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Wellness Newsletter
January 2024
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Achieve Your Well-being Goals in 2024
Individuals set new year’s resolutions with the best of intentions, so why don’t more people stick with them? Behavior change is more complicated than having the right intentions and knowledge. Many of the behaviors linked to resolutions involve habits that people have had for years. Just as it took time to solidify the habit in the first place, it will take time to adapt and make changes. Successful behavior change requires more than intention and willpower. It requires planning and action.
Research focused on health-related behavior change indicates that small changes can lead to enormous improvements. Instead of thinking big with your resolution this year, think small and attainable. Maybe your resolution can be taking one incremental and realistic step toward your larger goal. It is important to remember that change is a process and not a one-off event.
Consider these tips for success:
- Break up your resolution into smaller, detailed goals that are important to you
- Track your progress and celebrate your successes
- Find a community that supports you and holds you accountable
- Be prepared for obstacles and be compassionate with yourself
- Use positive framing: the reason for a behavior change should be for positive gain rather than the loss of a negative
We hope that you will engage with the Wellness Program this year and feel supported in reaching your health-related goals. We look forward to seeing you in the many series already planned for this year – read on to discover what's in store!
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Prioritize Your Health by Registering for Wellness Programs
All of the multi-week programs below can help those who are $25 Monthly Wellness Incentive recipients earn an additional $100-$200 in incentive dollars at the end of 2024 in the form of Wellness Program Incentives. Specific details for each series will be shared with registrants.
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Physical Activity Programs via Zoom | |
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Mindful Movement
Mindful movement is a gentle, accessible approach to yoga that encourages people to tune into what they are feeling as they move and make choices based on their present moment embodied experience. In this 8-week series, instructor Julie Schlemmer will present options, and there will be no priority placed on stretching more or holding positions for a longer period of time.
Mondays, Jan. 8 - March 4, from 12-1 pm via Zoom
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Core and More
This series combines core strengthening with whole body stretching. Other than a workout mat or large towel, no equipment is necessary to participate. Over 8 weeks, instructor Mary Ann Dobbins will lead you through core exercises that will become a bit more challenging each week. In addition, all participants will be given weekly stretching homework!
Thursdays, Jan. 11 - Feb. 29, 12-12:45 pm via Zoom
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Body Weight HIIT
Get the most from your workout with these fast, fun, 45-minute sessions led by Mary Ann Dobbins. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is an effective way to build strength and aerobic capacity, making it a popular and efficient workout. Over 8 weeks, participants will use their body weight and common items like a chair to work their whole body.
Fridays, Jan. 12 - March 1, 12:30-1:15 pm via Zoom
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In-Person Physical Activity Programs | |
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Vinyasa Flow Yoga
This yoga class will provide a wonderful opportunity for participants to build strength while achieving the calming and relaxing benefits associated with regular yoga practice. Join instructor Richard Oaxaca for this 8-week series, appropriate for those who already have some experience with yoga.
Wednesdays, Jan. 17 - March 6, 12-12:45 pm, in person at One to One Fitness
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Muscle Conditioning
Start the new year devoting time to building your physical fitness. Join One to One Fitness instructor Anya Marchenka for an
8-week Muscle Conditioning class at the Veale Recreation Center. One to One will provide equipment that may be used during the class in addition to body weight.
Tuesdays, Jan. 23 through March 12, from 5:30-6:15 pm at the Veale Rec. Center
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Sugar Fix
Join Lindsay Malone, MS, RDN, LD and CWRU faculty member for this 8-week program to get sugar out of your diet and take control of your overall health. The program will begin with participants watching the movie "Fed Up". In 2023, over 130 people participated and experienced great benefits associated with eliminating sugar intake.
