Holiday Health Tips

We are now beginning holiday celebrations that will continue through the New Year. Holiday dinners and parties often feature foods and beverages high in fat, cholesterol, and calories. But enjoying the season doesn’t have to mean a break from healthy habits. This year, start the holidays with a promise to yourself to enjoy a healthy and wise holiday season.

Consider the main course of traditional dinners—turkey. There are only 163 calories in a three ounce serving of white meat without the skin, and the turkey is low in saturated fats. Don’t spoil this holiday entrée with too many fixings. Approach the dressing with discretion, and enjoy plenty of salad and vegetables. If you are baking a pumpkin pie, substitute skim milk for the regular evaporated milk and use three egg whites instead of two whole eggs.

Parties can be downfalls to weight control programs during the holidays. Whether it’s an office get-together, a neighborhood open house, or a family reunion, the refreshments tend to consist of high calorie snacks and alcoholic beverages.

As for the alcoholic beverages, don’t use the holiday season as an excuse to overdo. Not only is alcohol high in calories, it can present an even more serious and immediate risk when you mix your drinking with your driving. Limit the amount of alcohol you drink and don’t drive if you have been drinking.

Don’t let the holidays become an excuse to let your exercise program fall by the wayside. Include exercise with your socializing. Schedule a date with friends for a walk or run. Go ice skating with the family. Enjoy sledding or skiing.

Get your regular amount of sleep, and don’t try to rely on sleeping pills. They can diminish the quality of your sleep, leaving you feeling tired in the morning. A better idea is to have a glass of warm milk which contains the sleep-inducer tryptophan, right before bed.

If you develop a new health problem, don’t put off seeing a doctor until after the New Year. At the least, you’ll almost certainly worry about what’s wrong, and anxiety is a bit of a drain on energy. Depending on what the cause is, you could also be taking a significant health risk.

Your friends at LifePlan wish you and your family a safe and happy holiday season. The EAP staff at LifePlan is available throughout the holidays for confidential, professional help. Just call your employee assistance consultant at LifePlan – (260) 432-3327 or 1-800-677-4477.

LifePlan Brochure Online

The LifePlan brochure can be found at this link in pdf format.

Exciting New Changes for LifePlan

LifePlan EAP is pleased to announce that we are undergoing changes that will enhance our provision of services and allow us to pass our cost benefit savings to our contracted organizations. LifePlan EAP, a division of the Park Center system, is becoming an independent provider of EAP services. Our staff, our traditional contracted services, and our EAP coverage will remain the same as we transition into this new business structure. In the new structure, LifePlan will be aligned with Community Counseling Center to continue to provide high quality EAP services to Northeast Indiana and beyond. Our new telephone number is 1-260-432-3327.

We envision that these changes will provide a number of new benefits including:

* Increase in professional counseling staff
* Increase in specialized mental health services
* 3 LifePlan Satellite offices
* Greater time flexibility for provision of onsite consultations
* Greater time flexibility for provision of client appointments
* Highly competitive cost structure with the ability to keep pricing low.

We would remind you that the LifePlan EAP benefit continues to offer short-term counseling, information and referral services, supervisory consultations, training opportunities, short-term legal services and other employee benefits. We look forward to a continuing partnership with our many contracted companies as we provide quality EAP services to employees and family members alike.

Diet Paired With Exercise--An Excellent Combination

Increase Your Happiness by Limiting Your Choices!

This headline certainly sounds paradoxical. However, it was not so long ago, that there was only one telephone company option, and the phone you rented from that company never broke.

All the choices available nowadays -- VoIP, cellular phones, cable phones and traditional land-line services -- offer more freedom than ever before, but may exact quite a cost on our collective psyches, says psychologist Barry Schwartz in the compelling video linked below.

Schwartz, the author of The Paradox of Choice, believes that the "freedom of choice" afforded to us by all these options escalates our expectations, and therefore introduces indecision and unhappiness into the equation.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/93

What Parents Should Know About Teen Alcohol Abuse

This is the season of graduations, proms, and parties. And with this season comes the added responsibility of parents to ensure that their children understand the risks of alcohol abuse. The following video discusses the risks of substance abuse and how to discover whether your teen has a drinking problem. To learn how to keep your child healthy, please view this informative video.

Do You Eat When Under Stress?

Did you ever have to attend a big meeting that you didn't want to go to, but you had to do it anyway? You may have had no choice but to attend the meeting, so you wanted to calm your nerves. Almost without thinking, you grabbed a piece of chocolate from your desk, popped it in your mouth and headed off to the meeting. Many people are in the same situation as you, using foods to lessen the feeling of stress felt every day.

Men, women and children alike are constantly eating as an unconscious method of relieving stress. If you are under a lot of pressure and you find that you are reaching for the goodies, the chips, or snack foods, you are almost certainly gaining weight. Unfortunately, that is when medical problems associated with weight-gain begin.

