Author Archives: Whole Person

A Discovery Process: Pace yourself in learning about wellness

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Aging Beyond BeliefDon Ardell’s tips for aging well are from his book Aging Beyond Belief, 69 tips for REAL Wellness. REAL wellness stands for Reason, Exuberance And Liberty. Don says you can’t buy pills or treatments for REAL wellness−it’s a mindset and lifestyle you control. It’s never to early to let Reason, Exuberance and Liberty be your guide…these tips are for folks of any age. Enjoy.

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A Discovery Process
Pace yourself in learning about wellness


Pace yourself in learning about wellness. Create a more supportive network to live this way. Create a wellness support network, over time. Don’t rush it. Pace yourself. Consider attending a workshop in your area, or a seminar or lecture dealing with aspects of better living that you find appealing. Check out the program first, since the word “wellness” is often misapplied. Sometimes, it’s used as a marketing gimmick with little understanding of the unique qualities of the concept. You would not want to inadvertently attend a program billed as a wellness event, only to be pitched to invest in a multi-level sales organization for vitamin-fortified seaweed, or something equally bizarre having no remote connection with a wellness lifestyle.

Here’s a specific suggestion: Check out the National Wellness Conference. It is a festival by and for wellness seekers and promoters held annually in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. It’s not entirely focused on aging, but everything about the wellness concept can be readily applied to AUI. I’m quite an enthusiast of the event myself—I have been attending the weeklong gatherings for over 25 years. Check out the NWI website at www.nationalwellness.org. You could also call (800) 243-8694 or send an E-mail. One way or another, ask to be placed on the mailing list for the free annual program sent worldwide in the spring.

An important part of creating a supportive culture is understanding your current support system. Take a close, conscious look at the norms, customs and rituals that shaped and guided your formative years. Think about how pervasive yet subtle these norms and customs and traditions were and how, little by little and bit-by-bit, you digested it all during the early years. Identify those traditions that today, after a lifetime, are more like obstacles than cherished values, and set yourself free from anything now seen as nonsense, dogma, clichés and platitudes. These are enemies of your capacity for reason leading to excellence. These are obstacles to more supportive networks that will make your best possible life much more attainable.

-from Aging Beyond Belief, by Don Ardell

Donald ArdellDonald B. Ardell was a pioneer in the Wellness movement. He wrote High Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs, and Disease, first published in 1976 by Rodale Press, with editions over the years by Bantam Books and Ten-Speed Press. Since then Don has written a dozen additional wellness books, including Die Healthy (with Grant Donovan), 14 Days to Wellness and most recently, Aging Beyond Belief.

 

Assure kids of your love and support

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To build your children’s Stress Safety Net (SSN) the second [see the first here] and most important component is your unconditional love: to love them without condition. It’s the thread that holds everything together.

Unconditional love doesn’t require you to always approve of their behavior; you love them in spite of it. You’re there for them, yet won’t necessarily rescue them from foolish behavior. You can apply consequences to their misbehavior, even punish them, and still love them.

Todd stood by his teenage son who repeatedly got into trouble with the law. Each time he received a call from the police, he’d go through the process without rescuing him and assuring him of his love while his son faced the consequences. Eventually, his son got involved in sports and slowly straightened himself out. He even thanked Todd for making him take responsibility for his own behavior while still supporting him.

Unconditional love requires connecting with your kids regularly, lovingly, playfully, and much more often than not, positively. This allows you to survive the normal, uncomfortable connections.

Keep in mind, if your kids don’t connect with you positively, they’ll connect with you negatively; chronic fighting and clinging are examples.

A young single mother of two small children felt drained most of the time working a full-time job and managing the home front all alone. When home she raced around trying to get everything done. Her kids clung to her making it even more difficult. Someone advised her to spend an uninterrupted weekend hour with both of her kids doing fun things together. Much to her amazement, after a couple of weeks, her kids quit clinging to her the rest of the week. They’d been starved for her full attention. Once they received it they felt more secure and loved.

With all kids these moments are to create a trusting relationship. With older kids they’re also to know what’s going on in their lives. Peer pressure can get them into situations they’re unable to handle well. You must keep your eyes open to what your kids, their friends, and other kids in their age group are doing.

Whatever your child’s age, these connections don’t have to be time consuming; most take just minutes. Like reading your child a story after school, watching TV together, sitting together while you both do your “homework,” or daily exchanging hugs and kisses in the car.

All kids, regardless of their ages and resistance, need these special moments. Nurture them.

Unconditional love also requires being nonjudgmental. Judgments feel like you’re putting a condition on your love. As parents you want to help your children do well admonishing, “Don’t be a slob chewing with your mouth open.” “You’re too lazy about school work.”

Instead of labeling your child lazy or a slob, describe the behavior you want to change. “Chew with your mouth closed, please,” or “Set aside two hours to do homework when you get home.” Your kids respond better when you deliver it this way.

Next week we’ll cover teaching your children your positive values.

–Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach.