Mondays, January 8 - March 4 (no session Jan. 15), from 12:30-1:30 pm via Zoom
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New Series! Attentional Fitness: Sneaking Mindful Habits into Real Life
Physical exercises strengthen the body. Mindfulness exercises strengthen attention. Learn how exercising your attention – with or without meditation – can develop attentional capacities for relating more effectively to the challenges of daily life. Join Daron Larson as he shares how to develop attentional skills without drawing attention to yourself. This new 8-week series will explore flexible ways to turn mindfulness practice into a secret mission.
Participants will:
- Learn about mindfulness as a practical, customizable, evidence-based way to develop empowering attention skills
- Discuss ways our default attention habits can undermine personal and professional satisfaction, increase internal friction, and escalate conflicts
- Discover how small attentional habits, explored discreetly lead to increased satisfaction, decreased internal friction, and empathy
Wednesdays, Jan. 17 - March 6, 12:30-1:30 pm via Zoom
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Chair Massages Available Jan. 23
A chair massage can help relax and loosen sore muscles, as well as reduce stress, tension, and anxiety. You can experience all these benefits and more by treating yourself to a chair massage this month! Appointments are available:
Tuesday, January 23, from 9 am - 12 pm
Thwing Center Meeting Room 224
The chair massages, provided courtesy of One to One Fitness, last for 13 minutes and cost $15. Registration and pre-payment is required. You can see available times, reserve your appointment, and pay via the link to the left. Enjoy!
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New Series! Building Inner Resilience: Navigating Modern-Day Stress
Worldwide, the experts agree: today’s stress is a growing "public health crisis" (WHO, CDC, NIH). Stressed-out – tired but wired – is our rampant norm, and it is wreaking havoc on all aspects of our well-being. No one is immune. That said, it needn't be this way; there is a better way! Come and find out about how to feel better and be better.
Join Heidi Weiker for an engaging, fun, and impactful series that is not just another canned ‘stress-management’ class telling you what you already know – this is real-world, hands-on, and real-time. It’s jam-packed with relevant science, contemporary theory, and quick, yet powerful and proven, practices. Together, we’ll dialogue, share, practice, and enjoy moving out of unrelenting distress; breathing into relaxed, calm, peaceful, and focused energy; building greater positivity; and attuning to and affirming our inner strengths.
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Wednesdays, Jan. 24 - March 13, 12-1 pm
via Zoom
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Email Elizabeth Click at erc10@case.edu to express interest in participating. Make sure to include in your email which day of the week you would like to participate. | |
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Reflection Point
Finding ways to connect with others at work can be difficult when you’re stuck in a cubicle or limited to small talk before a meeting or in the hallways at work. When faculty and staff of varied ranks, roles, and backgrounds meet regularly to discuss narrative literature – facilitated by college professors – they share life experiences, explore diverse perspectives, shed familiar paradigms, and develop authentic connections.
The Wellness Program offers faculty and staff a unique approach to wellness through Reflection Point, which consists of the sharing of ideas based on great literature. The Reflection Point program builds community and enhances emotional and intellectual fitness. Reading groups, made up of a diverse cross-section of professors, administrators, researchers, and other staff, meet weekly for 12 weeks to discuss three books carefully chosen due to themes that inspire robust discussions on values, issues, and beliefs. Faculty and staff are invited to join one of two Reflection Point groups:
Tuesdays, Jan. 23 - April 9, 12:30-1:30 pm via Zoom
or
Wednesdays, Jan. 24 - April 10, 12-1 pm via Zoom
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Financial Wellness
With rising interest rates and dramatic price increases for daily living expenses, it has never been more important to learn how to become more financially savvy.
Karen W. Braun, CPA, PhD, and former Professor of Accountancy at WSOM, is offering 13 sessions on Financial Wellness this spring with new and updated content.
Wednesdays, Jan. 24 - April 17, 12-1 pm via Zoom
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Professional Development Center Wellness Series: The Importance of Well-being as a Supervisor
The manager sets the tone for their work group. Focusing on your own well-being as a manager is a prerequisite for success. Adopting a self-care focus will expand your well-being as well as your ability to accomplish goals while also serving as a role model for your team.
