01
You have been to the doctor and you don't know where to start
We know that health recovery doesn’t happen in a doctor’s office: you discuss lab test and results, diagnoses, treatments, you learn what to do....but then what?
Where do you start on a protocol that could involve dietary, lifestyle and behavioral changes? You might not see your practitioner again for weeks, sometimes even months.
A health coach picks up where a practitioner has left off, helping you create and execute a plan that moves you further along on the path to better health. The first step is showing your willingness. You are the ‘'CEO'’ of your own health!!!!
Some examples of where we can start - Always with your agreement and Hygia’s support:
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We co-create your timeline: What is going on up to now
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We look at your lab results
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We discuss your priorities
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We dig into your motivations
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We discuss functional medicine tools in accordance with your priorities
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We identify goals/achievable steps
Some examples of subsequent sessions - Always with your agreement and Hygia’s support:
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We review your goals
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We look at what went well and what did not, as well as your confidence level
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We look at the challenges you face
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We look at/discuss tools and ideas that can help your self-efficacy/self-confidence
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We review your priorities and goals for success if needed
By helping you to figure out how to best apply what your doctor told you and/or what you want to do, bringing you empowerment, respecting your unique needs and priorities, and letting you pause and rest, health coaching can help you build on your healthy habits, gain self-management skills and develop the confidence needed to become an active participant in your own health and well-being.
Health coaching is a process that facilitates healthy and sustainable behaviour changes by challenging you to listen to your inner voice and helping you transform your goals into actions. It is a health-based partnership that operates within a process of reflection, self-reliance and self-awareness.
I encourage, support and celebrate your success, as well as examine what didn’t work, what went wrong and how can we look at events differently. Health coaching allows you to live more fully and establish deeper relationships within all aspects of your life.
Once you do change your lifestyle factors and with time, you will begin to experience what it is like to be vibrantly healthy.
Being the CEO of your own body and health makes you responsible for your whole system and all your decisions. In order to succeed, having a good partnership with your doctor and your health coach is essential in the following ways:
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A doctor that is trained in health and wellness will conduct the appropriate tests and treatments.
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Your FM Health Coach will be an ally while you set your priorities and will help you from where you start in your health journey.
In brief, they will help you along the path to better health.
02
You may have tried to get rid of your joint pain, diabetes or chronic disease on your own by looking up and studying the relevant research/blogs/articles and decided to go gluten-free or dairy-free for a while. You may have looked into a new diet, how to improve your sleep, at-home exercise ideas, etc. It may have worked well until you got off your path and experienced pain/problems again.
Now, you want to go back to your habits but need support. Simply put, a health coach facilitates change and bridges the gap between what you know you need to do to be healthy and the intrinsic motivation (the motivation from within) that you need to sustain those changes.
Before seeing a practitioner again, you want to establish a partnership with a health coach and work on your lifestyle factors because you already know what to pinpoint. And that’s perfectly alright.
In fact, some medical models recommend first working with a health coach before seeing a practitioner, especially if you understand your condition and know the habits you need to implement, but have veered off the path or want to evaluate the impact of your changes on your biomarker testing after doing the work you want to do.
Health coaching is a process that facilitates healthy and sustainable behaviour changes by challenging you to listen to your inner voice and helping you transform your goals into actions. It is a health-based partnership that operates within a process of reflection, self-reliance and self-awareness.
I encourage, support and celebrate your success, as well as examine what didn’t work, what went wrong and how can we look at events differently. Health coaching allows you to live more fully and establish deeper relationships within all aspects of your life.
03
You feel overwhelmed by everything
You may have decided to do some research, taken a decision and started on some steps like
the Recode protocol to avoid cognitive decline for example. Or you may have started looking at all the environmental triggers/toxins in your house, water, air and foods. You’re doing everything in your power whatever may be the trigger of your research or concern.
You want to do it all and end up stressed out and overwhelmed in your daily life, feeling your happiness decrease. You’re about to give up, or already have! You need support to help you figure out how you can reduce these stressors.
My role is to help you weigh your options, make choices, plan and identify challenges. It involves listening, understanding, facilitating, educating, applauding, supporting, motivating and providing you with feedback to you.
It’s what I love to do. You will reap only positive benefits.
04
You are a practitioner who wants to establish a partnership
Whether you're a practitioner that is curious about health coaching or a practitioner that is aware of the benefits of health coaching and would like to refer patients, working with a health coach can foster a close collaboration between that individual, the physician and the patient. It is a recipe for success.
Patients will benefit from more hands-on support from a warm professional trained in behavioural change, giving you more time to focus on the ‘detective work’.
Virtual coaching skills are a big plus if you treat patients with limited mobility or transportation challenges. It is a useful tool for professionals, travellers and parents that have to contend with a busy family-work schedule. Health coaching platforms can be used on smartphones, iPads, tablets and computers.
Here are some ideas to keep in mind:
Patient engagement and participation tends to be better when the coaching services are included as part of a package through the practice. Patient follow-through tends to increase when coaching is framed as a critical step in implementing a plan. What’s more, coaching sessions can be provided to two individuals in the same family.
All privacy concerns are respected by using a PIPEDA* and HIPAA** compliant platform and a G Workplace email (Google for Business) service, as well as protecting client data as per the GDPR European regulation ( General Data Protection Regulation)
*PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (Canadian))
**HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (USA) - restricts access to individuals' private medical information)
05
You are a company / organization
You work within a company/organization that would like to improve the health of its employees/community, because you believe in healthy productivity/better wellness.
The challenge you might have to deal with in the workplace rises annually: the cost of healthcare. You provide health insurance to your employees, but at the same time, there really isn’t a mandate that stipulates that they should live healthfully. This cost center is growing and is becoming a very big challenge.
The challenge within an organization is realizing the increase of diseases within your community. It affects the community itself by impacting not only individuals, but their families and friends as well.
Hygia examines the following:
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What are the problems?
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What are the places where you have the most expenditure in healthcare losses?
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What are the specific populations you're seeing these losses stem from most?
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Is there a pool of individuals that are really at risk, or is it, for example, just twenty people that have diabetic complications and that end up in the emergency room a couple of times a year that are taking your rates through the roof?
Hygia offers a program:
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That will work with a specific core group of people or even people with different diseases but the same root causes
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That we will track and trend what is happening with blood sugar numbers, heart rate and weight for example.
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That could include general presentations/explanations, follow-up, support, and one-on-one coaching sessions if needed for some individuals, etc.
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If you think this might help individuals within the company/organization as well as reduce your costs, it’s a win-win situation.
One example could be to reverse cognitive decline or increase the knowledge of your employees/community about detoxification or endocrine disruptors; the results could be an overall improvement on a larger scale. How about getting your people well?
By increasing their knowledge on what they can do to reduce and/or avoid the impact of diabetes, autoimmune diseases or chronic pain, and implementing stress management strategies, the company/organization and anyone who’s part of it will come out ahead.
All those involved will benefit from this knowledge and, with incentives – people love incentives –, you will reduce your problems and costs, and improve the wellness of the community.
Let's examine the numbers in aggregate form while maintaining privacy: either your HR department or insurance broker has them. What percentage of your losses are coming through these codes? I can set up an educational program and a meal-planning guide, provide a monthly talk on, as an example, how to manage blood sugar, think of incentives, etc. We will then track what is important and work together towards success.
It’s the same for organizations: let’s look at your group and see where you’re at and what you would like to improve within your community.