Lightening Up Crucial Conversations

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Humor Skills to Use When the Stakes are High

When used in a positive way, humor MAY be one of the best communications tools around. It not only engages listeners, it builds trust; helps lighten difficult news; improves receptivity to change; reduces anxiety; helps everyone stay grounded in the moment and attentive to the conversation; and because it stimulates blood flow to the brain, it helps everyone think more clearly. Because truth be told, most of us don’t think that well with our blood in our hindquarters.

“Crucial conversations” are those in which the stakes are higher than the everyday business communications we’re all engaged in. To be able to communicate well, lighten up, and listen to what is really being said, here are some important steps:

1.            Understand we all bring our own baggage to every conversation. We all have assumptions about the people we’re talking with and the subject being discussed. We may have previous experiences with similar conversations that color what is being said (if you’ve ever started to hear “Yada, yada,” mid-sentence, you know what I mean), and we all DO have our own agenda (even if it is just to get to the bathroom before it’s too late).

2.            Be open and truthful about your own baggage and agenda. Using a positive sense of humor to be up front about how you feel can help everyone be more comfortable and participate in the conversation with honesty and integrity.

3.            Learn to truly listen to what is being said. You can’t use humor effectively without understanding what tickles someone else’s funny bone. The only way to do that is to let the other person lead you to what’s funny in his or her eyes.

4.            Honor each others’ differences and celebrate similarities by finding connection points through laughter. When you both laugh at something at the same time, you’re much more likely to want to work together and help each other.

5.            Recognize that the traditional “frustration point” is where humor is the most likely to happen. Writing a joke requires understanding “pattern” and “misdirection.” In real life terms, misdirection is the place where things suddenly hit the fan. At that point, rather than getting frustrated or anxious, an effective communicator MAY choose to turn to humor.

6.       Use positive humor only. Competitive, demeaning, exclusionary humor makes everything worse in crucial conversations. Avoid problems by focusing the laughs on yourself (true stories that make a point with humor work great), dropping the sarcasm, avoiding hot button topics, keeping your topics and language clean, and poking fun at situations, not people.

7.            Your most important overall goal in using humor in crucial conversations is to make the “audience” like you enough to listen to you. Do this by:

  • Having a conversational and friendly tone, not an authoritative tone;
  • Not putting words in anyone’s mouth;
  • Engaging everyone in the conversation;
  • Laughing whenever anyone tries to be funny in a non-harmful way; and
  • Being aware of clues that your message is not being heard.

Copyright Leigh Anne Jasheway 2009

Longevity and Aging: Don’t make a big deal about getting older

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Aging Beyond BeliefDon Ardell’s tips for aging well are from his book Aging Beyond Belief, 69 tips for REAL Wellness. REAL wellness stands for Reason, Exuberance And Liberty. Don says you can’t buy pills or treatments for REAL wellness−it’s a mindset and lifestyle you control. It’s never to early to let Reason, Exuberance and Liberty be your guide…these tips are for folks of any age. Enjoy.

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Longevity and Aging
Don’t make a big deal about getting older

Everybody does it, it can’t be avoided and there is no cure. Each day is an opportunity to enjoy being younger than you ever will be again, so think and act as vigorously and with as much exuberance as you can muster. Billions are spent annually to slow or, more often, disguise the inevitable markers of aging. Such a waste. All this is futile. As Ecclesiastes would say, “a vanity of vanities, an incomparable excess.” I personally have a soft spot for excess, but not to the point of being incomparably self-delusional about my vanities.

Want in on a little health secret? Move to Canada. An impressive array of data shows that Canadians live longer, healthier lives than we do. What’s more, they pay roughly half as much per capita Americans ($2,163 versus $4,887 in 2001) for the privilege.” (Los Angeles Times, February 23, 2004).

Did you know there’s a mathematical formula that predicts maximal age? There is—and the formula is the basis for the agreed-upon maximum human age being set at 120. (This means I could be writing a second edition to this book in the year 2058.) The formula for maximal age is six times the number of years from birth to biological maturity. Humans take about 20 years to reach maturity, so multiply that by six and there it is—a 120-year limit. (The oldest well-documented age ever was 122.)

Remember, many factors affect longevity, particularly lifestyle choices (e.g., exercise, diet), personality, social life and genetics. Approximately “one-third of aging is heritable, the rest is acquired—that means you are responsible for your own old age.” (Tara Parker-Pope, “What Science Tells Us About Growing Older—And Staying Healthy,” Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2005; Page R1.)

Longevity in this country is nothing to cheer about. When compared with other Western nations, the U.S. is doing worse now than 50 years ago! We are currently losing ground, not making longevity advances, relative to other countries. This might surprise you. Yes, we live longer but our relative position is poorer compared with comparable societies than it was when Eisenhower was president. This despite our having the costliest medical care system on earth!

A World Health Organization study released last year put Canadian life expectancy at birth at 79.8 years, Japan’s at 81.9 and America’s at 77.3!

In 1900, the lifespan in America was 47.3. I shudder to think of all my friends who would be dead now if that figure had not improved over the course of the past century. With no advances, there would be few to no competitors in my 65-69 age group in road races, duathlons and triathlons. A similar 30-year gain in life expectancy into the future would render the average lifespan in the year 2112 a robust 107.3 years.

