Category Archives: Articles

Real Wellness: Insist upon reality-based health promotion

Don 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 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.

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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Facilitator 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 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 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:

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.

Laughter: The Best Stress Buster

Our minds have an amazing gift; imagination and the ability to laugh are perhaps the greatest talents we have. Laughter relieves tension and gives you a new perspective. It allows you to see yourself as separate from your stress. I’m not suggesting you drop your life’s work and try life as a stand-up comic, but try laughing at the quirks in life rather than letting them stress you. You don’t have to try to be funny, just enjoy life’s inconsistencies. If you think about the details of your life, you’ll notice things about it are pretty funny. Example: cleaning my kitchen results in the dishwasher in pieces in the living room. Was it frustrating at first? Yes. Is it funny in retrospect? Yes. Tell others about them and they’re sure to get a kick out of it. You can change complaints into jokes – something everyone will enjoy more. Or, use your imagination; paint silly pictures in your mind when you need to snap out of a bad mood. Picture a man walking down the street. He’s wearing an expensive three-piece suit, marching with dignity through a rainstorm. Over his head, he holds an umbrella, except it’s missing the cover; there’s no cloth or plastic, just bare metal spokes. He’s wearing a blue tie that’s bleeding dye all over his white shirt. Now change his suit pants for shorts, tall white socks and cowboy boots. He meets someone on the street. What does the other person look like? What happens next?

Looking on the Bright Side: Outlook Skills

Life is bound to be stressful, but there are things you can do to reduce the amount of stress you juggle on a daily basis. You can decrease the amount of stress you have by viewing events in a different light. The ways you cope by adjusting your viewpoint are called Outlook skills. These are particularly helpful when you:

feel depressed,
tend to be cynical,
experience grief, and/or
limit yourself.

You may already be familiar with relabeling — rather than assume the worst, allow yourself to look at it another way. Rather than get cranky your dentist is running late and you’re stuck in the waiting room, think of it as extra free time and let yourself relax.

Another way to change your outlook is called whispering. Let’s face it, we all talk to ourselves. We don’t always do it aloud, but we are the film critics to the movies of our lives. Maybe you spill something. Do you usually think something such as “oh good job!” sarcastically? Or do you clean it up and go on your way? Try whispering good things to yourself instead. You can combat that little nagging voice. Try making an index card with a list of positive messages. If you start to get down on yourself, just look at that card. Add to it when you want, and carry it with you.

Do you let your inner voice bog you down?
Do you relabel, or do you sweat the small stuff?

Relationship Skills

Just as laughter is a part of relationships, so are tears. We are reluctant to talk about fighting as a relationship tool, but a clean, fair fight can help. Avoiding fights isn’t a good solution. People who bottle it up are just as stressed as those who constantly bicker. Don’t fight over everything; compromise and pick your battles and words carefully. Be sure you know exactly why you want to fight. It’s easy to get caught up and not understand what’s wrong.

Don’t pick a fight at a time or place that gives you the upper hand. Pick a time when you can both sit down and talk logically, and wait until you’re both calm. Don’t be petty and take a cheap shot to get the last word. If the fight has lost steam, let it go. Don’t hit below the belt, but also, don’t wear your belt around your neck. Being too sensitive will close off things you may need to fight about. You know where the line is; there’s no need to be disrespectful and hurt someone for the sake of gaining ground in an argument. Don’t drive the other person into a corner either. Cornered people panic and don’t fight fair, and this just ends up hurting you both. Avoid always or never (you never listen, you always make me feel like this). Fighting isn’t something that we want to do, but clearing the air is better for everyone involved.

Honesty and time to think can help alleviate a lot of the stress that causes unnecessary fights. Assertive, Flight, and Nest-Building skills help prevent fights that you don’t really need.

Assertive skills maintain honesty. Respect yourself and your partner. Don’t be afraid to say no if you mean it. Practice saying it in a mirror if you have to — it becomes natural with time. Saying no doesn’t have to be permanent. It’s ok to say “I can’t now, but in the future if I can”. However, don’t use this as a cop out, and only say this if you mean it! Making excuses opens a door for a fight later on.

Flight skills help you put some distance between you and your stress long enough to calm down. It can be as simple as taking a nap, or letting your mind relax. Give yourself a few moments to decide how you really feel about something. If you need more time, sleep on it – give yourself 24 hours before acting on any major decisions you make.

