Health and Wellness

Abstract

A health and wellness program is a great way to promote the importance of maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle and your employees and company will benefit greatly in more ways than one. It is important to reduce stress for everyone and having the right tools and education explaining about what options are out there besides traditional medicine will help empower that person to make improvements in their lives through a wellness program. The more aware people are of the different types of care that is available to them will help reduce the company’s overall dollar amount that is spent in health insurance benefits cost and claims.

Health and Wellness

Introduction:

Health and wellness is an important part of everyone’s life and an unhealthy lifestyle can lead to costs to both the person and the company they work for and which can be greatly reduced by starting a health and wellness program at this company. What I propose to do is introduce to this company information through workshops, handouts and using the practitioner’s websites to the wonderful world of non-traditional holistic healing and health awareness.

Body:

Through research it has been found that employee health related costs can be greatly reduced for the company and that employee can learn about how to maintain all aspects of their lives through good health, fitness, by reducing stress, and all of these factors will help the employee feel a sense of balance. Through informational workshops with these practitioners each person can decide for themselves what level of interest that they have for participating in this type of health and wellness program. The tools will be presented to each employee and that will empower those who want to get involved in changing their lifestyles and there will be significant changes that will directly improve their productivity at work.

Supporting Evidence:

“From a macro perspective, the business case for wellness stems from two main variables: employee health and well-being, and organizational culture. These two spheres of influence are highly integrated, mutually dependent and significantly impact the success of an organization from both an employee and fiscal standpoint. A wellness strategy that acts to prevent future employee illness and is linked to the business objectives of an organization can unequivocally result in health benefits cost containment, a more productive workforce and ultimately competitive advantage (Abdelnour, 2010).”

Explanation:

Health and wellness directly effects productivity, absence rate and costs spent in medical claims for the company. Due to a sedentary lifestyle many people become very overweight and have developed unhealthy eating patterns due to less time spent preparing a healthy meal and some eat fast or prepared foods that are very unhealthy.

Diabetes and Tobacco are very deadly and costly to the employee and the employer.

        * $1000-$15,000 in care for each diabetic individual

        * $3,396 is the estimated annual cost of employee that smokes

        * $9,920 is the average per employee cost of depression to the workplac

        * $3 billion = the estimated cost of absenteeism due to work overload (Abdelnour, 2010)

All of these facts can make most employers want to step back and take a look at the hidden costs of having employees who have serious health concerns or unhealthy lifestyles. One cannot walk up to someone at work and say, “You are very unhealthy, and we must start you on a program right away,” because that would be very hurtful to that person and they would feel like they are being singled out of the crowd.

Supporting Evidence:

 Using alternative medicine is very different from mainstream traditional medicine, many people assume that the only way to solve a health issue is to go to a doctor and that they will be able to take away their pain and in reality that cannot happen. That doctor will listen to the patient for about 15 minutes and take a pad of prescription paper and write something down that will treat the symptom.

 People need to learn and be able to have the tools to protect themselves from terrible health conditions that can be curtailed with the help of health practitioners in a variety of fields. People need to be educated on what is available such as acupuncture, health and fitness consultation, and energy work can return someone’s energy back to a balanced state instead of in the mode of just surviving.

 Acupuncture:

What is community acupuncture? People who decide to choose acupuncture in a group setting can have many treatments a week because the cost is as low as $15 per visit. Because more than one person is getting treated at one time it means two things, first it lowers the cost of the treatment for all because some individual sessions can run $65- $100 or maybe more in a private setting. Second, with energy work people can have the experience of “feeling the room” because not only are they having their own session and the energies from other people in the room help strengthen the experience.

“Acupuncture helps the mind and body achieve and maintain balance through a mechanism we call "Qi," or our body's natural energy. Acupuncture not only treats the symptoms that arise, but the root of the problem as well. Each person is treated specifically and individually based on what they are experiencing (Pendergast, 2010).”

Health and Fitness:

Going to a personal trainer will help people learn how to eat, exercise and maintain a balanced diet, and according to Tami Provost, “It means we teach you how to take top-notch care of your body, and you, in turn, take what you have learned and pass it on to others. We want to empower generations of people to start the journey of a lifetime – a lifetime of being fit, happy, and soulful (Provost, 2010).”