How might that come about? Perhaps from a wide range of social changes over time, like more nutritious foods and challenging but fun phys ed in schools, campaigns for safer sex and more effective ways to end insane behaviors, like smoking. (It will help also if humanity refrains from setting off any thermonuclear devices.)

Imagine the excitement of watching men and women in their 120s crossing finish lines at road races and multi-sport competitions, to the cheers of the multitudes, with “Rocky” music blaring from loudspeakers. It would be inspirational.

However, it’s also implausible. Wellness is good, wellness is great but I still don’t believe that there will be dramatic advances in phys ed in schools, better diets or other social changes. I hope I’m mistaken about this. If there were such changes and many others consistent with the spread of wellness mindsets like some positive contagion, even that might not produce really dramatic increase in lifespan, though quality boosts would be remarkable. If there are any significant increases in lifespan, the more likely impetus will be improved scientific understanding and attendant manipulation of biological aging processes. But, I’m not wildly optimistic about this scenario, either.

Nor does the U.S. Social Security Administration project dramatic gains for the next century similar to that realized over the last one. Their projections foresee life spans into the mid-80s, which is still pretty impressive. Unless, as some fear, the obesity epidemic gets worse.

In any event, getting older is not such a big deal if you stay younger than nearly everyone else your age! The remaining tips will offer plenty of ideas for doing just that.

-from Aging Beyond Belief, by Don Ardell

Donald ArdellDonald B. Ardell was a pioneer in the Wellness movement. He wrote High Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs, and Disease, first published in 1976 by Rodale Press, with editions over the years by Bantam Books and Ten-Speed Press. Since then Don has written a dozen additional wellness books, including Die Healthy (with Grant Donovan), 14 Days to Wellness and most recently, Aging Beyond Belief.

Real Wellness: Insist upon reality-based health promotion

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Aging Beyond BeliefDon Ardell’s tips for aging well are from his book Aging Beyond Belief, 69 tips for REAL Wellness. REAL wellness stands for Reason, Exuberance And Liberty. Don says you can’t buy pills or treatments for REAL wellness−it’s a mindset and lifestyle you control. It’s never to early to let Reason, Exuberance and Liberty be your guide…these tips are for folks of any age. Enjoy.

 

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Real Wellness
Insist upon reality-based health promotion

Much has been written about the nature, principles and applications of a term made popular in just the past couple decades called “wellness.” Nobody is authorized to make the rules of what it is and what it isn’t, but that is not to say someone ought not to step forward to give it a try. I volunteer.

I began writing about wellness in the 1970s. I was the director of a health planning agency in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time I started learning about a wide range of ideas and principles that would shape what became a modest movement within and then well beyond the medical system. Our planning organization and others like it in metropolitan areas around the country was designed by committees of politicians and health experts over several years to improve health status and to bring order to the health care system.

Alas, two prominent factors kept such agencies from being effective: 1) We had almost no authority, so medical leaders and others who were supposed to be guided by our work paid little attention to the plans we devised for coordinated health care facilities and services; and 2) We were going about it the wrong way. We were trying to change the way the medical system worked. Even if we had succeeded we would not have succeeded! We did not recognize at the time that the way to promote health and save costs was to inform, motivate, convince, inspire, guide and otherwise support people to take better care of themselves and rely less on the medical system.

From this realization came a period of reflection on my part that prompted a career change—from health planner administrator to doctoral candidate and, a few years later, to a life as a writer, lecturer and consultant promoting wellness. To this day, 30 years after publication of my book High Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors,

Drugs and Disease (Rodale Press), I believe the wellness concept, if it is the REAL wellness concept, is the most promising approach available to society and to you to boost health status AND save medical costs.

During the formative years of wellness in the 70s and 80s, there were a good number of conferences and seminars, policy papers, scholarly articles, books and so on devoted to the concept that eventually morphed into a wellness movement. Not surprisingly, the wellness concept was given a slightly different spin by nearly everyone who came into contact with it. To this day, variations abound.

What follows is my idea of a wellness mindset, translated into terms suited to everyone who wants to age well. In my view, wellness should be an evidence-based mindset geared to high levels of well- being and life satisfaction. I believe such a lifestyle is associated with countless benefits, if given half a chance. My advice—learn about what wellness can be for you, at it’s best, and don’t even think about aging without it.

Let me mention a few key ideas about wellness and a number of wonderful benefits to get things started.

Wellness is positive. The focus is not on hazards and risks, but rather on satisfactions and pleasures. It is comprehensive, not about just fitness, nutrition and managing stress but also entails critical thinking, humor and play, emotional intelligence and the quest for added meaning and purpose in life—and much more, which I’ll highlight in these tips. It is based on science and reason, not New Age wishful thinking or reliance or even inclusion of “alternative” or other therapies, modalities or healing systems. It is also a mindset or philosophy founded on personal responsibility and accountability. There is more, as you will learn in the coming 68 tips.

Six benefits that I find especially appealing about real wellness are:

1. Better health.
A wellness lifestyle boosts energy while lowering risks of illness.

2. Better appearance.
You’ll look thinner and fitter, even more interesting, if you follow such a lifestyle.

3. Better sex.
Unclogged arteries facilitate blood flow to all body parts.

4. Better decisions.
You develop a greater desire for reason and science, sound evidence and other critical thinking skills associated with genuine maturity.

