Movement has the power to benefit you physically, mentally, and emotionally.

You were designed to move! In fact, there may be no quicker way to reduce stress, improve your mood, spark creativity, rejuvenate your cells, and extend your life than adding more movement to your life.

We’re here to help you with some simple strategies for adding more movement into your life.

HEALTHY IS MOVING MORE, SITTING LESS

Our bodies were designed to move and not sit still all day. By moving more throughout the day we strengthen our bodies and minds, which helps prevent depression, Alzheimer’s, inflammation, hormonal issues, and more.

It doesn’t have to be complicated. At home this could mean stretching for a few minutes every morning, or doing 30 seconds of lunges before watching a show. At work, try walking when taking calls, and stand and move around for at least one minute every hour.

HEALTHY IS RUCKING

Rucking is going for a walk with something heavy on your back, and yes, it’s as simple as it sounds! When we lose our ability to move, we lose our ability to live life to its fullest. Rucking has been scientifically proven to strengthen the hips, pelvis, and spinal erectors while also improving posture, which are all essential to an active, injury-free life. Find a backpack, grab something heavy, and go for a walk!

HEALTHY IS “I NEED TO MOVE FIRST”

Slowly replacing phrases like “I’m stressed, I need a break” with “I’m stressed, I need to move first” can transform your life in more ways than you can imagine. You get major short-term and long-term rewards every time you move. When you feel the stress and anxiety mounting, try one of these strategies to make movement your default plan:

Play a game

Take control of your health.

All of these are simple changes that will lead to big impacts over time for your health. Sign up for your coaching session today to explore these challenges with our team of coaches, and we’ll find the easiest ways to fit these into your lifestyle.

Many sporting events are won or lost before the game is even played in the preparation, or lack thereof, for the event.

We can apply that same mindset to our lives, aiming to Win the Morning to start our days off strong! It doesn’t have to be complicated. The following challenges will help you find ways to prime your body, mind, and nervous system that you can stick with long-term.

HEALTHY IS WINNING THE MORNING

As we said above, the first step to winning the morning is priming your body by firing your core and stabilizing muscles. This could be through a plank, squats, or stretching tight muscles. Next, prime your mind to spark creativity and align your thoughts and emotions; read something that inspires you or makes you laugh, or write down three things you’re grateful for. Finally, prime your nervous system. You can do this through a 1-minute cold shower, singing while dancing, or doing anything that activates your whole body.

NERVOUS SYSTEM

HEALTHY IS A MORNING ROUTINE

The first 30 minutes after waking up paves the way for the rest of your day. You can see a major impact on your physical and mental health, and even combat cancer, by keeping this part of your day stress-free. Practicing a morning routine (even a simple one) releases positive hormones that balance out your morning cortisol spike and keep your stress levels low throughout the day.

HEALTHY IS NO SUGAR OR FLOUR FOR BREAKFAST

When you “break your fast” in the morning, your first calories of the day are setting up your body for steady energy and proper hormone regulation. However, spiking your blood sugar can set you up for a day of moodiness, cravings, and hormone disruption. Aim for healthy fats and proteins instead.

Take control of your health.

All of these are simple changes that will lead to big impacts over time for your health. Sign up for your coaching session today to explore these challenges with our team of coaches, and we’ll find the easiest ways to fit these into your lifestyle.

Body composition refers to what your body is made up of.

Typically, people are referring to fat and muscle when they refer to body composition. If you focus exclusively on losing weight, it can be a frustrating process if the number on the scale doesn’t change the way you thought it would. However, what is much more important is improving what your body is made up of; for example, having less fat and more muscle.

Here are three challenges that can help you improve composition, regardless of where you’re at in your health journey.

HEALTHY IS HORMESIS

You have a superhuman power inside each cell of your body called hormesis, where short bouts of stress such as exercise make your body come back stronger than it was before. Pick a timeframe that you can commit to, an exercise you enjoy, and then enjoy the benefits of hormesis.

HEALTHY IS HIGH INTENSITY

Inside every cell are mitochondria – the “energy producers” of our cells. Healthy mitochondria are important not only for physical composition and performance, they are also directly tied to our mental wellbeing. Adding high intensity movements to your day to day life and to your workouts triggers your body to produce new, healthy mitochondria.

There are ways to incorporate this practice into your workouts by picking up heavy things or doing things at a higher speed, but this challenge doesn’t require you to complete a high intensity workout on a daily basis. Simply start using your muscles more often by taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or avoid using your hands to sit down or stand up out of a chair. The smallest changes can make big impacts down the road!

HEALTHY IS EATING REAL FOOD

Not feeling up for those? No problem. A simple way to improve composition is through what you eat. Real food is found in nature and is food that you can pick, hunt, or gather. This challenge will show you how to identify and prioritize real food in your meals, helping you feel better and aiding in preventing chronic diseases.

Take control of your health.

All of these are simple changes that will lead to big impacts over time for your health. Sign up for your coaching session today to explore these challenges with our team of coaches. We can’t wait to see you there!

Wellness programs provide an opportunity for companies to invest in not only the health and wellbeing of each employee, but of the organization as a whole. 52% of all U.S. companies are now offering corporate wellness programs (1), with that number climbing to 80% for those with 50 or more employees (2).

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at some of the reasons why wellness has taken over the conversation when it comes to employee benefits and how a workplace wellness program can make an impact at your organization.

Strengthen Recruitment & Improve Employee Retention

Increase Productivity & Reduce Absenteeism

When employees are enabled to take control of their physical and mental health, they take fewer sick days and are more productive when they are at work. Over 90% of companies implementing a wellness program saw improvements in productivity when they started promoting wellness company-wide (3). Healthy Is Wellness clients have experienced up to a 30% decrease in sick leave and 20% increase in productivity with the help of our program.

