What is a Health and Wellness Coach?
When we identify a problem in our lives, our first instinct is to seek help from a specialist, someone who can help us solve that particular problem. When we are sick, we see a doctor. When we are feeling depressed or stressed, we see a therapist. When we are feeling unhealthy, we see a fitness coach or a nutritionist.
This approach—while often effective at certain times—fails to take into account the fact that we—as human beings—are not composed of distinct, separable bits that can be treated in isolation from each other. Instead, we are a complex, interconnected system. A problem in one part of that system will, inevitably, impact the whole system.
A health and wellness coach approaches health and lifestyle problems from a comprehensive, holistic perspective. By helping you understand the root causes undermining your overall health and well-being, a health and wellbeing coach can then help you create sustainable strategies to take charge of your health and develop healthy lifestyle habits.
Working with a health and lifestyle coach should be collaborative, motivating, and empowering.
- Collaborative: Because your wellness is totally unique to you, your health and wellness coach should spend a lot of time asking questions and listening to your responses. They should work closely with you to identify your unique concerns and help you develop a customized, actionable plan to improve your health and lifestyle habits.
- Motivating: Big, dramatic change—while sometimes necessary to improve your health and wellness—can feel overwhelming and unachievable. A health and wellness coach can help you stay motivated to make the necessary changes by breaking longer-term goals down into small, achievable steps.
- Empowering: You have the power to advocate for yourself and take the steps you need to bring your mind, body, and spirit back into balance and harmony. A health and wellness coach should facilitate and promote your ability to spark change, while helping you identify self-limiting behaviors that may have been undermining your health in the past.
What Kinds of Services Does a Health and Wellness Coach Offer?
A health and wellness coach seeks to offer guidance across the fields of traditional healthcare, behavioral psychology, and lifestyle management. While a health and wellness coach cannot diagnose or treat a specific physical or mental health disorder, he or she can help empower you to create a healthy, balanced lifestyle by affecting change in areas such as:
- Prioritizing self-care techniques
- Nutrition and weight loss
- Fitness and exercise
- General health
- Interpersonal relationships
- Maintaining a positive work/life balance
- Managing and coping with stress
- Setting and achieving short- and long-term goals
- Practicing positive thinking and mindfulness
Do I Need a Health and Wellness Coach?
If you are concerned about your health, wellness, or overall well-being but find yourself “stuck in a rut” and unable to effect lasting change, a health and wellness coach may be able to help.
A health and wellness coach may be able to help if you:
- Have been diagnosed with an acute or chronic medical condition that requires long-term lifestyle changes;
- Want to make a major lifestyle change to improve your long-term health and happiness, such as quitting smoking/vaping or losing weight; or,
- Find yourself overwhelmed by stress and anxiety but aren’t sure how to create a healthy lifestyle balance in response.
These are just a few of the most common reasons why many people have sought help from a health and wellness coach. The underlying reason, of course, is change. If you feel that you need to make a change in your life—whether to solve a problem or simply to improve your overall health and well-being, a health and wellness coach can help.
Contact Urban Acupuncture Center in Columbus, OH For More Information
For more information about how acupuncture, massage therapy and other alternative healing treatments can help you, please contact the Urban Acupuncture Center Board Certified Licensed Acupuncturist’s team at Indianola Ave, Clintonville (614) 725-2488 | Main St, Westerville (614) 426-4406 or click here. Taking new patients in and around greater Columbus, Ohio.