5. Better role model.
In non-verbal ways (e.g., style/appearance and value commitments) you convey a superior message to your impressionable relatives and others.

6. Better perspectives.
Some things are important and deserve a lot of energy, but most are not a big deal. Finding satisfying, energizing meaning and purpose in life, for example—now that’s important. Dealing with little vexations, silly people, worries about things you can’t change—not so important.

Naturally, it is better to be young than old, other things being the same, which they never are, just as it’s better to be rich than poor, fit than fat and alive than dead. But, so what? As noted in the chorus of John Prine’s immortal Dear Abby, “You have no complaint—You are what your are and you ain’t what you ain’t.” Not so grammatical, but so very true.

Aging is not always pleasant but, like gravity and evolution, it’s more than a theory. It’s part of life, at least for everyone fortunate enough to attain such status.

-from Aging Beyond Belief, by Don Ardell

Donald ArdellDonald B. Ardell was a pioneer in the Wellness movement. He wrote High Level Wellness: An Alternative to Doctors, Drugs, and Disease, first published in 1976 by Rodale Press, with editions over the years by Bantam Books and Ten-Speed Press. Since then Don has written a dozen additional wellness books, including Die Healthy (with Grant Donovan), 14 Days to Wellness and most recently, Aging Beyond Belief.

Suicide – What To Do?

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From the Teen Aggression and Bullying Workbook , co-authored by myself and John Liptak, is the following information that we believe is important for everyone, and hope you’ll pass it along to anyone whom you think might find it useful.

  • If a friend or acquaintance tells you about suicidal thoughts or plans, immediately tell someone in that person’s family or yours, other adults, or call 911, the operator, the police, a suicide hotline, or whatever number your area uses for emergency assistance.
  • If you have suicidal thoughts, tell someone you know will help you: a family member, other adult, counselor, teacher, coach, spiritual advisor.
  • If you trust no one, or if you know no one, then dial 911, the operator, the police, a suicide hotline, or whatever number your area uses for emergency assistance.

Remember, it is better to break a confidence and save a life, than to keep a secret. Secrets kill!

–Ester Leutenberg

Parents role models for children’s behavior

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Kids learn more from you, especially at earlier ages, than from any other source

Teaching kids how to manage their stress is a gift that will pay them dividends for the rest of their lives.

First build them a Stress Safety Net (SSN) so they can feel safe, secure and loved. This creates a springboard from which they can launch into their challenges and opportunities. The first component of this SSN is “Parents as Role Models,” (adapted from my audio program, “Teaching Kids how to Manage Stress.”)

Parents are their children’s number one role models. Kids learn more from you, especially at earlier ages, than from any other source. What has your own stress management style taught your children, who learn from both your effective and ineffective strategies? How you communicate, manage your emotions and handle conflicts teach your children something.

To become conscious of what you’re teaching your kids, ask yourself, “Is how I’m handling this stressful situation how I want to teach my kids to handle similar situations?” If not, you need to learn to better handle it yourself. You cannot teach what you don’t understand, so learn and practice stress reduction skills for yourself. Your children will learn from your example.

An essential tool to improve what you model is to understand that the role you play with your children largely dictates their role in reaction to you. A change in your role almost always brings about a change in your child’s behavior. For example, if you constantly remind your kids to do their homework – the reminder role – they’ll react by taking on the role of forgetful or dutiful child perhaps. If you’re not happy with the forgetful role you may nag that child to remind her to do her homework. But your reminder role keeps her in her forgetful role!

The point? To get a different outcome with her change the role you’re playing: stop reminding. Identify and announce a different role that would encourage her to take more responsibility like the supportive role. Only step in to help her with homework when she asks. This new role requires you to stop reminding her. If she chooses to forget she’ll pay the consequences. She’ll probably blame you for her own forgetfulness but don’t get hooked by that. One day she’ll figure out that you truly have stopped reminding leaving her to remind herself.

In situations that your kids aren’t handling well figure out if the role you’re playing makes you part of the solution or part of the problem. If part of the problem, which other role could you play to encourage your kids to handle the situation more responsibly? If your child has been accused of stealing again and you normally play the protector role shielding them from consequences by denying their culpability, could you take on the investigator role instead and look for the facts before deciding how to handle it?

Understanding that the roles you play actually set the stage for your kids’ behavior opens up entirely new options in changing yourself in hopes of encouraging more responsible behavior from them.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach.

Create a stress safety net for your kids

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You can’t prevent your kids from experiencing stress (although many “helicopter parents” try their best) but there is much you can do to help them learn to handle it.

All kids need to feel safe, secure and loved. A 35-year study that followed 87 Harvard College men into middle age found the healthiest at age 55 were those who said their parents were the most caring. The young men who said their parents were less loving, and especially those who saw their parents as unjust, were most likely to have illnesses like heart disease and hypertension by age 55.

Parents are the main anchors in children’s lives. When kids feel cared for and loved, their moment-to-to-moment stress is reduced lowering their stress hormones thereby improving immune function, setting the stage for a healthier adulthood.

