How do you deal with stress and conflict everyday? Do you have to deal with conflict at home or at work? Don’t fight fire with fire. Don’t get into a shouting match with your child, co-worker, wife or husband. Stress and conflict can affect your mindset, thoughts, anxiety patterns and health. If you doubt what I am saying, check your blood pressure when you are stressed out. When you cut down on conflicts and stress you you will enjoy better health.

One skill that you will need to become a better manager of conflicts is learning to decide when to engage and when to disengage. It is hard to have a conflict all by yourself. When someone starts arguing with you but you do not speak back or you simply agree with them, it is hard for the conflict to grow.  You must have the ability to listen to yourself and to others so that you can understand the potential metacommunications that could  lead to conflict.

Ask  yourself questions when talking to others. What is...

What is social wellness? Some people define social wellness as having positive connections with your family, friends, co-workers and others. What are some of the keys to having a more positive effective wellness in your job, family and social encounters?

The first key to having a more effective social wellness is the ability to be who you are in all situations. Be true to yourself in the different situations and circumstances. Be true to yourself when you are dealing with your kids, friends, family and workers.

The second key to a more effective wellness is the ability to create boundaries in your relationships that will enable to communicate with trust and manage stress. You have to learn how to recognize those interactions in your relationship with others to leads to stress and avoid them. What are your boundaries? What conversations and jokes are not acceptable to you?

Ask for help? You cannot do everything by yourself. Do you understand your personality? Do you know how to...

3 ways to adjust your health through your diet and reduce your blood pressure. If you really want to lower your blood pressure through healthy eating, you have to find the healthy foods you like and stick to them. Did you know that  ciliary can help lower blood pressure? This is one simple way to lower your blood pressure. Make it a point of duty to eat 10 sticks of ciliary every day. I once shared the impact of ciliary with a friend who wanted to start trying natural ways to lower his blood pressure. At first he was enthusiastic. He old he bough 20 bags of ciliary the next day. He started by eating 20 sticks of ciliary a day. Unfortunately after 2 weeks he was down to one a  stick a day. What was the problem? He got tired of eating ciliary. The problem is that  you can only get the full benefit if you consistently eat it day in day out. You have to consistently make the changes you want to what you eat to get the benefits you want. 

While fruits and...

One of the secrets for managing work burnout is to manage your expectations. What are your daily expectations at work? Do you have a plan for the unexpected? One source of stress at work is getting to work on time. If  work-related time management is one of your stressors then you can make adjustments to help you cope better. One of ways of coping is to start getting ready for work the day before. This way you won’t be in  a hurry in the morning. Get your clothes ready the night before. If you have to drop someone off before you can get  to work, leave earlier than usual or call in to see if you can change your schedule for the day. Simplify and modify your expectations.  Do not always expect everything to work out as planned. 

How else can you cope with stress at work? You can become proactive. Being proactive is the second secret to managing stress and preventing work burnout. Some of the strategies you can use to be proactive could include...

Do you know to achieve greater wellness and better health? Do you know the elements of your health and wellness, you can easily improve through easy to implement strategies? Here are a few tips and strategies.

Exercise everyday. Getting up and moving about everyday is an important part of daily well being. While we recommend walking 4 miles everyday at the compass wellness institute, we also know that as a result of your schedule at home and at work, it may not be possible to walk 4 miles every day. May be what you can do everyday is to walk up and down tour stairs or walk around the house.  Begin by consistently exercising at least 15 minutes daily. This will help to keep your ligaments and joints   supple.   

How can you eat better everyday? Drink at least 8 cups of water everyday. It help you keep yourself well hydrated and feel more full per meal. Here are the specifics. Drink two cups of water per meal. Then another 2 to 4 cups in between meals. This...

Do you know that one of the reasons why you are not losing weight as much as you want is because you are eating too much sugar? How? How can you be eating too much sugar , when you no longer add sugar to your tea, coffee or other beverages?  You no longer drink soda too! Today I will share with you sources of added sugar that you need to eliminate or mange more consistently improve your health and lose weight .

The first one is obvious. Cut down on added sugar from soda and fruit drinks that contain a lot of added sugar. 

The second is not that obvious. Cut down on added sugar from healthy food choices. For example, yogurt is generally considered a healthy food choice, but do you know that yogurt contains added sugar? A  typical serving 16 g of added sugar. This means when you eat 2 servings or 2 cups of low fat sugar you have eaten 32 grams of added sugar. How does this compare to the daily recommendations for added sugar for men and women?

According to the American...

Do you know how to lose weight and keep it off through fullest eating. What is “fullest” eating? It is eating in such that you feel your fullest in every meal without eating too much. Here a few steps to help you eat your fullest in every meal.

Instead eating your meal and adding three or more servings of vegetables and fruits to your meal , eat your veggies and fruits first, then add them to your meal. Here is an example of the eat to the fullest meal. Before your meal, eat and an apple. Drink a glass of warm water with lime or lemon. Eat two sticks of celery. During your meal add servings of veggies or salad. End your with a glass of water. Taking these actions will make you feel fullest without eating to the full. This is s way of physiologically stretching your stomach and signaling to your satiety center that you are full.

Why is this important? First, it means you can feel 100 % full or fullest, when you have only eaten about 80% of your  usual meal. This is...

If you are familiar with the compass academy or the compass wellness institute then you will be familiar with the saying that your first wealth is your health. Why? Without your health you cannot do anything else. Without good health you cannot go to work or hang out with your friends and family. Unfortunately one the commonest causes of poor health outcomes are conversational stress. What do I mean by health outcomes? High blood pressure, heart attack and weight-related problems.

Did that get your attention? How can we manage conversational stress? The step is to recognize it. Sometimes you can tell, when a conversation that was going smoothly hits a bump. It could be a violent disagreement, a dry sarcastic response or no response at all. Once you recognize the change in the dynamics with others, you have to be prepared to make changes to protect your health and yourself.

The second way to manage conversational stress and protect your health is to focus on the outcome you want from...

One of the commonest challenges people have to deal with while losing weight, is controlling how frequently they eat snacks. While healthy snacking can help you lose weight and keep it off, unhealthy snacking can undo your best efforts. I have been asked a number of times, how to avoid unhealthy night snacking while losing weight. Here are a few tips that will help you avoid unhealthy night snacking while losing weight.

First, go to bed when you are tired. When you are tired and you want to stay up to do a few more things, you increase the temptation to snack to stay energetic and alert. Typically what happens is that because you are already tired you end up snacking more than you need to and still end up fulling asleep and not getting as much done. On the other hand, if you go to sleep when you are tired, you won't to snack as much , and you can still wake up very early and get much done.

The second way to avoid unhealthy snacking is to make your  snacks healthy. Instead of...

While it is great to have expectations they can also cause stress or unhappiness if they are not properly managed. If you plan to lose weight and you discover that you are not losing as much weight as you planned, you need to create strategies that will help you lose weight and keep it off.

You have to be prepared for what you will do when the unexpected happens. What will you do if you see yourself gaining weight despite all your effort to lose weight?

Two weeks ago, one of our members asked me why he was longer losing weight despite the changes he had made to his eating habit and his lifestyle. I told him that sometimes after the initial weight loss, as you become more consistent with exercise, you may gain enough muscle that you will slim down without losing weight. Why? This is because muscle has a higher density than fat and therefore occupies less space.

The first strategy for losing weight after your weight loss has plateaued is to trend your weight loss. How? Weigh yourself...