Nest-building skills supply you with a place to retreat to when you need to get away. It gives you security and comfort. Is there a place in your home where you can really relax? Try rearranging your home so things that help you relax are all in one spot. For a quick and easy fix, repaint a room a color you enjoy. It gives you a space your own to go to.

Mother-Daughter Book Signing

Book Signing:

Talk Story Bookstore
3785 Hanapepe Road
Hanapepe Kaua’i
September 9 – 6-9 p.m.

Mother-Daughter Authors and Entrepreneurs

Kathy Khalsa tells us how they began their business, Wellness Reproductions and Publishing. “It all started when I had a need for reproducible activity handouts created for mental health facilitators – but actually, our real-life story has the actual beginning. Ester will tell you more . . .”

“I co-owned a typesetting business with my husband, Jay. My son, Mitchell, had a serious mental illness. He attempted suicide three times in eight years and unfortunately died by suicide on November 22nd, 1986. Before he passed away, I was his confidante … and in trying to support him, I read everything I could, to try to help him . . . and myself.

At this time, my eldest daughter, Kathy, was an occupational therapist in a skilled nursing facility. When Mitch died, she became a psychiatric occupational therapist as well as president of Wellness Reproductions and Publishing, Inc., and needed a user-friendly, reproducible activity handout workbook that was not available (Kathy was never one to adhere to the philosophy that even though something hadn’t been done before, she couldn’t do it) so, she decided to write it! Knowing of my extensive research, studying and interest, (and wisely aware that this was an excellent time for a meaningful project for me), she asked me to be a co-author! With my husband Jay’s printing knowledge, encouragement and support, we decided to self-publish. In June of ’89 we gave birth to Life Management Skills I, Reproducible Activity Handouts Created for Facilitators.

Amy, my youngest daughter who was an art education student at a University, illustrated the book, combining her artistic skills with her understanding of people’s turmoil. After teaching art for a few years, she decided to go to graduate school. As a social worker, she now assists at risk children and families. We thought we’d sell some books to occupational therapists, but to our surprise and delight (by word of mouth and newly learned marketing) educators, recreation therapists, social workers, psychologists, EAPs, nurses, counselors, school counselors, program directors, etc., began purchasing the book as well. Soon our customers were asking about ‘other products’ . . . and so our company really began. We found our niche, a way to support mental health clinicians as well as people with mental illness.”

In 2001 Kathy and Ester sold Wellness Reproductions to The Guidance Group and worked for them for 5 years. Since then. Kathy went onto becoming a rehab occupational therapist. Ester continues with her passion by helping mental health facilitators help their clients with her work at Whole Person Associates. Her daughter Amy Brodsky continues to illustrate her books.

Kathy and Ester will have several of their books for sale on Friday evening, September 9^th at The Talk Story Bookstore from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Listening as a Relational Skill

Even the extroverted will have trouble with relationships if listening is an issue. Listening skills go hand-in-hand with contact. No one wants to talk or listen all the time; understanding one skill is equally as important as the other. Being a good listener is more than just hearing. It means being aware and accepting of the other person’s emotions. However, there is a line between being sympathetic and too empathetic. Empathy isn’t a bad thing, but it’s important to separate out your feelings. It’s easy to take on the emotions of others you care about in stressful situations, but this is not helpful to anyone. While supporting a friend through a divorce is healthy, if you take on your friend’s emotions, both of you are drained and stressed, which doesn’t help anyone.

Sometimes it’s difficult to understand why a person feels a particular way. The key is to just accept their feelings. Don’t judge them or compare their reaction to how you think you would feel. Sometimes if you are confused about a friend’s reactions, try paraphrasing what they said back. This will help both of you understand what was said and if that’s what was meant. Another way to improve your listening skills is to keep an eye on body language. Watch how people interact with each other. Most people have clear signals for how they’re feeling.

Do you think you are a good listener? Why or why not?
Are there ways you can improve your listening skills?

TIP 1 Real Wellness Insist upon reality-based health promotion

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Coping with Anxiety

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Mother-Daughter Authors and Entrepreneurs

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TIP 1
Real Wellness
Insist upon reality-based health promotion