Total Wellbeing: January 2020

Plan for the Perfect Year

“The New Year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, ready to be written.”

– Melody Beattie

Hello!

Welcome to the January 2020 edition of TotalWellbeing, your guide to the 8 dimensions of wellbeing. This month we are looking to help you get 2020 started on the right foot. We know, New Year’s resolutions can be a little cliché, and are often forgotten about as the year goes on, but this isn’t just about the New Year, it’s about a new you and learning how to build great new habits while breaking bad old habits. Wellbeing shouldn’t be something that you only think about once a year, it’s a lifelong drive to be well and happy. To get you started, or to help you keep going strong, use the resources like these helpful articles or this free webinar, to start 2020 with a bang!

Remember you can always catch past issues of TotalWellbeing on our newsletters page. This newsletter is aimed at providing helpful information about various aspects of your wellbeing and then connecting it all back to important and relevant parts of everyday life. If you have any thoughts, questions, or content you would like to see covered here please get in contact with us. You can email us directly by clicking here.

To your total wellbeing,

The MINES Team

Happiness as a Choice

Are you a person who can act on tough questions? Questions like: What am I grateful for? What choices do I have? What actions can I take to improve my life? What are my primary strengths? How can I live a more balanced life?

People who can act on these questions likely also describe themselves as happy. “Happiness is neither a mood nor an emotion. Mood is a biochemical condition, and emotions are transitory feelings,” says Dan Baker, Ph.D., director of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, Ariz., and author of What Happy People Know. “Happiness is a way of life, an overriding outlook composed of qualities like love, optimism, courage, and a sense of freedom. It’s not something that changes every time your situation changes.”

Check out this article for a complete look at skills to master your own happiness including: appreciation, choice, personal power, leading with your strengths, and more.

Remember that if you or a household member are looking to set goals and enhance your wellbeing and happiness, we can help. Your EAP comes with 4 free telephonic wellness coaching sessions per year to help you achieve your goals. Please call us at 1-800-873-7138 to get connected right away. Also, PersonalAdvantage has a ton of great resources and FREE webinars this month to help you focus on your wellbeing while also being productive at work and home.

Seven Ways to Beat the Burnout Blues

You may be experiencing burnout if you feel bored, fatigued, apathetic, impatient, and constantly irritated with your co-workers. Don’t panic, there’s hope. Some of the secrets to long-term job happiness are revealed in the 7 tips below:

1. Change positions within your company — See how your skills can be applied in new ways within your company and seek out new opportunities to contribute.
2. Find like-minded people — Finding people with a similar sense of humor, interests, and experience as you can help you see things in new ways and find fresh ideas that work with your lifestyle.
3. Seek out short-term projects — Short-term projects can be a great way to explore new things and work with new people. Kind of like a test-drive for new hobbies you may like to take a deeper dive into.
4. Get more education — Nothing like fresh skills and new knowledge to open new doors.
5. Keep on learning — Stop. Learning. The more you learn, the more exposure you have to opportunities in the world you may have never even knew existed.
6. Have pride in your job — Doing your job the best you can and having pride in your contribution can help you enjoy your job, endure rough patches, and beat burnout even in the worst of times.
7. Don’t wait — If you start to experience burnout, don’t wait until it affects your work and you start looking for a new job. Instead, try making positive changes in your present job. Talk to your supervisor and discuss changes that could reenergize you!

Check out this article for a full breakdown of these 7 tips.

Remember that if you or a household member are experiencing burnout and want to talk to someone about it, we are here to listen. Please call us at 1-800-873-7138 to get connected right away. Also, PersonalAdvantage has a ton of great resources and FREE webinars this month to help you focus on your wellbeing while also being productive at work and home.

Question of the Month

Did you set any goals last year for 2019? If so, how did you do? What went right and what didn’t go so well and why? What can you do this year to make 2020 a successful year for yourself?

Supporting Your Intellectual Wellbeing

Resolutions aside, the New Year is a very convenient time to start something new. What not make it something that is going to strengthen your mind, let you learn new things, and bolster your overall intellectual wellbeing? While there are tons of stuff you could do that would fit this mold, here are a couple suggestions to get you started thinking about what fits your interests, goals, and lifestyle.

• Brain games – Challenge yourself. Memory, puzzle, and brain teaser games can help you learn to look at problems from a different angle and improve your logical thinking patterns.
• Dancing or martial arts – Complex movement patterns. Anything that requires complex movements and pattern memorization can help create new pathways in your brain and help both hand-eye coordination and memory.
• Study a new language – The cognitive processes involved in learning a new language, as well as the act of translating one language into another, requires your brain to create new ways of communication across hemispheres. This not only helps cognition but can help prevent or slow the onset of dementia related symptoms and diseases.
• Brain support – Sleep, eat well, lay off the substances. What ever you decide to do to stimulate and develop your intellectual wellbeing, it’s critical to give your brain what it needs to thrive. Good sleep, and plenty of brain supporting nutrients like vitamin K, omega-3 fatty acids, protein, and beta carotene to name a few, are a great way to support your cognitive functions. It’s also important to not fill your brain with the bad stuff too. So make sure to avoid overloading yourself with sugar and highly processed foods, and limit or avoid alcohol and certain drugs as well.

For more resources on supporting your intellectual wellbeing, log in to PersonalAdvantage today.

This Month’s Focus

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Mindful Meal Planning

MINESblog:

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Workplace Goals for the New Year

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