Who is at risk for overeating due to stress related incidents? Almost everybody. One type of industry that is prone to this type of stress reaction is truck driving. The truck driver is constantly on the go, on the road, fighting traffic and deadlines, among other things. The truck driver who is under stress will eat to stay awake and will eat to calm his or her nerves. Many truck drivers find they are quickly overweight and need to lessen the stress in their lives so they will eat less.

Depending on food for comfort is nothing new. New mothers, and those who care for children often times find themselves under a lot of stress. If you find you grab a piece of candy every time someone is fighting or when you know that your child is coming in to ask a question, you are not solving your stress problem. Your over-eating is a form of compensation and is covering up how you really feel about a situation.

Solve your problems and face your stress
Stress can be easier to overcome if you identify what is stressful in your life. Are you doing too much at your job? Are you finding it hard to find work? Do you want to get your house cleaned up but your children won’t help? The stress in your life can always be changed. The stress in your life doesn’t mean you are stuck in this rut. You can change your feelings of stress by leaving those problems behind and changing what you do and how you do it. Keep yourself busy, fight off those urges to help everyone do every thing, and lessen the stress in your life. Learn to streamline and set priorities. And if you need help in establishing a more peaceful routine to combat stress and the tendency to overeat, then seek out help from your employee assistance program today.

Dealing With Drugs and Alcohol in the Workplace

Substance abuse is a huge, worldwide problem. In the United States alone there are over 50 million binge drinkers, 17 million illegal drug users and almost 15 million people who abuse prescription medications. Most substance abusers have jobs. In fact, it is estimated that one out of every ten workers has a substance abuse problem. An employee with an alcohol or drug problem can decrease productivity, create a hostile work environment and damage a company's good name. Worst of all, the actions of a worker who is "under the influence" can completely undermine a company's efforts to keep people safe. To learn more about the ravages of substance abuse in the workplace, please watch this short video clip.

Contact LifePlan EAP to learn more about how employee assistance programs can contribute to maintaining a drug-free workplace.

Stress Management and Sleep

Sleep is critical for proper stress management. Watch this short clip by Diana Schwarzbein, M.D. to learn more about how to improve sleep

Domestic Violence in the Workplace

Q. I have an employee who periodically comes to work with bruises on her arms, and sometimes her neck. I suspect domestic abuse of some sort, but I don’t want to invade her privacy. How can I approach this situation, and better yet, convince her to go to the EAP?

A. Your observations about the condition of your employee are a key reason for the increased attention being given nationally to domestic abuse and its effect on workplace productivity. Employers are in a unique position to help, especially when an EAP is available. You can see the bruises so it is appropriate to let her know what you have observed. Saying that you “notice the bruises,” and “are concerned that someone may be hurting you”, is prudent and appropriate. Do not push her to disclose more personal information about the origin of the bruises, but realize that your statements may elicit such information. Encouraging her to use the EAP is the next step. If there are performance issues that result from the abuse, such as reduced productivity or excessive absences, focus on the performance problems in an empathetic and caring manner, and make a supervisor referral to the EAP.

For more supervisory helps and training handouts, please go to the Frontline Supervisor page at LifePlan EAP.

Are You Aware Of Your Stress?

Stress is a natural mental and emotional reaction to demands placed upon us. These demands may be challenges we have chosen ourselves, such as getting married or having a baby. They may also be challenges imposed upon us, such as changes in work schedules or duties, a baby sitter who gets sick and can’t watch your children, or a car breaking down. Whether we’ve chosen the changes or they’ve chosen us, a reaction is normal. How we react, however, has a major impact on our long-term health and happiness.

Stress can be positive, negative, or both. It can motivate us to excel on a project or cause us severe anxiety and medical problems. Identifying stressors, managing them effectively, and being proactive to change are the keys to balancing stress.

Here are some common symptoms of stress:

• headaches
• low energy
• insomnia,
• irritability
• memory loss
• frequent illness
• low productivity
• appetite change
• poor time management

Identifying your specific responses to stressful situations is the first step in becoming aware of your stress level. Does your heart pound when a stressful situation occurs? Do you eat more/less? At night, does your mind race with thoughts of the day and prevent you from sleeping? Once you’ve identified your symptoms, you can build a plan to combat your stress.

The ideal way to keep your stress in check is to ward off the symptoms on a daily basis. Some general “stress busters” to accomplish this are:

• eat balanced meals
• exercise
• drink plenty of water,
• play with children, relax
• avoid alcohol or drugs
• solve problems
• express feelings
• do something just for you.

As you become more skilled at identifying your specific reactions to stress, you can add stress buster activities to meet your needs. For example, let’s say one of your symptoms is insomnia at night because your thoughts are racing. You can combat this symptom by telling someone your thoughts or writing them down. By “dumping” your thoughts, you can clear your mind to go to sleep.

For more helpful stress management tips, check out our website page at the Counselor's Corner at LifePlan EAP.

Seven Ways to Increase Your Brain Power

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We will keep you informed of useful information for your mental and physical health and well being. For more information about LifePlan employee assistance services, go here.