June Expert Article - Our Family Health Center

FIVE TIPS TO ENHANCE EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING

A person's well-being will impact their work performance and the company's performance. We've cared for people within the community for 16 years through our family medicine practice and, more recently, through our urgent care, wellness center, and bone health clinic. Conducting patient visits over the years has enabled us to see factors contributing to a person's well-being. We offer Chamber Members five resources to support your employees' well-being.

1. The Impact of Mental Health: There are multiple free resources within our local community that can provide employees with mental health support. We have focused on mental health in multiple episodes of our podcast, "Between Two White Coats." These episodes feature licensed mental health professionals offering guidance and support when navigating mental health conditions.

2. Movement Matters: Small changes add up and can make an impact. One strategy to move more is to encourage employees to take small incremental steps to be more active while doing activities that are part of their workday. Ideas include parking further away from the building at work and carving out 2-minute exercise "snacks" during the day to walk or do gentle stretching. This podcast episode can help people learn how to incorporate movement into their lives safely.

3. Support is Available to Stop Smoking: The American Lung Association has helped more than one million people quit smoking through its Freedom from Smoking Program. The program is low-cost and available online or in person. This page provides guidance on finding available programs.

4. Five Ingredients or Less: It can be hard to keep track of all the foods you should not consume, and a list sounds too much like restrictive diets that are hard to follow. What is easy to follow is a simple practice of eating food with only five ingredients. Shopping in the outer aisles of a grocery store is a good guidepost for eating foods with less than five ingredients. This podcast episode shares fundamental dietary principles.

5. Sleep – Avoid Caffeine 8-10 hours Before Bed: Consuming caffeine too late in the day can influence your ability to fall or stay asleep and impact the quality of your sleep. Depending upon individual factors, it can take between 2 and 12 hours for your body to process and eliminate half the dose of caffeine that you consumed. If you go to bed at 10 p.m., eliminating caffeine after noon may help reduce or eliminate sleep problems. This podcast episode provides additional information on why sleep is so important.

Please email wellness@ourfamilyhealthcenter.com if you have any questions about how to use these resources to support employee well-being.