So, talk to your children. Find out if they feel loved. This isn’t about buying them stuff. It’s about accepting their perceptions of their relationship with you as the truth and acting in a way that your children may experience you as fair and loving.

Just as a trapeze artist can practice new moves with more confidence and less fear knowing there is a safety net below to catch her if she falls, so, too, can children take new risks, try new stress management behaviors, when they know they have a safety net to fall back on when something goes wrong.

Build a stress safety net for the kids in your life. There are six components (adapted from my audio program “Teaching Kids how to Manage Stress):

1. Parents as role models;

2. Unconditional love;

3. Values;

4. Hope and optimism;

5. Problem-solving;

6. Personal responsibility;

If you have a mostly loving relationship with your children you can begin immediately to teach them stress management skills.

However, if you have a distant and distrustful relationship, you’ll need to concentrate on establishing a loving and trusting one first, before they will be open to you teaching them the skills that will follow in future articles. Concentrate on creating the safety net for the next months. When more trust evolves, then you can teach them how to think and how to problem solve.

We don’t normally think about teaching someone how to think. Yet your stressors begin and end with your thoughts about them. Your thoughts represent your beliefs, the underlying source of much stress. Your thoughts trigger your emotional reactions, which dictate your behavioral reactions. For example, your 15-year-old is nervous about a Spanish test. He knows he’ll do terribly (his belief). He tells himself, “I’m so stupid. I’m going to flunk this test.” (Belief/perception communicated through his thoughts.) He feels great anxiety and fear (stress emotions) and feels sick to his stomach (the fight/flight hormones wreaking havoc on his body.)

As a parent how should you handle this? Tell him how smart he is? Confirm that he does poorly in Spanish? Over the following weeks we’ll explore how you can help him handle this and many other challenges.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach.

Mindfulness

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Here’s an entry from Whole Person author, Julie Lusk:
What is mindfulness and why does it matter.

Our veterans are coming home

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Our veterans* are coming home. We are called to help them heal.Welcome Them Home, Help Them Heal

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not yet over, but our veterans are coming home.

  • Some have completed their military duty.
  • More will return to Iraq or Afghanistan for another tour.
  • 4,865 have died as of March 2009 and will not return home alive.
  • 32,000 have sustained war injuries, and 20,000 are
  • returning with Purple Hearts.
  •  500,000 carry within them deep, invisible, emotional wounds—unknowable to others, often unknown even to themselves.
  • Many have lived through life-altering spiritual trauma and will find the quest for peace and reconciliation more difficult than fighting the war.
  • Too many will commit suicide in the coming years—
  • probably more than the numbers killed in battle.
  •  All—yes ALL—returning service members will experience the challenge of re-entry as they leave the war zone behind and begin to put their lives back together.

*In this book we use veterans, service members, and soldiers as generic terms. We refer to specific branches (marines, reservists, etc.) only in relation to specific studies. To reflect the growing prominence of women in the military we have tried to strike a balance on the use of gendered pronouns.

When they come home, excitement is in the air! . . . at first.

Anyone who has seen a typical welcome home event understands the public expressions of joy and relief felt by family members. Young children sit on relatives’ shoulders to catch a first glimpse of their father or mother. Parents breathe a palpable sigh of relief when they see their son or daughter march onto the tarmac, armory, or gym floor. Prayers have been answered, and everyone anticipates that life together can begin once again. Over a few months and with hard work, many veterans and their family members do find a new “normal.”

Behind the jubilant homecoming celebrations, however, many returning veterans hide invisible wounds.

Upon returning home, many veterans face the biggest challenge of their lifetime and begin fighting a personal, hidden war in earnest. Often well concealed at first, for many the signs and symptoms of post-war trauma and stress—depression, anxiety, domestic problems, substance abuse, isolation, suicide, and homelessness— eventually appear. According to the U.S. Defense Department, of the 96,000 National Guard members and reservists who have completed health reassessments since October 2006, half have reported health problems unrelated to combat wounds.

Providing attentive care in the first few months after a veteran returns home is important for several reasons. First, early detection usually results in more effective treatment and better outcomes. Second, early treatment can prevent a cascade of interrelated problems stemming from unaddressed physical, emotional, and spiritual post-war trauma and distress. Loved ones, friends, and close work associates are often the first to notice emerging problems and also become the key people through whom difficulties are initially addressed.

America faces a crisis of care.

Service members and their families face deep spiritual crises not generally in public view. Sufficient resources have not been committed to help returning veterans recover from the traumas of war. To be sure, many good programs are already in place and actively serving returning veterans. Existing governmental programs, however, are stressed to the limit. Adequate numbers of programs, policies, and personnel are not available to meet current needs—and the largest surge of returning veterans has not yet peaked. America, having put forth its best to fight these wars, must now match that effort in helping our sons and daughters heal.

–Welcome Them Home, Help Them Heal, pp. 7-8

Active procrastinators: just get going

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“Never put off till tomorrow, what you can do the day after tomorrow.” — Mark Twain

Seriously, procrastination is a frustrating habit. Since it’s a learned one it can be overcome but only if you become conscious when you’re doing it.

