are triggered. Practicing gratitude can start by ending the day purposefully taking note of one good thing that happened. Gratitude can have positive effects on the mind by increasing the production of hormones that calm the mind, decreasing symptoms of depression and anxiety while increasing a sense of well-being.  Celebrate and mentally savor positive memories that pop up in your social media feed during the holiday season to stimulate these powerful hormones and fill your gratitude cup. Spiritually, gratitude enhances meaning and purpose as you connect to loved ones. Allow family and friends to help navigate grieving what is lost and embrace the present to find hope in the future. Grief is often described as love expressed in sorrow. Love is a powerful emotion that allows space to move between the past and the future.

Life is different after losing a loved one. The grief process is not a recovery process but learning to live life differently. The pain ebbs and flows like the ocean tides which often get rougher during the holiday season. Traditions feel familiar and comforting while at the same time stirring deep sorrow. Navigating these emotional shifts is exhausting both mentally and physically. Coping skills are strategies to provide order in chaos to enhance hope. Coping strategies provide options to navigate the challenges brought on by the holiday season.

  • Deep diaphragmatic breathing exercises calm anxiety. Memories of loved ones, even happy memories, can trigger anxiety, especially during the holidays. When feelings of anxiety are triggered, focus on the cleansing results of deep inhalation and slow exhalation. Practice in private helps with application in public settings.
  • Mindfulness is a way of life and keeps us living in the moment, while grief keeps pulling us to the past. Taking time to feel the sun on your face, the first cold blasts of winter, or taking in the beauty of the sunrise can shift the grieving heart to the present, creating balance and momentary peace. Practice mindfulness today by focusing on one of your senses to draw you pleasantly back to the present.  
  • A gratitude journal is another way to develop a grateful mindset. If writing is not your thing, try jotting down the top 3 things you are grateful for on your calendar. Keep in mind that gratitude does not replace grief but helps provide balance to the grieving process.
  • Take time to consider holiday boundaries. Grief can shift without warning triggering overwhelm. Plan an exit strategy to provide space when feelings of being overwhelmed strike. Communicate the plan with a trusted family member to help provide a sense of peace.
  • Prioritize and plan self-care activities to provide the space to rebound during the holiday season. This can be as simple as keeping the calendar clear after Thanksgiving or planning a family outing to create new holiday memories. Whatever feels right is the right choice and requires no justification. A family discussion can provide guidance to make the right choice.
  • When navigating the grieving process, keeping up with the calendar can be mentally exhausting. Taking time to write down the activities takes the pressure off and allows for family discussions to prioritize what is important and what can be skipped this year.

There will be times when no amount of distraction, positivity, or gratitude will take away the sadness of loss. Choosing life in the present is especially hard during the holiday season. We have little power to change our circumstances, but we do have the power to choose how we respond. Space, grace, and love lead to gratitude and help in navigating the complexities of grieving.

08 Oct
admin Personal Wellness No Comments

Coping with Trauma

Trauma is personal. It affects everyone at some point in life. In this broken world, there is no escaping trauma. It cannot be compared to other’s situations or circumstances, yet our virtual world does just that through social shaming and downplaying the personal impacts of trauma. The past few decades unlocked many of the complexities and mysteries surrounding how the mind processes and stores trauma in the body, setting the stage for hope. Hope and healing come with compassion, empathy, respect, acceptance, and understanding. 

The American Psychiatric Association defines trauma as the experiencing or witnessing of events in which there is actual or threatened death, serious injury, or violence. Traumatic events can include the death of a loved one, abusive relationships, accidents, natural disasters, and severed relationships. Trauma has lasting adverse effects on mental, physical, social, emotional, and/or spiritual well-being. The processing of trauma in the brain is directly correlated to how life-threatening the trauma is. When the flight or fight response reaches extreme levels, the brain stores memories in a fragmented state, increasing the difficulty of processing and resolving trauma. Unresolved trauma then presents itself physically and emotionally when triggers ignite the fragmented memories.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental and behavioral response that develops from traumatic events. The symptoms affect every aspect of daily life and can appear months, or even years, after the trauma itself. Complex PTSD refers to repetitive trauma often associated with childhood or abusive relationships. Childhood trauma has devastating effects on the body, mind, and spirit. We learn self-care early in childhood development by the way we are cared for. The number of children estimated to have suffered childhood trauma is staggering. The spirit is challenged in identity formation. The mind suffers disassociation, anxiety, and a variety of psychiatric disorders as the developing mind struggles to cope. Physically childhood trauma is linked to pain disorders, autoimmune diseases, and metabolic syndromes. Understanding this impact is critical to appropriate care. 

