Client Profile: 

York Support Services Network (YSSN), is a community services organization providing assessment and support services to individuals living with a developmental disability and/or mental illness.  Sue Van Elswyk, a YSSN Supervisor, reached out to me last winter.   Her team’s primary responsibility is in assessing individual cases; any further intervention and support is assigned elsewhere.  She was familiar with my overall approach to well-being and knew of my experience teaching restorative yoga.  Sue asked if I might be able to come to a series of team meetings to guide her and her staff through 1 hour sessions, with the key objectives of:

1. facilitating relaxation
2. restoring overall mind-body balance
3. offering simple and effective self-care strategies

Risks of Being in the Caring Profession:

There are lots of work demands that Sue and her team manage on a day-to-day basis and, as is typical in many a caring professional’s work ethic, lunches are often skipped and sick days are not taken when needed.  Along with keeping up with administrative tasks, there is high risk of experiencing Secondary Trauma, Compassion Fatigue and/or Burnout just from continually listening to heartbreaking stories and situations. It can leave one feeling powerless in their ability to enable positive change or make a difference in their client’s experience.

For this YSSN team, any compassion fatigue training they attended only made them feel worse.  While they were able to put a name to their predicament and had tools for self-assessment, concrete strategies for managing and recovering from the burnout were amiss.

Enter Workplace Restorative (Caring Professions Edition):

After introducing just a few sessions in YSSN’s staff meetings, the benefit these case workers experienced was clear in their feedback:

• “My staff all reported back that they really enjoyed the last session and are using some grounding strategies already.”
• “I love the sessions, I find it a positive and supportive (environment) and Michelle’s method of guiding instruction is relaxing and easy to follow.  She provides a variety of positions which seems there is something to benefit everyone.”
• “Please let Michelle know that I really enjoy her restorative yoga.  The sessions have helped me to reintroduce yoga and mindfulness into my daily life.  It is helping me on my continuing journey towards health and making my health a priority.”
• “The sessions have helped us to take time for ourselves and to help us become more aware of our breath, help us manage stress.  Her instructions are gentle and she always makes sure to give modifications to each student as needed.  Many staff have incorporated some of the poses into their daily lives to help manage stress.  It has been a wonderful opportunity for us!”

Overall, participants said the restorative practice felt healing, rather than labeling.  There was a sense of acceptance (a cornerstone in cultivating self-compassion), permission, and a reclaiming of the power to self-direct their own recovery and repair. As a result, there has been a shift happening at YSSN.  Staff are now taking lunches more often, finding opportunities to connect with one another, taking sick days when needed and exploring self-care in different ways that has translated into their work and home lives.

Effective stress-management and work-life balance can become a reality for your staff too! Contact Michelle to discuss design and implementation of a customized wellness program for your office.

The post A Case for Adding Restorative Yoga to Your Workplace Wellness Offerings appeared first on Define Me Wellness.

Create a movement diary and take inventory on a typical workday of the total hours spent sitting, from the moment you get out of bed in the morning until you go to sleep.  This includes time spent at the dining table, watching tv, your commute, etc.

Remember to approach this self-assessment with honest and kind curiosity; no judgment or trying to fix anything.

Step 2: If possible, find a quiet place to reset

If you are at the workplace and are in a cubicle, see if a meeting room is available and setup for some Constructive Rest:

1. Lie down on the floor with knees bent, feet on the floor
2. Support your head and neck with a folded blanket, beach towel or pillow. The head and neck should be supported in such a way that the sides of the neck feel long, yet comfortable, and the chin is drawing down slightly towards the collar-bones
3. Walk your feet out to either side and bring the knees to touch
4. Place your hands on your belly and close down the eyes to help turn your attention inwards
5. Take 2 – 5 minutes to focus on your body’s natural inhale and exhale pattern
6. Play with equal ratio (1:1) breathing, where the inhale and exhale are of the same duration/count (this breath practice helps to balance the nervous system)

Step 3: Reclaim your seat

Once you have spent some time in Constructive Rest, you are ready to return to your desk with a calm mind and relaxed musculature.  Use that body awareness to reclaim your seat with intention:

1. Find your sitting bones, the two bony protrusions on either cheek just above the hamstrings
2. As you bend your knees, shift your hips back and sit on the edge of your chair, on your sitting bones as opposed to sitting on your sacrum
3. Rather than forcing your spine upright, wedge a pillow between the back of your chair and your spine for support or…
4. Shift your hips back until your spine is supported by the back of your chair (you should still be sitting on your sitting bones)

If you are looking for more strategies on creating optimal well-being in and out of the office for yourself, co-workers or staff, consider scheduling a Define Me Workplace Wellness workshop (such as this one) for your next company event or Lunch n Learn.

The post Reinventing the Afternoon Coffee-Break, Part II appeared first on Define Me Wellness.

What does that do for your body? What does that do for your overall well-being? Here are my Top 3 issues with desk dwelling:

1. Holding any one position for long takes its toll on the body 

Some say “sitting is the new smoking” but I find that to be more fear-mongering than helpful.  Sitting isn’t going to give you COPD or cancer,  so let’s not be so dramatic! The truth is the average desk dweller spends about 14 – 15 hours per day seated.  This mundane and long-held position creates imbalances in the body that can lead to hip dysfunction, low back pain, chronic neck pain and shoulder issues.

2. Breathing is not optimal when the body is hunched over

Your diaphragm, a key muscle in respiration, sits underneath your lungs, housed in your abdominal cavity.  When you are hunched over your desk all day the diaphragm is compressed, limiting your breath from moving into the full capacity of your lungs.  Your system compensates by shortening the breath, which in turn stimulates your sympathetic nervous system (aka: stress response, fight or flight).