We saved over six figures in savings last year from employees coming to work more often, major reductions in health care claims, and an increase in employee productivity. And best of all, our employees and their family members love the Healthy Is Wellness monthly events, and we talk about intentionally improving our health while at work.

– CEO of Tech Industry Client

Reduce Health Care Costs & Health Risks

6 out of 10 Americans are affected by chronic diseases, which are the most significant contributors to health care costs. The CDC estimates that changing behaviors such as poor diet, inactivity, and smoking can reduce the occurrence of heart disease, stroke, and Type II diabetes by 80% and all cancers by 40%.

A wellness program allows companies to support employees in making small and impactful changes to their own health behaviors with the guidance of professionals, greatly reducing their immediate and long-term health risk. According to a report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 60% of organizations saw health care costs drop after implementing a workplace wellness program (3).

How We Can Help

With Healthy Is Wellness you can achieve real results, organization-wide. Our comprehensive program utilizes fast, medical-grade assessments and personalized coaching to increase productivity, reduce absenteeism, and create happier and healthier employees.

Healthy Is Wellness integrates our program into your business seamlessly, providing materials to help drive employee participation as well as consistent reporting so you can track your organization’s progress over time.

Ready to get started? Get in touch with our team!

Sources

1. https://blog.gitnux.com/workplace-wellness-statistics/#:~:text=improved%20employee%20morale.-,Companies%20with%20workplace%20wellness%20programs%20in%20place%20report%20a%2066,can%20have%20on%20a%20company
2. https://www.workhuman.com/blog/workplace-wellness-statistics/
3. https://www.betteryou.ai/statistics-on-the-benefits-of-corporate-wellness-programs/

Biometrics 2.0: a new paradigm for employer-based health screenings.

Traditional biometric screenings only examine data from one source (blood), and in doing so miss 70% of those who will suffer a heart attack in the next 5 years by mistakenly mislabeling them as “low risk.” In other words, even our current screenings aren’t very effective at catching the most deadly and costly of all diseases, and they provide no personalized context and coaching after giving you your results. We have a better way!

We’ve brought biometric screenings into the 21st century by measuring multiple non-invasive, medical-grade biomarkers that deliver a more accurate risk assessment than traditional screenings, including the most important blood metric we can assess and monitor: HbA1c.

WHAT IS HbA1c, AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

HbA1c (or A1c) is short for Hemoglobin A1c. Hemoglobin is a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to your body’s cells, and then shuttles carbon dioxide away from your cells. Through normal metabolic processes, we’d expect that 5-6% of your hemoglobin may be affected by a process called glycosylation, in which glucose or other sugars attach to it and negatively affect its ability to operate normally. Any more than this is a sign of metabolic dysfunction.

Metabolic dysfunction affects our weight and mood in the short-term, and is also at the root of the majority of major chronic diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cardiovascular diseases in the long-term.

If your A1c percentage is higher than 5-6%, this is an early warning sign that metabolic dysfunction is occurring, affecting your most critical energy exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide at the cellular level. According to the CDC, approximately 96 million American adults (more than 1 in 3) have prediabetes, indicated by elevated A1c. Of those individuals, more than 80% don’t know they have it.

At our Biometrics 2.0 events, not only will we give you the results of your A1c test within minutes, we will also offer individualized coaching about different behaviors and challenges that have been shown to positively impact this number:

Healthy Is Mind Your Gut

Healthy Is a Calm Morning

The best way to reduce health risks is to help every person in improving their health behaviors on a day-to-day basis to maintain or improve their health status. Healthy Is Wellness is doing our part to help every person we work with in doing this by providing screenings like our Biometrics 2.0, putting those results into immediate context, and working with you one-on-one to break down the barriers to your health goals.

Inflammation is a powerful immune response in the body when tissues are injured.

Inflammation helps infections and wounds to heal, and toxins to be eliminated. When it is acute and short term, inflammation is healing. But, like most good things in life, too much of it for too long is a bad thing. When it is continually activated, chronic inflammation is at the root of most chronic diseases. Join us this month as we highlight challenges proven to help you reduce inflammation.

HEALTHY IS LESS REFINED SUGAR

Sugar is naturally occurring in many healthy foods like fruits, but the added sugar in processed foods is the danger. Consuming too much added sugar negatively affects your mind and body, increasing disease risk. Because of the added sugar in processed foods, on average we consumer 5 to 10 times the normal amount of sugar we need.

In this challenge, we explore three rules to live by when it comes to sugar: eliminating all straight sugar, eating seven grams or less of sugar per serving, and avoiding white breads, cereals, and fried foods. We’ll help you identify the simplest strategies and alternatives to incorporate this practice into your life.

HEALTHY IS ELIMINATING INFLAMMATORY FATS

Maybe you’re already pretty good at avoiding refined sugar – that’s great! How about eliminating inflammatory fats and oils from your diet? Naturally occurring fats in whole foods give us energy, help us transport nutrients, assist in making hormones, and create healthy cell membranes. But, refined fats and oils can actually damage our cells, cause metabolic dysfunction, and wreak havoc on our immune system. We’ll show you exactly what to look for to eliminate these from your meal plan!

HEALTHY IS A COLD SHOWER

Here’s a different type of challenge to try: start or end your shower with 10 seconds of cold water, and gradually work your way up to 60 seconds. Not only does this help reduce inflammation, it also reduces muscle soreness and increases your metabolism.

All of these are simple changes that will lead to big impacts over time for your health. Sign up for your coaching session today to explore these challenges with our team of coaches. We can’t wait to see you there!