Coping with the results of trauma requires a comprehensive approach beginning in the medical profession and extending into alternative forms of healing options.  Mental health treatment is a critical component to overcoming the negative effects of PTSD. One treatment approach, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), shows promising results in accessing and processing traumatic fragmented memories to restore natural sleep cycles and successfully treat PTSD. Other treatment strategies for coping with trauma include a variety of therapies that stimulate the mind and body. Music and dance therapy utilizes rhythms, freedom of movement, and self-expression. Massage therapy improves sensory awareness, enhances blood flow, and relaxes stressed muscles. Acting and theatre activities, including improvisational skills, allow creativity to flow and the mind to relax by becoming who we are not. Effective treatments are as diverse as the individuals suffering from trauma. 

The fundamental building blocks of health include movement strategies, nutrition, sleep, and stress management. Learning to individualize the many self-care opportunities in these areas is a critical component of the healing process. 

·       Movement strategies release endorphins and can be very helpful in overcoming trauma. Deep breathing exercises are very helpful in controlling mental and physical responses to trauma. Relaxation strategies combining movement including yoga, tai chi, and dance can be very helpful in enhancing calm and reducing the body’s reaction to increased levels of stress hormones.

 

·       A balanced diet is another key component to overcoming trauma. Reducing sugar, decreasing processed foods, and eating whole foods improves the mental and physical effects of chronic trauma-related stress. Adding mindfulness to your eating by savoring the flavors and appreciating a meal is another application to restore hormonal balance and decrease the impact of trauma on the body, mind, and spirit. 

 

·       Sleep cycles are directly correlated to stress and negative emotions. Establishing a nighttime routine and paying attention to sleep hygiene can help. Staying connected to family, friends, and colleagues has also been shown to enhance healing from trauma. Isolation breeds negative emotions and deepens the impacts of trauma. Accepting support, connecting with those you trust, and creating boundaries, can provide a safe space for healing and rest.

 

·       Working through negative emotions and the physiological response to those emotions can be achieved through meditation, journaling, or body scanning to increase self-awareness. Stimulating personal creativity and embracing individuality through activities that bring joy restore balance to the mind and spirit and lead to enhanced coping strategies for stress.

Trauma’s effects on the body, mind, and spirit cannot be ignored. Seek a compassionate professional to help overcome the negative impacts of trauma. Life coaching can help navigate the medical model as well as alternative interventions to overcome trauma and get Back to Life.

05 Sep
admin Lifestyle Changes No Comments

Personal Development: The Path Toward Healthier Habits

Healthy habits, we all want them, but they take time and a great deal of dedication to establish. A personal development plan outlines a path toward achieving your health goals. The foundation for personal development involves getting to know yourself well to assess the skills needed to make healthier choices. Self-discovery in the areas of personality and identity, our last two topics, provides clarity to determine the tools needed to be successful. When seeking personal development for health goals, we begin by looking inward to determine the areas that require improvement.

Taking an inventory of body, mind, and spirit to determine the health goal helps identify your passion and purpose for achieving the goal and provides the motivation to change. The pillars of healthy living can be found by assessing the areas of movement strategies, nutrition, quality of sleep, and stress management. The body and mind strive for balance. When one or most of these areas are lacking, balance shifts, affecting your overall health and well-being. Tuning into the signals the body is sending and your emotional response to those signals can help establish an area of focus and the steps required to achieve the bigger health goals of weight loss, recovery from illness, or surgery.

Spiritual personal growth involves looking at your values. It involves diving deeper into your connection to yourself and the world around you. What motivates you to become a part of the greater good is deeply rooted in the emotional connections that shape your thoughts and actions. Taking time to explore spiritual growth leads to inner peace and adds to the framework for building healthier habits. Building relationships with those who share your values and are striving for a similar goal significantly improves progress toward that goal. Trust, accountability, and improved communication skills are important components of developing healthy relationships. Work in this area improves the quality of life in emotional and social aspects to increase both growth and satisfaction as you work toward your goal.

A personal development plan provides the organizational component to tune in to skills needed to achieve your long-term goals. Establishing a plan requires knowing your goal, creating a routine to build new healthy habits, and mindfully keeping track of progress. It is a commitment to actions that will pave the way to success. The personal development process is as unique as the individual and a lifetime adventure. Striving to be at your best as the seasons of life change builds character, enhances fulfillment, and promotes personal health and well-being for the body, mind, and spirit.

Life Coaching helps establish a personal development plan to fine-tune your goals, and build your new healthy habits and provides accountability and guidance to track your progress. Reach out today to learn more about how coaching can help you!

