Can YOU Benefit From Health Coaching?

Health coaching is right for you if you answer YES to at least 4 of the following questions:

(1) Is now the time to do something to improve your health?
(2) Is your lifestyle unhealthy and out of balance?
(3) Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired, stressed out, and/or under-productive?
(4) Are you ready to make lasting, positive changes in your lifestyle such as losing weight, lowering cholesterol, controlling blood pressure, managing blood sugars, or reducing stress?
(5) Are you ready to commit to an honest discussion of your top health concerns?
(6) Are you seeking to create more overall satisfaction by bringing greater pleasure, engagement, and meaning to your life?
(7) Have other traditional treatment programs failed to improve your health?

Competitive sports teach us that individuals learn best and attain peak performance when they receive support and guidance from a knowledgeable coach. So why should we go it alone and regard our health–something that we treasure and that really matters to us–as any less important? In short, Health and Wellness Coaching, an innovative alternative to traditional healthcare programs, is for you because when you’re focused and know what to do, you can accomplish a lot in a short period of time.

There are several steps to the health coaching process:

(1) Intake interview and evaluation (includes a coaching readiness and starting point/goals assessment);
(2) beliefs and values identification and clarification;
(3) development of a personalized plan of action;
(4) measurement of progress toward goals;
(5) adjustment of strategies as needed; and
(6) continual re-assessment of progress.

Candidates for health coaching include those with a variety of chronic health conditions such as arthritis, asthma, back pain, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and obesity (to name a few), as well as those who seek relief from everyday stress, anger, and anxiety, and those seeking to meet the demands of Attention-Deficit Disorder.

A passionate and effective health coach knows from both personal and professional experience that to achieve success, you have to know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there–essentially, strategy and structure. “If you don’t know where you want to end up, it doesn’t matter which road you take” (Cheshire Cat, Lewis Carol). Your coach also should be familiar with research into health coaching. Investigators in a Yale study showed that “coaching is a highly effective and superior strategy in reducing total cholesterol and other coronary risk factors such as blood pressure, compared to patients who were prescribed medication but not coached.” If you suffer from a chronic health condition and your physician has recommended lifestyle changes, then coaching can have a positive impact on your ability to control the advancement of your disease. Following parameters set by your physician and working as part of a team approach, your coach can help you understand your current lifestyle choices and how they negatively affect your disease, identify things that you can and are willing to change, and help create a meaningful plan of action that assures success. The goal is to help you begin and maintain new healthy behaviors that will improve your quality of life.

For reducing stress, anger, and anxiety, your coach will work with you to understand the thoughts, perceptions, and events that create stress for you. He will encourage your development of self-observation and self-awareness so that you can learn about how you respond to stressful events in your life, and then help you begin to recognize how you can best manage your stress. This will enable you to select and implement a variety of stress management tools and techniques and to learn how to incorporate them into your daily routine. Through this process, you will receive support you when you need support, receive motivation when you need to be pushed, and receive encouragement and be challenged in order to help you achieve the “less-stress” balance you desire in your life.

All in all, health and wellness coaching is not just for problems, but rather it is for moving your life forward, expanding your possibilities, and realizing your potential through the use of a dynamic plan of action that addresses old and new problems with new and vital solutions. As Albert Einstein once said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it in the first place.” Coaching is very affordable and convenient because it occurs mostly by telephone and through emails, depending on your needs and preferences, with the flexibility to accommodate your schedule.

So, are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Is now the time to do something to improve your overall health and well-being, especially those of you with DIABETES or ARTHRITIS or CHRONIC PAIN? Then what are you waiting for? HEALTH COACHING is right for you!

Dr. Fields is committed to moderation in his own health habits and, certainly far from believing he has achieved optimal health, continues to work at self-improvement by partaking in his favorite activities of hiking, camping, coaching his two sons’ baseball teams, and spending time with his family. He holds a doctorate degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles. health coach