Pillar 3: Movement - Nutrition with our Wellness Services

You cannot exercise yourself out of a bad diet. Mark Hyman

No Time To Get Better

The benefits from physical activity (movement) have long been established in the medical community for improving your mood, promoting better sleep, reducing weight, increasing energy, reducing risk with various diseases, lowering your blood pressure, and extending your lifespan and healthspan. In fact, there are over 100 good reasons why physical activity is important to our overall wellness, yet, the lack of exercise is one of the most common elements in lifestyle diseases and other medical ailments we see in clinics, hospitals and wellness centres. Research has shown and our clinical experience reminds us that most individuals report that they have no time for some form of physical activity, implying that doing exercise is highly time consuming and difficult to schedule in an already busy day with work and family. Physical activity (exercise is part of physical activity) in fact can be one of the most time efficient behaviors we can develop into a regular habit that has short and long term wellness benefits. The research does vary due to many factors (including a person's age and overall physical health status) on how much a person should exercise. We agree with Mayo Clinic's advice that 30 minutes a day of some form of aerobic activity and/or strength training greatly increases our quality of life. In short, just 30 minutes a day reduces the risk of many lifestyle diseases and improves our overall mood regulation, sharp thinking and less painful bodily activities.

Seeking Gain without the Pain

With time being the universal measurement tool for "work - life integration" and as well the most common excuse for not being able to exercise, our experience has shown another key reason why exercise is not a regular habit for many: physical and psychological discomfort. We have all heard the phrase "no pain, no gain" that reminds us success, improvement or achievement can only arise if one experiences resistance, stress, pain and hard work. This may be true for the professional athlete or someone who is training for the Olympics, but for the general population regular physical activity has very little difficulty and pain factors required for this positive lifestyle to commence and remain in one's life. We find that most of our clients who desire to exercise for improvement of their health (but do not) can generally be explained with a more easy to understand explanation instead of laziness or procrastination: discomfort. The various elements of discomfort with exercising and physical activity are many: sweating, getting too hot, doing the exercise alone or having to do it with others, doing it in the rain or hot sun, getting blisters, being sore, getting out of bed or going out of the house when its dark, cold or hot. But as the old saying goes, "doing nothing gets you nothing." At the Centre for Stress Management we work with our clients to help them overcome the discomfort factors with physical activity with the view that over a period of time the discomfort is replaced with relief and satisfaction after physical activity for 20 - 30 minutes a day. At some point the discomfort comments in our client's thoughts gets replaced with "sweat now, shine later."

We Are What We Eat

Hippocrates once stated over 2,000 years ago, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food." The critical importance of food and water (nutrition) for sustaining human life continues to be a focus in daily life, yet very few people truly understand how food is processed and used by both the gut brain and head brain for our quality of life, or what we call our state of wellness. Like movement (exercise and many other forms of physical activity), nutrition (eating) is a skill to learn whereby one day it becomes a positive well-being habit to prevent/reduce illness and promote a healthy body. Concurrently, as we increase our knowledge of the impact essential nutrients and food groups have on our physical health, we believe our clients should also focus on how eating the right food groups and dietary supplements such as zinc, magnesium, vitamins B and D, and others can improve mental health and cognitive functioning. Furthermore, research and clinical experience have confirmed that the dynamic duo of gut health, prebiotics and probiotics ingested daily for our digestive system (gut brain) has a direct impact on our digestive system. This gut-brain axis is a two-way communication system for the entire body to benefit from ranging from longer good states, deeper and better sleep, reduce brain fog, mitigate stress and anxiety, enhance our immune system and many other short and long-term wellness benefits. When we eat with an intentional healthy meal plan, we are able to fuel ourself each day to be present with our best self.

Eat on the Run

A common life experience we have seen and done ourselves is eating a meal quickly to get back to work, eating in a hurry at the dining table or at a work desk as we worry over the list of things to get back to. We generally have two types of eating: primary eating (just eating) and secondary eating (eating while multi-tasking). Research shows that we spend on average 1 - 2 hours a day eating, but over 50% of the time when eating we are doing something else. The joy of eating good food among good company is now replaced with eating fast food to work on work-life tasks that are often not enjoying for many of our clients. We work with our clients to have a more mindful approach to eating, not only the pace they are eating and what they are cooking and/or eating, but also being mindful when they are shopping for food to cook or buying ready made food to eat. Integrating Harvard's Medical School eight steps for mindful eating into our Four Pillars Wellness Services has shown that our clients over time improve their energy management and sleep habits among other healthy physical and mood benefits. And let's not forget water, often known as the "forgotten nutrient" in wellness. We encourage our clients to consume at least 2.5 - 3.5 litres of water a day regardless of age or thirst levels as the benefits from proper hydration range from better sleep, more energy, improved cognitive functioning and stronger mood regulation.

Move your body, feed your soul, Wellness starts with every bite and every step.

The Centre for Stress Management's Four Pillars for Wellness Program are: Work-Life Stress Integration, Movement - Nutrition, Feeling - Thinking Regulation, and Relax - Rest - Sleep hygiene. All our services integrate all four pillars that are carefully designed where the most common cause for medical and psychological healthcare issues are addressed: work - life stress and subsequently poor stress management. Our Movement - Nutrition program has been shown over the years to not only improve energy and sleep behaviors, but it also reduces the risk for future health issues and enhances resilience for work - life challenges and opportunities. Developing well-being habits with relax - rest - sleep hygiene, work - life stress integration, think - mood regulation, and movement - nutrition wellness pillars integrated with our positive psychology approach in counselling and all other services presents flourishing opportunities for young and old alike. Email us on info@stresshk.com and see how we can improve your overall approach to mindful nutrition and how movement (physical acitivity and exercise) does not have to be painful or time consuming to be rewarding. Simply put, our focus in all four pillars of our wellness services is to develop healthy habits for a greater happyspan, healthspan, and lifespan.