Employee Wellness

1. Employee Wellness Whole Health for You and Me

3. Objectives • Consider what health is and how health is created • Reflect on your mission, aspiration and purpose (MAP) • Understand how your MAP relates to your personal health and well-being • Strengthen skills for supporting the creation of health and well-being for both you and those around you • Learn about Employee Whole Health in VHA Your turn: What are your objectives? What do you want out of today’s session? What will make our time together meaningful?

4. Community Agreements • Be Present • Be Curious • Be Silent (sometimes) • Be respectful • Vegas Rules • Be Healthy • Be Honest • Culture • Others?

5. Ways to Participate As a Sophisticate As a Vacationer As a Prisoner As an Explorer

6. Whole Health Bingo

7. Introductions • Your Name • Your Role in VA • What brings you joy?

8. The Vision Why are we here?

9. “When health is absent, wisdom cannot reveal itself, art cannot manifest, strength cannot fight, wealth becomes useless, and intelligence cannot be applied.” ― Herophilus

10. The Economics and the Outcomes UC Project for Global Inequality

11. Whole Health: Investing in Your Future How you live here determines how you live here

12. The Root Cause of U.S. Healthcare’s Failure The root cause of the crisis is that we have put the disease at the center, not the person.

13. Whole Health: A Partnership Whole Health is an approach to health care that empowers and equips people to take charge of their health and well-being, and live their life to the fullest.

14. What matters to you? What’s the matter with you?

15. Why Whole Health for Employees in VHA? How many of us have made a choice in the past 24 hours that was inconsistent with our own personal health values? This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

16. Why Whole Health for Employees in VHA? Because we all face challenges in living our best lives Health care workers have high rates of unhealthy behaviors and chronic health conditions

17. Growing Chronic Disease Burden as we Age Employee Age and Chronic DiseaseCompared to the U.S. health care workforce as a whole, VHA employees are older with a mean age of 48 years; the burden of chronic disease is significant with increasing age of our workforce.

18. Our Health Impacts our Work: Impact on Absenteeism Mean Days Away from Work by Number of Poor Health Behaviors Mean Days Away from Work by Number of Chronic Conditions

19. Our Health Impacts our Work: Impact on Burnout Mean Burnout Score by Number of Poor Health Behaviors Mean Burnout Score by Number of Chronic Conditions

20. “We’re here to serve the Vets but I think the employees have to feel like they’re supported and heard and you know, they have to feel well enough to wait on patients. You have to feel good yourself to help somebody else feel well. To improve their health... It’s like the airplane, you put the oxygen on yourself before you attend to your children with oxygen, you know, you’ve gotta take care of yourself so you can help others.”[supervisor] “My practicing self-care is helping me teach my clients how to practice self-care so by me getting supported in it, I’m role modeling for them. I’m teaching them and I see the positive impact it makes. When we’re healthy, our clients do better.” [front-line employee] “…now we are educating our veterans on the Whole Health approach being more invested in all the things that contribute to their health; whether it’s the exercise, the diet, stress reduction, sleep; all the different self-care behaviors, and I think if employees can’t model those things and haven’t already begun to incorporate those things into their own life, it’s very hard to teach those things to patients. [leadership]

21. Put on Your Own Mask First

22. The Path Forward

23. Circle of Health Components of Proactive Health and Well-being

24. An Invitation

25. Dream Rangers

26. Reflection: Living Life to the Fullest • Share with a partner • What is something you would do if you had more time for yourself? • What really matters to you in your life? • Complete the first part of your PHI • What do you live for? What matters to you? Why do you want to be healthy? (brief) • What really matters to you in your life? What brings you a sense of joy and happiness? (full) • On a scale of 1-5, rate your • physical well-being • mental/emotional well-being • how it is to live your day-to-day life

27. Mindful Awareness

29. Mindful Awareness A way of being… in the present moment…. on purpose…. nonjudgmentally

30. When are you most… • Aware • Present • Centered • Focused • Calm

31. Mindful Awareness and Meditation Formal and informal practices • Breath Awareness • Seated Meditation • Moving and Walking Meditation • Mindful Eating • Compassion Practice • Contemplative Prayer • Mantra Repetition

32. Mindfulness Everywhere Fortney L, Luchterhand C, Zakletskaia L, Zgierska A, Rakel D. Abbreviated Mindfulness Intervention for Job Satisfaction, Quality of Life, and Compassion in Primary Care Clinicians: A Pilot Study. Ann Fam Med. 11(5); 412-420. 2013

33. Mindful Awareness Benefits Benefits – Mind less emotional distress, anxiety, depression, anger, worry, and rumination Benefits – Body ease chronic pain, decrease hypertension, stress hormones and inflammatory molecules, increase immune function Benefits - Behavior increase non-reactivity, smoking cessation, decrease binge eating, reduce illicit substance use, decrease sleep disturbance,

35. Suggestions for practicing • Mindfulness Videos: Downloadable video products • VA CALM Intro to Mindfulness Video Toolkit:A toolkit on how to develop Mindfulness Program • Mindfulness Audio Podcasts: Audio files which can be used to plug and play mindfulness sessions. • Listen with your whole body • Deep breath before each interaction • Threshold exercise • Centering • The moment you sit in your chair… • Supportive group • Daily practice • Others? http://www.virtualtoolbox.ca/

36. Walking the Circle of Health

37. Circle of Health Components of Proactive Health and Well-being

38. Walking the Circle • Look around the room at the different areas on the wall signs • Move to an area you feel is a strength for you.

39. Noticing What was the hardest part of making this a strength? What enabled you to become successful in this area?

40. Walking the Circle • Look around the room at the different areas on the wall signs • Move to an area for growth that you would like to learn more about or set a goal around.

41. Noticing What makes this area a challenge? How important is it for you to make a change in this area?

42. ReflectionYour Own Health and Well-Being • Spend a few minutes rating “Where I am Now” and “Where I Want to Be” on a scale of 1-5 for the eight areas of Whole Health Employee Wellness

43. BREAK “Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes… …including you” -Anne Lamott

44. Exploring the Circle of Health A Brief Look at a Few Components

45. Working Your Body “Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

46. Daily Activity

47. Reflection • At your table consider: • If I wanted to make a change in the area of Working the Body, what would I like to do? • What would be the first step in making this change?

48. Recharge Sleep is the only medicine that gives ease. -Sophocles

49. The Importance of Sleep

50. Recharge: Rest and Refresh For those with <5 hours versus >7 hours of sleep: • 42% greater chance of obesity • 69% more hypertension • 40% more diabetes • 36% increase in elevated lipids • 62% greater risk of stroke • 152% increase in MI’s Altman NG, et al. Sleep 2011;34(abstract suppl):A57. Nationalgeographic.com