04 Aug
admin Personal Wellness No Comments

Identity: A Journey of Transformation

The digital age has significantly changed the processing of identity formation and transformation. The impact of our on-screen time, as well as the post-pandemic shift to virtual classrooms, virtual doctor visits, and social media now shape qualities, beliefs, personality traits, and expressions that characterize identity. The virtual self vs. true self line is blurred when interactions primarily occur on screens. The roles of the family, peer groups, and experimentation have all shifted over the past decade because of digital isolation. Understanding this impact on identity can help combat self-doubt, self-consciousness, and negative thoughts to enhance forming a healthier self-image and healthier decision-making processes.  

Identity evolves over time and begins in childhood through parental and societal influences. It progresses with social interactions in adolescence via peer groups and role models and shifts in adulthood to professional roles and the growth of personal values. Recognizing the impact of virtual interactions and instant information available via phones and computers helps define a person’s identity. Identity distinguishes people from others and is generally comprised of multiple identities that characterize an individual, including cultural, professional, ethnic, religious, and gender identities. A person’s sense of self determines general health and wellness decision-making.

As parents, staying connected in adolescence helps the formation of identity. The first eighteen years determine the foundation of identity development related to positive processing skills. Mental health suffers when identity is based on pleasing others vs. authenticity to self. Understanding self-image or identity impacts decision-making processes and affects healthy choices by attaching meaning to why we do what we do. Aligning behaviors with identity allows us to make choices based on what we want to become. Spending time on self-care activities builds understanding and positive outcomes.

Identity shifts as we get older and allows room for transformation as we learn more about who we are and who we want to become. Identity is a combination of our personal values and the roles we hold at any given time. Linking our purpose with those who share our values and roles provides opportunities to build our growth potential toward our healthy goals. Connection with others in similar stages enhances our outcomes by providing a positive accountability network. Positive self-talk affects how we think of ourselves and leads to healthier choices. Eliminating terms like “I can’t” from our vocabulary impacts our healthy habits. To create behavior change, a clear picture of personal capabilities helps form the strength to move forward.

Personality traits, lifetime experiences, and social roles are all pieces of our identity. The process of self-discovery helps align the pieces of self that make us unique contributors to our communities. It aligns us with our beliefs, provides motivation, and improves our ability to cope with inevitable change. Life is full of change. We get to choose how to make changes that reshape our identity. There is power in personal choice, but also consequences. Choose to look both at yourself and those you choose to surround yourself with in your inner circle of influence. We don’t get to choose our circumstances, but we do get to choose our response. True freedom comes from recognizing how our choices affect both ourselves and others.

Life coaching helps sort out the positive and negative parts of personality and identity to begin the transformation toward positive change. Finding yourself in an identity crisis, or lacking fulfillment in life? Reach out for more information on how coaching can help you transform and find your path toward healthier habits through self-discovery!

06 Jul
admin Development No Comments

Personality Drives Our Choices

How we view ourselves and our inherent personality traits plays a role in our behavior, lifestyle choices, and overall health. Understanding how our personality drives us to our overall health and wellness decisions paves the way to making healthier choices. How were we inherently created (nature)? How do life experiences shape us (nurture)? This is the classic debate between nature vs nurture. 

Temperament can be considered the foundation of personality and is closely linked to genetics. The inherited characteristics often show up first. Any parent can attest to the first signs of personality in their beautiful infants. One child is calm and able to self-soothe, while their sibling is more curious and energetic. These genetic building blocks of personality are less likely to change over time, however, traits can soften based on experience. Personality is built on both inherited personality traits and layers of experiences that shape our decision-making.

Environmental variables contributing to our personality include how we were raised with core beliefs, childhood experiences and learned behaviors, social relationships, and cultural influences.  Most experts believe that personality develops over time and is a combination of genetics and environment. The progression is based on how learning and experience affect personality development. Personality differences among individuals are related to the complex interaction between genetics and life experiences. 

There are many definitions of personality, however, most focus on patterns of behavior and characteristics contributing to predicting or explaining a person’s behavior. Both nature and nurture contribute to our individual personalities. These interactions lead to the belief that personalities can change through both experience and life events, and volitionally choosing to work on healthier habits based on personality characteristics. Because personality traits fall on a continuum, behavior science tells us that change is possible. While we cannot change our genetics, we can change our perspectives and attitudes as we learn and grow. It all starts with a desire to change which can lead to discovering the path toward the desired change.

Follow Back to Life Physical Therapy and Coaching Services on social media this month to learn more about personality and how it affects overall health.

 

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