Integrated Health Coaching: Supporting Stress Management | Andrea Carew

1. Integrated Health, Coaching&HAE:Supporting Stress Management Presented 29 November 2014 Andrea Carew, B.Sc., M.M.S., I.H.C The Link – Health & Lifestyle Consulting Inc.

2. Housekeeping Suggestions  • Hold questions until the question period before break and again at end of today’s presentation • Exceptions: Important Clarifications

3. What is Integrated Health (IH) and IH Coaching? • A missing link in “healthcare” • A disease management system vs healthcare system • Many experience difficulty making and sustaining lifestyle and behaviour change for better health • Some feel unable or don’t expect to participate in their own care (self-care?) • Current healthcare system not designed to support patients in addressing complex factors driving their health and lifestyle choices, hence can’t address “whole person” • Examples – diabetes, heart disease, obesity, hypertension

4. What is Integrated Health & IH Coaching? II • Health as more than “absence of disease” • Prevention is a great reason to use an IH coach! Don’t need a chronic disease in your life to motivate you toward self-care…

5. Integrative Medicine: A Transformative Model Disease oriented Treat symptoms Find it, fix it Biomed intervention/high-tech Reactive, Sporadic Individual largely left to enact Physician focused and directed Health oriented Treat symptoms & whole person Identify risk, minimize it Whole person approach/high-touch Proactive, Lifelong planning Support in implementation Partnership-based Contemporary     Integrative Care Credit: Duke Integrative Medicine for Duke University Health System (2012)

6. Integrative Health and HAE • Hopefully given you a very broad understanding of IH and coaching • What is your experience with our healthcare system? • What can an integrated healthcare approach offer you? • Focus today on a key HAE trigger: STRESS

7. But First – What is Stress? • Stress responses are necessary in our lives • An evolutionary basis which served an important function • Significant physiological changes occur when stress response triggered (a body as well as a mind experience) • Cortisol levels, blood sugar, pressure and heart rate up, digestive function, metabolism and immuno-response down • The stress response, including these changes, are automatic • Recovery from the stress response and triggers are not! • As normal and necessary as stress is, sustained stress can and does seriously impact our health and well-being

8. What would an IH approach to stress management for HAE look like ?

10. Opportunities for Self-care to help Manage Stress • If the Wheel of Health represents the “whole” you: • What areas are triggers of stress for you? • What areas help ease your stress, or are a source of calm, peace? • Which areas of your life here do you feel need some attention and care? • Which areas do you feel strong in? • How can your areas of strength help you better manage your stress triggers? • What changes do you need to make to better care for yourself and manage stress?

11. Lets take a comfort break…

12. Mindful Awareness • Demonstration: Be comfy, close your eyes for several breaths. • Focus your awareness on inhaling and exhaling. Don’t change your breathing. Follow or focus your attention on your natural breathing cycle.

13. Mindful Awareness • Not meditation – rather intentionally quieting the mind • Noticing the mind’s tendencies and impacts on us, and health • Defined as paying attention to present moment experiences with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to be with what is. It is an antidote to the stresses of modern times. It invites us to stop, breathe, observe, and connect with one's inner experience. • Can be trained systematically, and can be implemented in daily life, by people of any age, profession or background. • Sources: • UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Centre; • Duke Integrative Medicine; • Kabat-Zinn, J. (2005). Full catastrophe living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain, and illness: Fifteenth anniversary edition. New York: Bantam Dell.

14. In the last ten years, significant research shows that a regular mindful awareness practice helps address health issues including: • lower blood pressure • help regulate cortisol levels in a healthier way • boost the immune system • increase attention and focus • help with difficult mental states such as anxiety, depression • foster well-being and less emotional reactivity • thicken the brain in areas in charge of decision making, emotional flexibility, and empathy • Source: UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Centre

15. Mindful awareness practice decreases our overall reactivity to stressful situations, helps us recognize and interpret the stress response once triggered and supports us in establishing calm and recovery sooner and for longer periods of time. Cultivating more present moment awareness supports greater enjoyment, better communication, healthier state of mind, enhanced sense of self empowerment And importantly – greater awareness of choice

16. Take-Away Tools! Mind/Body Connection & Mindful Awareness • So - let’s try that again  • Beginning a Mindful Awareness Practice of your own!

17. Thank – You! Contact me for more – Anytime! Andrea@thehealthlink.ca Tel: 902 579 6722 Please also tune into RxRadio.com – a unique approach to sharing the world of integrated health and coaching!