Anxiety

We have all experienced feeling worried or nervous at some point in our life and for most of us, it is a part of our everyday life. These feelings are not all together bad. As a matter of fact, mild to moderate feelings of anxiety can help us focus our energy, attention, and be motivated. However, when anxiety becomes severe, you can experience feelings of helplessness, confusion, and extreme worry. Anxiety causes both physical and emotional symptoms. A few of these symptoms are trembling, sweating or cold, clammy hands, sleep problems, irritability, inability to concentrate, and/or constant feelings of sadness.

Although sometimes professional treatment is needed, here are some simple tips to help manage anxiety by managing stress in your life:

1. Managing your time by setting priorities, say no when you need to, and avoid procrastination by using a planner or breaking down large projects into smaller chunks
2. Building healthy coping strategies by writing thought and feelings in a journal or using relaxation techniques
3. Build a good lifestyle by finding balance, getting plenty of sleep (7-9 hours a night), and finding a sense of purpose in life
4. Have a good social support system filled with people you love and trust
5. Change thinking to more positive and practical thoughts to avoid triggering the bodies stress response
*Information from WebMD

TAKING BREAKS: Tips to avoid breakdown and burnout

Our bodies are resilient and built to work, but they are not invincible. Research has shown that no matter what type of work you are doing it will be most productive if you take breaks. Our body’s ultradian rhythms control our energy flow throughout the day. During the first hour of a task our heart rate, brain waves, hormonal levels, and muscle tension all increase. When that hour is up somewhere between 90-120 minutes our body tells us we need a break by yawning, wanting to stretch, or we start to have difficulty concentrating. When we experience these symptoms we should listen to our bodies and take a break. We need not feel guilty because the truth is that the break will help us work better anyway.

We are capable of over-riding these natural cycles, but only by summoning the fight-or-fight response and flooding our bodies with stress hormones that are designed to handle emergencies. The long term cost is that toxins build up inside of us and we can only push for so long without breaking down and burning out. - Power of Full Engagement- Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

Weight Management Watch

So a couple of months has passed since a lot of us have set our New Year's Resolutions. We should be asking ourselves, how it's going, evaluating our habits and revisiting our goals. I'm sure there are those that have put Weight Management on their goal sheet so here are a couple of things to remember when you are trying to lose weight, or maintain a healthy weight...

Remember: It's healthy to lose about 1-2 lbs a week. One pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories so if we decrease our calories anywhere from 500-1000 calories a day we can lose 1-2 lbs per week.

Remember: Many of people who have weight issues have an environment that supports our habits so if we clean out our refrigerators, cuboards, desks, backpacks, cars etc and throw away foods that might not be the best choices.

Once you've cleaned out your food it's time to shift our choices to be more healthy. For instance if you had cookies, sugary snacks replace them with fruit or low fat pudding, frozen yogurt etc. If you had white bread, pasta or rice try and switch to 100% whole grain bread, 100% whole grain pasta, 100% whole grain rice.

These are just a few ideas of how to manage your weight...for more in depth health behavior change come to Wellness Education and try out our Healthquest program or sign up online.