If you’re a professional procrastinator you need to acknowledge when you say “later” you really don’t mean it. Thousands of “laters” create thousands of opportunities lost. To stay conscious, when you say “later” follow up with, “Later to me means never. Do I really want to get this done or not?”

Also become very cognizant of your avoidance habits, which you’ve probably perfected to the point that you engage in them automatically and unconsciously whenever you face an unpleasant task. Keep a journal of your thoughts and emotions when you’re delaying. Follow these steps:
· Choose something you procrastinate on regularly.
· Describe the activity you put off. Is it unpleasant, confusing, uncomfortable or threatening?
· Write what you’re thinking and feeling when you begin to delay. For instance, “I can’t concentrate enough right now.” Continue to record what you say and/or what you do to prolong your postponement.
· Ask yourself why you’re avoiding action. Is it a legitimate reason or just an excuse? Also answer, “What discomfort am I evading?” Usually your answer is based on some unfounded fear.
· What’s your outcome?

To get going try these ideas:
· Timothy A. Pychyl, of Ottawa’s Carlton University, runs a procrastination research group and suggests, “Follow the 10-minute rule.” Acknowledge your desire to procrastinate then do the task for 10 minutes anyway. Initiating is the hardest step for chronic procrastinators. After working on it for 10 minutes decide whether to continue. Once you’re involved, it’s easy to stay with the task.
· If you have something to do, do it now or schedule it. If it’s not worth the amount of time it takes to schedule, it’s not going to get done later.
· For larger projects write out your goal and list each step you have to take to accomplish it. Schedule each step in your calendar.
· Invest your energy on the important and ignore the trivial.
· Don’t demean yourself when you dally because it makes more likely you’ll continue procrastinating.
· Keep a next steps list for all projects with an estimate of how long it’ll take to accomplish each one. If you have 15 minutes, look over your lists for something you can get done in less than 15 minutes. This furthers your progress in bits and pieces, which is great for those who procrastinate.
· Put the task right in front of you to avoid “out of sight out of mind.”
· Public commitment: Tell someone what you’re working on and when you’ll have it finished.
· Reward yourself when you’ve completed it. Do something just for fun. Give yourself a mental complement.

For chronic procrastinators remember the most important thing to do is just start! So get going!

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple, at wholeperson.com.

Coping with Change Workbook – Featured Product!

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Coping with Change WorkbookFacilitator Reproducible Guided Self-Exploration Activities

In today’s society, many people find themselves living through multiple, extensive, often debilitating changes in their lives. Change manifests itself in many facets of a person’s life including: workplace, health, home and family, and social network.

Although change has always been a part of the lives of human beings, the rate of this change is increasing exponentially, increasing the stress in people’s lives. Change is not going to stop, and must be managed carefully to avoid elevated stress levels to continue over extended periods of time. The ability to cope with change is rapidly becoming a critical life skill that can be the difference between living a life of success or one of disappointment.

The Coping with Change Workbook contains assessments and guided self-exploration activities that can be used with a variety of populations to help participants cope more effectively with the various forms of change. Each chapter of this workbook begins with an annotated Table of Contents with notes and examples for the facilitator. Each chapter contains two primary elements:

1. A set of assessments to help participants gather information about themselves in a focused situation, and
2. A set of guided self-exploration activities to help participants process information and learn more effective ways of behaving to cope with anxiety in their lives.

The activities are divided into four chapters to help you identify and select assessments easily and quickly:

Chapter 1: Types of Change helps participants identify and explore the changes that are currently occurring in their lives, as well as identify and explore the changes they anticipate in the future.
Chapter 2: Change Management helps participants identify the life skills they possess in managing the change in their lives.
Chapter 3: Ways to Cope with Change helps participants explore how well they are coping with change in their lives, and learn some techniques for enhancing their ability to cope with change.
Chapter 4: My Attitude helps participants explore their attitudes related to future change in their lives.

All of the guided activates are fully reproducible for use with your clients/participants.

The anxiety continuum

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Overcoming Panic, Anxiety & PhobiasThink of anxiety on a continuum from very mild to very severe. In its milder state, anxiety can enhance your life. In key moments, it can make you sharper, more energized, and more effective. In cases of real danger, extreme anxiety can make the difference between your safety and disaster. Your anxiety is serving you well if it is in response to a real threat. Once you can tell the difference between useful anxiety, which leads to effective action in the face of a real threat, and excessive anxiety in the absence of real danger, you will be well along your road to recovery.

Let’s begin by understanding the worry and panic cycles and their  roles in maintaining your anxiety. When  you  understand them, you can begin to find ways of breaking the cycles.

• The worry cycle often begins with a concern that something you fear is going  to happen.  Events in your life may have taught  you to be on guard  and  to strive for control.  Most anxiety sufferers are consumed with worry about what might happen  next, continually asking themselves, “what if … ?” This anxious apprehension may become worse as you begin to constantly monitor whatever concerns  you. In fact, for some  people,  the  anxiety  caused  by  the  anticipation  of danger is much worse than the anxiety they actually feel in a feared situation.

