The year 2022 has started and like every new year, this year also many people are motivated to kick their old habits relating to diet and lifestyle to improve / regain their health. From losing weight to managing stress levels to lowering chronic pain, diabetes and high cholesterol levels people are looking for non-invasive holistic ways. That is where health coaching can be very useful.
Dr. Peter Grinspoon has written in Harvard Health Publishing about the positive impact of health coaching on people's health. In his post, "Health coaching is effective. Should you try it?" he states that "Just as a sports coach can help an athlete develop and excel at a sport, a health and wellness coach can help anyone excel at living their life, even — or especially — if they have chronic medical conditions." He further states that "People tend to hire health coaches to help them with a broad variety of health issues, such as weight loss, stress reduction, the management of chronic conditions, improving diet and exercise, tobacco cessation, addiction, and adjusting to a life-altering health event, like a heart attack."
A study conducted in 2016 called "Clinical Effectiveness of Lifestyle Health Coaching" showed how health coaching “results in clinically relevant improvements in multiple biomarker risk factors (including systolic and diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose, body weight, body mass index, waist circumference, and cardiorespiratory fitness) in diverse populations.”
In my opinion, health coaching not only helps in improving one's current health and wellness but even more importantly, it sets one up to avoid having serious health issues in the future.
How to find the best health coach for yourself!
Health coaching is a growing field. Typically there are two reasons that leads one to become a health coach. In the first category, there are those who themselves are into personal health and fitness and want to make it a profession. Than there are those who dealt with their own health challenges got inspired, studied and become certified health coaches to help others. Both types of health coaches are fine, you should choose whom you can connect better.
Here is Dr. Peter Grinspoon again, "There are many programs that do train and certify coaches, both in person and online. Among the most popular and well-respected are: The National Society of Health Coaches, The American Council on Exercise, Dr. Sears Wellness Institute, Duke Integrative Medicine, and Wellcoaches School of Coaching. It is strongly recommended that you choose a certified coach, to ensure that they have a certain level of training and experience."
I couldn't agree with Dr. Peter Grinspoon more. I became a certified health coach from renowned Dr. Sears Wellness Institute in 2016. The comprehensive training program gave me the tools to help a wide spectrum of clients with customized diet plans. Stress reduction is a major part of my plan since it is one of the main causes behind illness and obesity. I encourage my clients to learn powerful breathing exercises and specific meditation that helps in drastically reducing their stress levels. I am also well versed in cleansing and detoxification protocols and I incorporate these during the course of my plan. Having worked with a many clients over the years, I can safely say a vast majority of health issues can be resolved or mitigated by changing one's diet and lowering stress levels.
How long should I have a health coach for?
In my opinion, one should look for health coach who is certified from an accredited place, who keeps himself/herself updated with latest health trends, is always available to listen and offers a holistic solution to his/her clients. Most importantly, a good health coach understands that it's not just about changing one's diet or lifestyle habits. Many times, it's the stress that is trigger behind many habits and patterns that cause people many physical and mental health problems.
In US, we keep good health insurance not for few months or years but for life. Most often we don't even use it but we want that assurance that we will be taken care off when needed. Though in reality having a health insurance sometimes makes us complacent and we don't take care of our health the way we should.
In this day and age, having a loving and caring health coach who walks the talk, keeps us inspired and accountable is really a big blessing. Think about it, we all slip up once a while and if there is NO one to guide us we are going to continue falling down into a deeper hole. But, if there someone standing next to us we can get us back to our feet quickly and effortlessly. This is how we can avoid suffering, misery and pain that comes with chronic health challenges that unnecessarily grips so many of us as we grow older.
As a certified health coach, I offer many plans to my clients including a yearly plan that will help you stay the course with health and vitality.
May you stay healthy & blessed!
Comments