If you are working at an office chances are your nervous system is on high alert already with multi-tasking and tight deadlines to try to manage.  You don’t need any more “help” triggering fight or flight!

3. Long bouts of sitting summons the Energy Vampire 

Those rounded shoulders and head jutting forward not only create dysfunction in the physical body but they drain you mentally and emotionally too.  From a psycho-emotional standpoint, our shoulders carry all of our worries and burdens.  Continued sitting and leaning in to our work reinforce the feeling of being dumped on, weighted down with more stuff, which has a way of de-energizing and probably making you less productive.

So what if we tweaked the afternoon routine and sitting for what should actually be a real 15 minute break from work and replace it with a variety of practices and positions that better support our productivity and well-being?

Soon to follow: More on what you can do in my next segment on Reinventing the Afternoon Coffee Break, Part II.

The post Reinventing the Afternoon Coffee-Break, Part I appeared first on Define Me Wellness.

“…provide an opportunity to identify those work-related hazards and risks that influence psychological health and safety in the workplace; ensuring a preventative approach to psychological harm or mental injury (i.e., from work-related stress or fatigue, or workplace harassment, including bullying and discrimination).”

Here is an issue that isn’t normally addressed in the workplace that can be an obstacle to an individual achieving good mental health – size acceptance and body image.

Remember in a recent post, I wrote about size bias being the last socially acceptable form of discrimination? It’s evident in education, healthcare and in the workplace too! I believe creating a psychologically safe work environment addresses weight bias.  If a workplace implements zero-tolerance policies for discrimination, harassment and bullying based on size, than it makes for a more comfortable place to work for people of all sizes.  And a more accepting work environment makes it easier for individuals to think more positive thoughts about their bodies, which only adds to good mental health.

Examples of policies that embrace a more size accepting approach:

1. Opting out of company-wide weight loss programs such as “Biggest Loser” challenges.  There are weight-neutral alternatives that can still have an impact on employee health and productivity without resorting to ineffective dieting strategies.
2. Ensure your organizations diversity practices and training include a component for size diversity too.
3. Provide office furniture that accommodates a variety of shapes and sizes (i.e.: sturdy, armless chairs with firm seat cushions).
4. Decorate the office walls, waiting areas and meeting rooms with pictures and artwork showing workers of all sizes that exemplify your organization’s mission statement and core values.
5. Create equal hiring and promotion opportunities for every BODY (instead of feeding into the cultural bias that larger people are lazy and unmotivated).

Final thought

Creating a safe workplace and helping employees be the best they can be in body and mind starts with establishing a culture of respect and acceptance for ALL.

Define Me is now offering a unique and comprehensive Workplace Wellness program for companies looking to make a difference in their organization’s overall health.  If you know of an organization that is looking for a workplace wellness solution, a program that engages employees and improves productivity, have them CONTACT US today.

The post CHWM Series Week One: Psychological Safety in the Workplace appeared first on Define Me Wellness.

The title of this year’s conference – Staying the Health at Every Size Course: Navigating the Weight Debate in the Evolving Healthcare Environment – was very fitting considering the American Medical Association’s recent decision to label obesity a disease.  Now, perhaps more than ever, we need alternative strategies to address health (without it always being about size).

Here were some common themes that resonated for me :

1. There is a wealth of knowledge within the ASDAH community! From mental health professionals, academics and dieticians to activists who want to take their personal experience with size discrimination to advocate for unbiased care.  HAES  (Health at Every Size) Experts have the experience and the research to support their efforts in turning the tides of “weight assumptions and discrimination” within our health care system and culture.

2. Obesity prevention campaigns do more harm than good, especially when those strategies are focused on our children.  The following banner posted at the conference spoke volumes with it’s speech balloon – “When we hear you say you want to get rid of childhood obesity, we feel like you want to get rid of us”.  We need curriculum in our schools that addresses weight stigma alongside strategies for living a balanced approach to healthy eating and joyful movement.  In the words of one of the presenters, Kathy Kater, we need to “teach kids to CARE instead of COMPARE”.

3. The war on obesity has made its way into the  boardroom.  There are workplace wellness programs in the US that use fees and penalties, primarily focused on weight loss and shaming employees into participating; all in an effort to reduce the company’s group benefit spending.  Legally, businesses are allowed to charge higher premiums to associates who do not participate in the program and/or who’s weight is not in a “desirable range”.  Not only is this intrusive and invading of an individual’s privacy but it further perpetuates weight stigma, suggesting an employee is not good enough unless they are at a certain weight.  A corporate wellness program, anywhere in the world, needs to be more than just a return on investment (ROI).  Workplace wellness can and should promote all facets of health, providing a supportive and caring framework from which associates can participate free from bias or criticism.  Only then will companies be able to attract and retain an engaged workforce.

4. There is a lot of evidence that suggests a weight-focused approach to health is more detrimental and can have long-term negative repercussions.  If we are to make this a more positive experience for all, we need to demonstrate how the current medical model (the idea that size and health are inextricably linked), is extremely flawed and counterproductive.  We also need to constantly show to the medical professionals the HAES alternative and it’s proven efficacy to better health .

5. Only you know your body best! Take charge and be the “CEO of your own health.”  I love this phrase! Such a simple but impactful statement.  Everybody is entitled to fair, judgment-free care at the doctors office, in the emergency room, in schools and at the office.  EVERY BODY.

The conference gave me lots to think about and added to my to-do list! I want to take what I learned in those 3 days and bring it to YOU and our community.  Because, couldn’t we all use a new way of defining and finding good health?

The post Top 5 Take-aways: A Health At Every Size Conference Report appeared first on Define Me Wellness.