I was sitting here thinking about New Year’s resolutions. It is almost 2 weeks since New Years and I wonder how many people are still steadfast about sticking to the commitments they made to themselves on January 1st. How lofty are your goals?
When you set goals, often times you are looking for instant gratification instead of for a true life change. You make a list of what you are going to change. Overnight, you will change all your bad habits without regard to situations, circumstances, and triggers. These goals although exciting and motivating are put in place without a road map. How are you going to accomplish your goal? What do you need to do to overcome an obstacle to reaching your goal? Have you ever achieved this before? How did that go? What would you change? What can you change? Without a clear path to how you will reach your goal, it often ends up a failure. After a couple weeks, you can’t understand why you haven’t lost 5 pounds, why you garage is still disorganized, why you still haven’t written those thank you notes, and why you are stressed and disappointed. So – You just give up! During this defeat, you feel as though you have failed when really, you didn’t fail, you just didn’t complete the process for effective change.

When it comes to lifestyle changes – it is about changing gradually to achieve permanent success. Baby steps in a constant forward movement are going to get you much further than a few giant steps that you can slip back from.
Make a plan. Figure out what you want and then break it down into do-able,
small steps. Notice how much easier it is to stick to and watch how they become habit. No deprivation or feelings of frustration if you learn to handle on change at a time. And while you’re at it – pat yourself on the back at a job well done!

Peggy works with women is the sandwich generation empowering them to find ways in which to deal
with the demands and challenges during this phase of their lives to avoid stress related illness.
Peggy will be presenting on the effects of stress on the body systems and how to conquer and rise above what drains them.
Start Time: 18:30
Date: 2010-01-19
End Time: 20:00

Integrating An Ounce Of Prevention

Dr. Jon LaPook investigated Duke Integrative Medicine’s non-traditional approach to preventing health issues before they happen. Duke believes this is the future of healthcare.

(CBS) As health care reform heads into the next phase, Congress will miss the boat if it ends up perpetuating a system that reacts to illness rather than preventing it. Chronic diseases such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes wreck our quality of life and cost a fortune. For obesity alone, according to The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the annual medical price tag in the United States is $147 billion.

In recent years there has been debate about whether preventive services would actually lower health costs.

Would savings to programs like Medicare be blunted because healthier patients tend to live longer – and therefore ultimately pile up more medical costs – than patients who die sooner of their chronic diseases? But an article in this month’s American Journal of Public Health by Dana Goldman Ph.D. and his colleagues suggests that preventive medicine saves money along with lives. In fact, the authors calculated that a middle-aged person successfully treated for obesity, hypertension, and diabetes would gain about six years of life and, despite living longer, could save as much as $55,000 in lifetime medical spending.

Preventive medicine must become an integral part of health care reform. Counseling and other lifestyle interventions are effective in the treatment of diabetes, hypertension, and smoking. And in recent years, a new and intriguing concept has emerged in the prevention and treatment of chronic illness: the health coach.

I learned about health coaching during a trip to Duke Integrative Medicine, which has pioneered its use. Dr. Tracy Gaudet, Executive Director of Duke Integrative Medicine, explained, “There is currently no one in the healthcare system who has the job or the expertise to actually help people make the lifestyle and behavior changes that they want to make. It is hard to change engrained behaviors. The Integrative Health Coach is trained to help people clarify their personal health goals and achieve them.” I saw an example when I interviewed health coach Linda Duda and her patient, Nasera Hassan, a woman with type II diabetes who was having trouble sticking to her doctor’s prescribed regimen of exercise, diet, and medication. Hassan told me, “I think when you’re so busy with life in general you forget to take medication. You forget to make your appointments for exercise. You don’t really think about how you’re eating or what you’re eating.”

With the blessing of her physician, Hassan agreed to try a health coach. She and Duda spoke by phone once a week for six months. Hassan credits Duda with dramatically improving her attitude and helping her navigate towards a healthier lifestyle.

Research supports the role of interventions that improve patient motivation. A ten-month study at Duke found that an integrative medicine approach that includes health coaching can reduce the 10-year risk of cardiovascular disease.
As Gaudet explains, “Incredible amounts of money are spent on largely preventable illnesses rooted in lifestyle choices. Our current health care system is not designed to address this issue. Integrative Health Coaches can work in conjunction with doctor’s offices or health systems, or they can be community-based in churches, synagogues, and barber shops.”

We need many other innovative ideas like health coaching if we are going to make any dent in chronic health diseases. Health care reform will miss a golden opportunity if all it does is sign more people up for our current system – one that fails to nurture wellness. We know that preventive medicine saves lives and money; it must be at the very core of a reformed health care system.

As a veteran RN of 35 years and a doctor of Natural Health, I have tremendous passion to help people. As in Integrative Health Coach, I have found just the skills and tools to do that.  So I am empowering my clients to be “more”.  

The phrase “you are more than you think you are” was mentioned to me several months ago and it really gave me pause.  When you think about yourself, how do you define yourself?  A student, a mechanic, a lawyer, a nurse or perhaps a teacher?   But is that all you are – your profession or occupation?  I remember when I worked in the Medical Center, our patients were defined by their illness – i.e. – Mr. Jones – the cardiac patient.   But was Mr. Jones just a cardiac patient? Or was there more?  Certainly – there was, he had a family, he had wishes, dreams,  a career, a sense of humor, a faith he was devoted to,  he was a brother, a father and a son. He loved to fish and dance with his wife.  Yet in the halls of a hospital – he is merely….  Mr. Jones that cardiac patient.

 So that brings me back to say:  “You are more than your think you are”.

We are not defined by our troubles, our illnesses, relatives, occupations, our failures or successes. We are so much more.

As a little practice – think about this message and take time to jot down all the endless and marvelous aspects of “YOU”

I bet you will be surprised!

 I’d enjoy your posts on the subject.

Be well,

Peggy