Lazarus Wellness

The Path to Wellness

Our Learning Modules cover 6 core areas of health: Relationships, Nutrition, Environment, Mindfulness, Movement, and Sleep.

Each topic will give the employee another self care tool to build their wellness profile. These topics are cumulative in the sense that they build on each other. By the time a person has moved through each learning module they will gain a toolbox full of wellness strategies to move forward on the road to wellness.

Think of each module like a stone along the pathway of well-being. As cairns are stacks of stones to help hikers find their way in the wilderness, each module represents a stone. The goal is to begin to “stack the stones” by creating a personalized path that will optimize health and reduce the risk of poor health outcomes.

When a person completes each module they could be gifted as well as a grand prize for finishing all of the modules. The more modules a person works through, the more well they become. Encouraging someone to go through all six modules could be the greatest gift you could give them.

The modules can be shown to a group and followed up by group discussion or to individuals to review them at a time which fits into their work schedule. Each module is approximately one hour in length and may be broken up into smaller lessons and time frames so it may take up to a month for a person to complete all segments in that module. For example, six months is a good time frame to work through all the content of all of the modules as it would then permit time to implement the self care into their lives.

Core Areas

These six areas are core to sustaining our health and wellbeing and there are many ways for a person to promote their health using these self-care practices inspired by the teachings from the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine:

• MOVEMENT — Having regular physical activity can prevent the onset of chronic diseases. According to the CDC, the current recommendations are as follows:
  
  Key Guidelines for Children and Adolescents
  
  
  • Children and adolescents should do 60 minutes (1 hour) or more of physical activity daily.
  • Aerobic: Most of the 60 or more minutes a day should be either moderate- or vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, and should include vigorous-intensity physical activity at least 3 days a week.
  • Muscle-strengthening: As part of their 60 or more minutes of daily physical activity, children and adolescents should include muscle-strengthening physical activity on at least 3 days of the week.
  • Bone-strengthening: As part of their 60 or more minutes of daily physical activity, children and adolescents should include bone-strengthening physical activity on at least 3 days of the week.
  • It is important to encourage young people to participate in physical activities that are appropriate for their age, that are enjoyable, and that offer variety.
  See Workfit program for more details on how this module will play out in the workplace.
• RELATIONSHIPS — Interacting respectfully with ourselves & others in a healthy positive way leads to developing a good community. As social beings, studies show that we live longer, are healthier and happier when we are with those that we love and share our lives with. Effective communication is the start to building those solid positive relationships. This module focuses of effective communication by learning motivational interviewing skills.
• MINDFULNESS — Values and beliefs about ourselves & the world around us and honoring the role of purpose and meaning in our health can be achieved with a mindfulness practice. Learning mindful behaviours will set you free from the negative thoughts that tend to hold you back from being your true self. As we address our stress, have fun, practice relaxation, and use healthy coping skills, we build our resilience to future stress and avoid the harm stress can incur. You will learn about the three P’s. Purge, protect, and prevent are the three categories to this learning module.
  
  We first learn to purge some of those negative thoughts out of our head. Followed by some protection mechanisms that keep any negative thought from affecting our health and wellbeing. Then the prevention comes in to play, where we practice ways to prevent those “gremlins” from coming into our thoughts in the first place.
• NUTRITION — Eating whole unprocessed nutritious foods is key to avoiding toxic build up in our systems which can lend themselves to disease processes. Evidence shows that cultures around the world that consume whole, unprocessed, unadulterated food are healthier. This module is information about the toxic affects of food and what to look for in providing good nutrition to your mind and body. Being able to identify what good choices look like compared to the not so good choices. Learning what to look for in label reading is helpful along with how to prepare food to obtain the most nutrients will also be covered in this module.
• ENVIRONMENT — Managing our physical surroundings can keep us from feeling so locked in and cluttered and can give us a sense of great solitude and peace. Our environment we choose to live in can impact other aspects of our health. “If our internal or external environment is out of balance, we are out of balance.” What does your environment look like now and how can you improve on it to better satisfy your inner peace? Do you go home after work and find it to be a relaxing place to hang your hat? If you said no then this learning module can assist you in figuring out how to make that home your sanctuary.
• SLEEP — Consistently getting adequate restful sleep is a major contributor to health. Poor sleep habits cause increased risk for infection, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and depression. Our mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual wellbeing depends on getting adequate amounts of restful sleep.

All of these core areas interplay with each other so only focusing on one of these areas may be beneficial but may not complete the path to wellness. Some of these modules may seem challenging but when put into action, great insight and profound transformation will happen.