Tami teaches people how to take care of themselves and she uses her own personal weight loss history to help people learn that they can overcome anything, and that includes an unhealthy eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle. Having a personal trainer means people help themselves to learn, grow, become fit and realize that they have the potential to set weight and exercise goals and achieve them.

Energy Work:

Some people have heard or read about people who have had powerful transformation in their lives because they have visited a Shaman or someone who is an energetic healer, but because it seems almost unattainable or unreal that person decides that it must have been a onetime deal. When information and testimonials are heard then the situation becomes more believable, but people are unsure of where they can seek this type of healing in their area, with Joy’s work she can do everything over the phone so there is no reason to travel.

“Chakras are energy centers within the body which extend into the aura (the energy field of the body). These centers are responsible for the person’s physical, mental, and spiritual well being. When one or more of the chakras is blocked, not fully developed, or wide open, it will result in an imbalance that is manifested in all areas of life, including disease of the physical body (Costanza, 2010).”

Network Chiropractic Care:

Network Spinal Analysis was developed by Donald Epstein and many traditional chiropractors have found this to be the best and most transforming type of care that anyone can receive because it is not your normal snap, crackle and pop technique because gateways are developed and healing is done through energy work. Three things that can be learned by visiting the website http://wellspringdover.com are:

“Greater self-awareness, greater expression of the human spirit, and conscious awakening of the relationships between body, mind, and emotion are realized through this unique healing work (Ayer, 2010).”

“A University of California Irvine study of 2,818 people receiving Network Care worldwide, demonstrates Network Care is associated with profound improvements in health and wellness (Ayer, 2010).”

“Network Care is the combined practice of Network Spinal Analysis (NSA) and Somato Respiratory Integration (SRI).  Through NSA, people develop two healing waves associated with profound improvements in health and wellness (Ayer, 2010).” 

How Can This Benefit the Employee?

With the combination of these types of health and wellness practitioners a person can feel a new sense of self, be able to come up with new strategies for life’s unexpected occurrences, the person who receives any of the types of care listed in this report will be a more productive worker and will be a role model for others around them. Healing can take place on a natural level and this would reduce costs greatly for the company, because they are treating the person as a whole, using energy work or health and fitness suggestions rather than having an invasive surgery or taking medicines that have strange side effects. These practitioners are experts in their fields and will help a person heal and grow with love, support, and acceptance not with ridicule or condemnation. These practitioners do not place labels on people that will make them feel less than whole, because that is what some medical doctors have done in the past for no good reason expect that is what they know and taught.

Conclusion:

Using alternative medicine and promoting a health and wellness program at this company will help change the lives of everyone who works here. People will feel a positive energy around them and that will entice them to become healthier and aware of what they can do to overcome an unhealthy lifestyle. With the research that I have conducted I feel that this company will benefit with an introduction to health and wellness and given the different types of healing people will have their choice of practitioner that they would like to see. Sometimes people are unaware of the variety and types of healing that can occur for something that they would typically see a medical doctor for or even consider surgery as their only option. When people have a resource to go to when they become sick or stressed out that is the first step in realizing that they can change what is going on an in a non-invasive way. This company will see a change in attendance which will drop, see more productive employees, will see and feel that their employees are happy and balanced, and finally the company will also see a huge drop in the costs that they have to spend on medical claims for people who lead an unhealthy lifestyle. It is a win-win situation for everyone and what a great role model that would allow this company to be for others in our industry.

References

Abdelnour, S. (2010, Novemeber 8). Worksite health promotion and organization culture: investing in success. Retrieved from http://www.buffettandcompany.com/news/supporting_the_business_case_may09.html

Ayer, D. (2010, Novemeber 8). Nsa + sri = network care. Retrieved from http://wellspringdover.com/network-care/network-care

Costanza, J. (2010, Novemeber 8). Chakra balancing and healing. Retrieved from http://joycostanza.com/services/healing-work/chakra-balancing-and-healing/

Pendergast, E. (2010, Novemeber 8). Frequently asked questions. Retrieved from http://www.portsmouthacupuncture.org/faqs.html

Provost, T. (2010, Novemeber 8). Fit on the fly. Retrieved from http://www.fitonthefly.net/aboutus.html