•  As you start  to worry, you may also notice  uncomfortable physical sensations. Research has shown that people who experience excessive worry may actually be biologically predis­posed to easily develop the physical signs of anxiety. Some­ times the worry cycle starts with these physical sensations. Of course, these reactions will, in fact, increase your anxiety. You may feel tense and find it hard to concentrate. Your thoughts and physical sensations may interrupt your ability to focus at the task at hand.

• And finally, you feel extremely anxious. Until you find ways to break the cycle, you can go around and around: the thoughts or images, the physical sensations, and the anxious behaviors increasing each time. One worry may follow on the heels of another, and the worry cycle can take over your life.

–Overcoming Panic, Anxiety & Phobias, pp. 11-12

The Big Picture

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Picture yourself in 20 years. What year is it? How old are you? Where are you? What are you doing with your time and energy? How do you feel? Are you healthy? Peaceful? Relaxed? What have you done with the past 20 years?

What this picture is now and what it will become are both up to you. You can’t (and shouldn’t!) expect a doctor or a minister or a family member to change your life for you. You can’t wait for other people to change for you. Take actions on your own behalf. Stand up for yourself and treat yourself well.

You may be wondering, “Where do I start? How?” You may feel overwhelmed and confused. Planning to change your stress habits or to develop a new lifestyle is a large task, but not an impossible one. Like all goals, it requires an honest will to pursue a course of action. It needs time and energy. It needs a plan for change. Planning is a process, not a product. There is no perfect plan and no plan will work forever. Your plan must be revised throughout life.

Goals will change, and so will life. You will need to make mid-course corrections. Stresses will come and go, but after all is said and done, you still remain. Make sure you don’t look back with regret on what might have been.

Depression can be treated

Might your moodiness be clinical depression?

Everyone feels “blue” at times but clinical depression runs more deeply. A diagnosis of depression requires the presence of one of two features for most of the day, nearly every day for two-weeks:
· Depressed mood;
· Loss of interest or pleasure in activities;

Symptoms include:
· Change in appetite and weight: You seldom feel hungry and may forget to eat. You have to force yourself to eat even a few bites. Preparing meals requires too much energy. Significant weight loss may occur.
· Or an increase in appetite and weight gain; craving certain foods such as sweets or carbohydrates;
· Trouble sleeping;
· Or sleeping too much;
· Overly agitated – difficulty sitting still, pacing and fidgeting;
· Slowed down – sluggish movements, slumped while sitting, avert your eyes, speak slowly and sparsely in a monotone with low volume, pausing before responding to questions, slower thinking ;
· Decreased energy, feeling tired and fatigued: Simple day-to-day tasks seem overwhelming. You may tire quickly in everything you do. Your work at home and at the office suffers.
· Feeling worthless or guilty: You focus on past failures, personalize trivial events, see minor mistakes as proof that you’re inadequate. You blame yourself for all that goes wrong. You hate yourself and think you’re a bad person.
· Thinking problems: Negative and pessimistic thoughts increase your belief that nothing can get better; trouble with thinking, concentrating or making decisions especially if your work is mentally challenging
· Feeling sad, depressed, blue, empty, hopeless, helpless;

Hopelessness is having a negative view of your future; an assumption that pain and unhappiness will continue. You’re quite sure your life won’t get better.

Helplessness is a negative view of yourself; you lack self-confidence and believe it’s not possible to feel better. “What’s the use?” sums it up. Strong feelings of helplessness can lead to thoughts of suicide. If you contemplate suicide you should consult a professional immediately. Symptoms include:
· Often on the edge of crying;
· Depressed appearance (facial expressions, disposition);
· Overly irritable;
· Physical problems, especially chronic headaches, stomachaches, joint and back pain, indigestion, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome;

The second feature of depression is a significant loss of interest or pleasure in most activities nearly every day for at least two-weeks. “I just don’t care anymore,” explains your feelings toward things you once enjoyed. Your detachment is noticeable to your friends and family, too.

If you’re depressed, consider what I wrote last week: depressive symptoms may be a normal response to what’s wrong in your life and may facilitate you focusing like a laser beam on solving it.

And get professional help (next week’s topic). With today’s treatments there’s simply no reason to go through life assuming it can be no better. Your depression may improve with no treatment, and it may return. The degree of hopelessness and helplessness determines whether or not you seek help. Sometimes it’s up to loved ones to get you the treatment you need and deserve.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., is an international speaker and a Stress and Wellness Coach. Order her book, Let Your Body Win: Stress Management Plain & Simple, at wholeperson.com.

Relaxation: Stop the Stresses!

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There are a few more simple ways to reduce stress physically. Gentleness and relaxation skills help you unwind by being kind to yourself. There are many ways you can relax, but if you’re not sure, try a tension test: from head to toe, tense all the muscles you can one by one. Do some feel tighter than others? Try breathing exercises as you do this. When you tighten a muscle, take deep breaths in, and as you release it, exhale. Give yourself time to relax every day. Take 20 minutes a day and spend it any way you want – a long bath, a long walk, it doesn’t matter. Taking some time to unwind is especially helpful before sleeping. Instead of running yourself all day and crashing at the end, put yourself to bed. Developing a sleep pattern for your body will help reduce tension.

