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A Healthy Worksite

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The environment in which we work often can undermine our best efforts to stay well. For example, a big bowl of candy at the front desk, snacks and calorie-dense drinks in vending machines, Sally’s leftover birthday cake in the staff room, all call out like sirens luring sailors to cliffs — plummeting you into an abyss of guilt. Multitasking (I think you mean multitasking, but multi-taking is a problem, too! LOL!) compounds the issue. Eating at your desk, for example, can keep you planted to your chair all day and…well, the list goes on. You can help change your workplace norms in small ways to better support wellness.

Here are simple tips for improving your worksite’s wellness quotient:

  1. Who says you have to sit down to meet? Suggest a walking or stretching meeting. Talk about healthy multitasking.Replace the candy dish with a fruit bowl — or even a fish bowl!
  2. Ask your co-workers to pledge to leave leftover sweets at home.
  3. Encourage your company to replace unhealthy vending choices with water, fruit juices and energy bars.
  4. Ask your workplace to install a bike rack, and then commit to use it!
  5. In addition to those inspirational quote posters, ask your management/administration to post simple stretching exercises. Encourage everyone to stand up and stretch every ½ hour — even in meetings.

Every little bit helps. Do you have ideas about making your worksite a well-site? What’s your unwell-workplace beef? What’s your favorite or most unique well-workplace story?

One Degree of Change

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One degree of change is a concept that we embrace here at PATH.  In fact, the notion is a cornerstone of our vision and one that we share with our clients and longtime business partners such as Select Design. It goes something like this:  you don’t have to be a sailor or a climate change expert to understand the concept of one degree of change.  The simplest, smallest positive change you make can have a generous outcome — indeed often the simplest, smallest step is the smartest and most everlasting.

Consider this, if you take the stairs in a building where you normally use the elevator (just one way every day), and there are 20 stairs, after 5 days you’ll have climbed 100 stairs! That’s 12 flights, or 6 stories.  Taken all at once, 6 stories would be a tough climb — even for an athlete.  Taken in chewable bits, bit by bit, moment by moment, success builds —one flight, one story, one week, one year, one lifetime.  Once a small step is conquered, it can never be undone. It stands as a permanent marker in your success portfolio.  And, if you track those markers over time, the more likely you are to seek out bigger successes, to etch ever more in stone.  All progress is good, all positive change worthwhile.

Apply one degree to exercise, sleep, eating well, meditation, or even spending time with loved ones.  Try giving yourself just 10 minutes this week to accomplish the equivalent of 12 flights — chose any healthy endeavor you deem worthy.  Significant gains can be made in both sleep and exercise in as little as 10 minutes.  So, what will it be: brisk walk, dancing, stretching, chopping veggies (for a healthy dip of course), or how about a 10 minute power nap?  What can you accomplish in 10 minutes tomorrow? Be honest, be realistic, begin.

Sources:

  1. Haskell, W., Lee I-M., Pate, R., Powell, K., Blair, S., Franklin, B., Macera, C., Heath, G., Thompson, P., Bauman, A.. Physical Activity and Public Health: Updated Recommendation for Adults from the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 39, No. 8, pp. 1423–1434, 2007.
  2. Mednick, S.,  Alaynick, W.. Comparing models of sleep-dependent memory consolidation, Journal of Experimental and Clinical Medicine 2010

Welcome

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Welcome to the PATH blog!  Our goal is to support people trying to live healthier lives — encouraging wellness in all areas of life, at home and at work. Here at our Vermont-based offices, Planned Action Toward Health (PATH) has been developing and managing dynamic wellness programs in public and private worksites for more than 20 years.

Hi, I’m Gillian Pieper, PATH co-founder and VP of Research and Health Promotion.  In my two decades of wellness experience, I’ve learned that change is impossible when we repeat the same thinking day after day and chase the same tired strategies that are, quite simply, unsustainable in real life.

Take it from me – there is no wellness panacea!  In other words, no prescriptive strategy can work for all people all the time.  Change begins inside each of us in unique ways and takes an infinite number of routes toward success.

Wellness is my passion and I believe it is my calling to help people find their way to their own success, and to listen to their insight about their own ultimate, most realistic path. Our success is intrinsic – we all have what we need to be able to live the so-called abundant life.  Accessing those best actions, and making those best choices – those most unique to me, is my personal challenge.  In this blog my colleagues and I hope to plant some seeds that will guide you on your challenge and then see how your ideas grow as a result.

You’ll hear a little bit from me each week and quite often we’ll bring in guests.  Watch for insights, commentary, health tips, recipes, success stories and more.  With that, let’s get started on this journey, together!