Join the Wellness team for a webinar that is part of the Professional Development Center's Wellness Series. Strategies to thrive as a manager will be shared during this informative session.
Monday, January 22, from 10:30-11:30 am via Zoom
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This program consists of 4 rounds of 4-5 sessions, with each round focusing on a different season of the year. The first round offered will focus on Winter this January. | |
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Seasons of Self-Care 2024
This program offers an invitation to explore the year through a delightful set of seasonal signals focused on self-care. Engage in the most powerful antidote to burn-out, compassion fatigue, and mounting distress. Experience practices and methods that are timeless, yet contemporary. Be guided by your natural connection to the purpose, wisdom, and rhythms of nature, as you create your own set of seasonal reflections and practices.
Seasons of Self-Care: Winter
Engage in this season of reconnection and restoration with Heidi Weiker, our Seasons of Self-Care facilitator. Discover your body and brain's natural need to experience a stillness inside that builds deeper resilience. As we move inside during the cold, move inside of yourself by placing your attention onto your own 'winter' of well-being. Give yourself permission to align with the natural purpose of winter: rest, repair, and ready yourself for the spring of the year.
Tuesdays, Jan. 23 - Feb. 20, 12-1 pm via Zoom
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Diabetes Prevention Program: Prevent T2
For those trying to make healthy lifestyle changes to prevent type 2 diabetes, the CWRU Department of Nutrition offers the Prevent T2 lifestyle change program. With Prevent T2, a trained lifestyle coach and fellow participants will encourage enrollees to make healthy changes that will last a lifetime.
This program will help participants:
- Make healthier food choices without giving up the foods you love
- Add physical activity to your life, even with limited time
- Deal with stress
- Cope with challenges that can derail your hard work, like how to choose healthier options when eating out
- Get back on track, because everyone slips now and then!
A virtual information session will be held on Wednesday, January 10 from 12-1 pm. The program will begin on Wednesday, January 17 from 12-1 pm and will run throughout the year at that same time on Wednesdays. Register for the Information Session below.
With questions, please contact Helen Dumski, MA, RDN, LD, at hxd24@case.edu.
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Sleep Well
Practicing sound sleep habits is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to enhance mental and physical health. Learn more about the importance of quality sleep, as well as common sleep disorders and how they can affect our health and well-being, during this 8-week series. MetroHealth physicians and a dietitian/CWRU faculty member will share their expertise.
Thursdays, February 8 - March 28, from 12-1 pm via Zoom
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Save the Date for a NEW Challenge: Nourish
Nourish is an 8-week program that helps participants build and reinforce healthy eating, sleep, exercise, and mindfulness habits — leading to the healthiest you. Eating more nutrient-rich and less nutrient-deficient food increases energy, lifts mood, and sharpens focus while enhancing well-being and helping you thrive. Each healthy habit you record will contribute to growing a garden of virtual plants bearing vegetables, fruit, and grains.
Nourish will begin on Monday, February 19. Registration will open later this month and be communicated via The Daily and the February Wellness Newsletter. In the meantime, get excited by learning more about Nourish via this short video.
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Did You Know?
Recordings Are Available for Most Wellness Programs
We want to remind faculty and staff that we record the majority of our programs that are offered via Zoom and make the recordings available to everyone who is registered. So, even if you cannot attend the live sessions each week, you can still participate on your own time via the recordings and receive credit toward a Wellness Program Incentive.
We hope that this option increases the feasibility of participating in multi-week programs for university faculty and staff with busy schedules. Please feel free to reach out to us any time and ask if recordings will be available for a program in which you are interested.
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CWRU Wellness Team
Elizabeth Click, Medical Director - erc10@case.edu | 216-368-5790
Deanna Duffy, Wellness Manager - dxd516@case.edu | 216-368-5997
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