Being gentle with yourself is part of relaxing. Listen to what your body is telling you. It will let you know how you’re treating it. You may already know some of the ways it tries to tell you to slow down; a headache, a stiff neck, a sour stomach, or backaches are all signs.  If you’re looking for new ways to relax, try finding a hobby that lets you relax gently rather than intensively. Painting or yoga are examples.

  • What are some ways you’re too hard on yourself?
  • Where do you carry your stress? Can you trace the tension back to its cause?

Coping with Anxiety – Featured Product

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Coping with AnxietyCoping with Anxiety

By Dr. John J. Liptak and Ester A. Leutenberg

Facilitator Reproducible Guided Self-Exploration Activities

Anxiety is becoming increasingly prevalent in our modern society. Research indicates that the number of people suffering from anxiety disorders continues to increase. Many trends and forces are at work to contribute to feelings of fear and anxiety in people. Fear and anxiety are experiences that are familiar to us all, but for many people anxiety becomes a serious problem.

The Coping with Anxiety Workbook contains assessments and guided self-exploration activities that can be used with a variety of populations to help participants cope more effectively with various forms of anxiety. Each chapter of this workbook begins with an annotated Table of Contents with notes and examples for the facilitator. Each chapter contains two primary elements:

1. A set of assessments to help participants gather information about themselves in a focused situation, and
2. A set of guided self-exploration activities to help participants process information and learn more effective ways of behaving to cope with anxiety in their lives.
The activities are divided into four chapters to help you identify and select assessments easily and quickly:

Chapter 1: Anxiety Triggers helps participants identify and learn to recognize their anxiety triggers.
Chapter 2: Fear Factor helps participants identify and explore the intensity of their fears.
Chapter 3: Anxiety Symptoms helps participants identify and explore how they experience symptoms of anxiety.
Chapter 4: Coping with Anxiety helps participants understand how effectively they are preventing and coping with anxiety in life.

All of the guided activates are fully reproducible for use with your clients/participants.

You are what you eat

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As important as good exercise skills are good nutrition skills, those straightforward things we all know we should do, but don’t always get around to doing. Eating right means giving your body high-quality fuel for the tasks you ask it to perform daily. It doesn’t have to be complicated; it’s just common sense and the discipline to follow up on what you already know.

Try designing an eating plan for life, rather than following fad diets. If you want to lose weight, the healthiest way is also the old fashioned way—eat healthy portions and exercise. Many of us try to cut calories by skipping breakfast, but try not to! Breakfast gives you energy and helps you through the day. For an easy and healthy cut in calorie intake, try just drinking water instead of all the other beverages you drink in a day. Eat  your vegetables raw if you can; it helps prevent vitamin loss during cooking. Another easy method is to check the ingredients list on processed foods. What’s the first ingredient listed? If its sugar, you can probably do without it. The easiest way to stop eating junk food is to avoid having it around. A little treat now and again won’t break you, as long as you remember that moderation is key.

  • How can you alter your eating habits to be healthier?
  • What kinds of small steps can you make to help make it easier to eat well?

Physical Stress Reduction

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Stress skills are as varied as your stressors, but so far we’ve only talked about mental ways to combat stress. What about physical symptoms of stress? Shouldn’t they have physical stress skills to go with them? Yes! One of the key aspects of physical stress skills is exercise.

Exercise skills are an important part of taking care of yourself. They increase your strength, stamina, and energy. Your body works best when it is used regularly, just like a car. If it sits too long, it begins to rust. However, be sure you’re willing to exercise consistently or you can do more harm than good. It’s easy to get over-zealous and hurt yourself. Instead of starting off by running five miles, start with one and work your way up. If you feel exhausted an hour after exercising rather than energized, you’re going too hard. Spend at least five to ten minutes warming up before you start and an equal amount cooling down afterwards. If you don’t think regular exercise is something that you can schedule in, then at least try to stretch your muscles every day. If you need motivation, try exercising with a friend or two. If you use exercise as a de-stressor, you may get more out of it if you do it alone to burn off some steam. If you’re using it as an energizer, then spending time with friends will help.

  • What kinds of exercise for you want to do?
  • What kinds would be healthiest for you?

Faith and Surrender as Outlook Skills

Faith means many things. It isn’t necessarily belief in religion, but rather a type of trust. It is a trust of things you cannot prove or explain. You trust your friends will come through for you, or you trust gravity. There are many kinds of faith. It allows you to tap into a source of strength beyond yourself. It is what you know and believe to be true when your mind can’t prove it otherwise – the final extension of perception. Superficial faith isn’t any help, but deep faith can help you with stress that comes from the most painful parts of life. Allow tragedy to grow faith in you. Don’t run away from reality because it hurts. Hardships bring new insights. If you want to further develop your concept of faith, ask others about what they believe. Listen. How is it different from yours? How is it similar? Do not try to sell your faith to them; there are no right or wrong answers. Be polite and respectful; open your mind and learn.

Faith helps you surrender —accepting what is now and moving on from an outdated past or a distant future. Understand that things change and will continue to do so. Learn to live within your limits and make the best of what life has to offer. Surrendering is not defeat. Don’t let yourself worry needlessly over something you can’t control in the distant future. If you cross that bridge before you have to, you pay the toll twice.