Spring Clean Your Wellness Routine: Part 2!

Now that you’ve done a bit of reflecting using the prompts from last week’s blog, this week, let’s talk about how to action those new goals!

First, make sure you’ve subscribed to my email list for a chance to win a 60 min private coaching session to help you create your own personalized routine! …. use the pop up or the footer below!

The top 4 areas people are often working to improve with a Wellness Coach are their sleep, time management skills, nutrition and fitness.

So let’s look at a few tips for each of these areas.

1) Sleep. Yes there are certainly a number of medical conditions and reasons that you may be struggling with your sleep, AND make sure you are controlling what you can, in addition to conversations you may need to have with your health care provider.

The top two things I invite clients to work on if they are looking to improve sleep? Get their phones out of their bedrooms and second, adhere to consistent bed and wake times.

2) Time Management. This is related to most other goals, and often opens a gateway to better fitness routines for example, so it is one I chat with folks about often. First, we can’t know where to make changes if we aren’t quite sure what we’re doing now.

Tip 1 = Inventory your days. Keep a log for a few days to see where you are actually spending your time. Nothing fancy, a pen and paper, a voice note….just something that you will be able to have a look at to see where you can consider my second suggestion.

Tip 2 = Streamline. Where are you wasting time bouncing from one area to another. For example, if you have errands to run and you have home chores to do, don’t alternate between the two. Complete all like activities together if possible. Run all of those errands at once and complete home chores in one block of time. Consider the amount of time (especially if you have kids) it takes you to get out the door. If you are doing this multiple times, instead of once, there is some time you can reclaim here.

3) Nutrition. Stick with the “more of” mentality here. That is, what do you know you need more of vs less of?

Where would you get this information? First, your personal knowing, meaning if you aren’t eating enough veggies for example and you know you need to add more of those. And, the second source of this information is your health care provider/registered dietician. What have those practitioners asked you to add more of?

The reason I invite folks to consider the ‘more of’ approach? We can get really restrictive and set ourselves for unneccessary stress when we restrict foods. Increasing the healthier options often has a way of decreasing some of those foods that might not be the right fit for our goals. (Again, if you’re got specific dietary or health conditions, speak to your registered dietician)

And this ‘more of’ approach is where a wellness coach can help. We can help strategize the plan to add in those veggies and help you when the plan gets stuck.

4) Fitness. While there can be a wide variety of goals in this area, overall we need two components for sure. Something for cardiovascular health and something for muscle strength and endurance. Don’t get overwhelmed here. Consider this:

With cardio, we can often find existing opportunities to add cardio. At the park with your kids or grandkids-do some steps ups on the playground stairs. Is there a way you can walk somewhere instead of drive such as to the your bank or local drug store if you have an errand? Already walking your dog? Can you add a little bit more speed to the walk in between “sniffy-stops”?

With strength training, you do need to find a more dedicated time, BUT it doesn’t have to be an hour. Have your trainer create you an at home program that breaks into upper body, lower body and core in smaller blocks. That way, you can fit in this component more easily in smaller chunks of time vs. feeling as though you have to find an hour of time.

As always, I am cheering you on to get after those life, wellness and fitness goals!

If I can help, please don’t hesitate to reach out: deanna@deannalangfordcoaching.com

Deanna