Managing stress

"Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow." - Swedish Proverb

The ability to manage stress can make the difference between success or failure of your business. Stress has an impact on performance and interactions with others. The better you are at managing your own stress, the more you'll positively affect those around you and the less other people's stress will negatively affect you.

How do you know when stress is affecting you physically? Do you feel:
· Anxious, irritable, or depressed
· Uninterested in work
· Unable to get a good night sleep
· Unfocused and unable to concentrate
· Physically ill: tension headaches, stomach problems, high blood pressure, heart issues
· Withdrawn socially
· Loss of morale and drive
· Lack of control when drinking, eating or smoking

Some causes of stress:
· Fear of losing job or business
· Increased work demands due to downsizing
· Fear of not being able to perform at optimum levels at all times
· Guilt over having less time with family
· Lack of time for yourself

How to Reduce Stress:
· Begin a fitness program – walk, jog, bike, yoga – just make sure you make time to get in some cardiovascular activity to recharge your batteries and get the adrenaline flowing through your body
· Eat a balanced energizing diet, low in sugar and salt and high in dietary fiber and protein and low in saturated fats and trans fats
· Get enough sleep – eat a healthy night time snack with tryptophan and calcium
· Reduce alcohol consumption and nicotine
· Get organized – reduce bad habits and time wasters
· Get emotional, psychological, and/or physical help
· Take vacations and recharge

As a business owner, you can help reduce your employees' and your own stress by offering a support network, education, and reminders to keep stress at bay. Design a wellness program which provides stress management. Endorse and encourage physical fitness activities to help with stress. Talk to your employees and give them the ability to express their work-related issues so you can have a basis on which to make change occur. Putting programs in place can lead to reduced stress, improved productivity, and ultimately can help reduce your own stress about your business. When you are feeling good, you can be the leader your business needs you to be and you will be poised to win.

Are you ready to win?

Health and Fitness - The Business Connection

"The first wealth is health" Ralph Waldo Emerson

Busy entrepreneurs tend to be very focused on the vital signs of their businesses, often neglecting their own health and the connection between personal and professional fitness. Without a clean bill of health, many entrepreneurs cannot secure the necessary insurance to back their business. Further, if employees are unfit, it becomes more expensive to provide health care coverage. Productivity decreases and absenteeism increases. All this contributes negatively to the bottom line.

The nation's workforce is becoming increasingly unhealthy. Root causes range from influences at the workplace to the home: sedentary jobs, lack of activity, too much time driving and sitting, smoking, oversized food portions, increased computer, TV and electronic game time, just to name a few. These unhealthy lifestyles raise the risk for Type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol, stress, heart disease, and a myriad of other health problems.

If your employees engage in unhealthy behaviors, your costs of doing business will increase. Health care and worker's compensation premiums will increase as overall productivity declines. Other costs that employers often bear include prescription drugs, surgeries, therapies, and other medical treatments. Absenteeism adds to the hidden costs of unhealthy lifestyles. Employees take more and more time off to deal with these potentially debilitating illnesses leaving companies stretched to meet productivity targets.

How can a business owner make a difference? Lead by example. Begin by getting a full physical. Determine your current fitness level, and work with a primary care physician and fitness coach to help you develop a program to help you reach your goals. For your employees, use a health risk assessment (HRA), which is a systematic approach to collecting information from individuals that identifies risk factors. You can then provide individualized feedback and link the person with programs to help promote a healthier lifestyle to help prevent disease. Increase employees' awareness and take action. Provide educational programs, use your buying power to get discounted group memberships at a gym, or create team building opportunities with healthy group competitions for reaching certain fitness milestones per team.

For example, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) developed the Workforce Health Promotion (WHP) for its own employees, focused on these four pillars: physical activity, nutritious eating, preventive health, and making healthy choices. They’ve developed walking trails, discount fitness center membership programs for employees, and food policies which suggest healthier foods at company-sponsored meetings and events. The CDC even provides tips on program design, toolkits, policies and quick resources.

Your Consulting2Win coach can help you choose the right solution for you to be on your way to a more productive, fit workforce, improved productivity and reduced overall costs - moving your business toward physical, and fiscal, fitness.

Are you ready to win?

The Physical Fitness Plan

"You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there." -- Edwin Louis Cole

In addition to fiscal fitness, business owners have to be concerned with physical fitness as well. Their own as well as that of their workers. Healthy, fit individuals are more effective at work, have more energy, take fewer sick days and reduce health care costs. Many people have trouble managing personal stress and business stress. Soon they become intertwined and the business suffers.

Lead by example. Take care of your whole body, mind and spirit and it will take care of you. Essentials to fitness include:

Make your health and well-being the number one priority in your life. When you tend to your own body, mind and spirit, you are better able to care for your family, employees and your clients.

Set short- and long-term goals. If you have health problems, speak with your doctor about things you can do in the short term to prepare your body for exercise and other activities that will reduce your stress.

Incorporate activities in your every day life that get you closer to achieving your fitness goals. Make taking a walk, riding a bike, or going to the gym an every day routine, just as you do with brushing your teeth, etc.

Keep balance in your life. It’s not all or nothing; downtime is also part of fitness. Find time to be alone with your thoughts and keep a perspective and focus on all things important to you in your life.

Get plenty of sleep. For most days of the week try to get 8 hours of sleep a night to allow your body to renew itself so you can function more optimally the next day.

Commit to making permanent lifestyle changes that improve and elongate your life. Determine to stay on course so you can life to be 100….

You wouldn't run your business without a business plan. Why not have a plan for your physical fitness and well-being? If you want to win in business and life, you need to be healthy for the long haul.

Are you ready to win?