Five Popular Wellness Ideas for the Workplace
Smoking – 8 Tips
Weight Control
Nasal Allergies
Migraine
Depression Treatment
Modern society, with its emphasis of looking well, eating well and being well, is all too aware of the connection between illness and disease and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It’s fairly well understood there is a connection between smoking and cancer; obesity and diabetes; eating the wrong foods and cardiac disease, high blood pressure and lack of exercise. Most people make the connection between maintaining a healthy lifestyle and a healthy immune system. Worker-related injuries and illnesses heal faster the healthier the worker is overall.
In like manner, workplace injuries can be aggravated and recovery from them delayed by poor lifestyle habits. Much in the same way a pre-existing condition such as spinal stenosis can delay and aggravate a back injury.
Employers constantly search for ways to reduce workers’ compensation costs. Instituting wellness programs in the workplace benefits both the employer and employees. So, let’s begin with one of the most popular topic people are concerned about.
Remember, before starting a stop smoking program see your primary care giver to be sure you have no health restrictions not allowing you to follow a program including medication.
Smoking
Everyone knows for most people quitting smoking is very difficult. “Cold turkey” works for very few people. Having a formal quit smoking program in the workplace can provide the help and support smokers need to kick the habit. Let’s look at some suggestions that may make smoking more aggravating than the pleasure derived from the nicotine.
First establish a smoking/non-smoking policy. Most workplaces ban smoking in the building and provide an outdoor smoking area.
Second, set specific times and length of smoking breaks. Nothing causes more workplace uproar than smokers freely running in and out on smoke breaks (workersxzcompxzkit) while non-smokers are limited to one or two coffer breaks.
Third establish a program aimed at helping smokers to quit, medically supervised and include self-help meetings to measure progress. Participants should have medical permission from their primary care physician before beginning a quit smoking program.
Some discussion points
1. For most smokers, only five or six cigarettes are fully smoked. The rest of the time, they light up and take a few puffs out of habit. Cutting back to the few cigarettes actually smoked at a time most enjoyed is a good starting point.
2. Keep cigarettes in an inconvenient place; one the smoker can get to, but forces the question: “Do I relly want/need this cigarette? Can I wait an hour? At home, keep them in the freezer and go outside to smoke. In the car, keep them in the back seat. “Can you picture yourself pulling over, stopping, getting out of the car to get a cigarette?” (Anyway, smoking while driving is dangerous.)
3. Temporarily consider switching to a pipe or cigars because the smoker does not have to inhale. However, switch back to cigarettes if inhaling starts. A pipe, in particular, gives smokers something to do with their hands — light it, take a few puffs, tamp the tobacco, relight it, clean the bowl. Caution: if you smoke while watching TV, you can wind up chain-smoking.
4. Try this: Light up, take three puffs, put it out. Relight the same cigarette the next time there is an urge to smoke. (Is it possible the same cigarette could last all day?)
5. Once smoking is reduced as far as a person can go, encourage them to pick a date to quit and go for it. It is easier to quit if everyone quits at the same time. However, each smoker picks the date to quit when ready.
6. Using nicotine gum or patches can help. Consult with a physician for the latest in medications to assist in quitting smoking.
7. Keep a Sense of Humor!
Next: Weight Control
Do not use this information without independent verification. All state laws are different so do not implement any cost containment procedures until you have discussed them with your corporate counsel. Your individual doctor must treat medical issues. We are not giving medical advice; this is an overview of wellness topics, not medical advice.
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