How to Navigate a Consolidating Wellness Market
Original post benefitnews.com
The corporate wellness industry is growing up. And with maturity comes mergers, acquisitions and a flurry of opportunities that can lead to advances in technology and innovation.
Eventually.
Today, the landscape is confusing. Especially for HR and benefits buyers charged with navigating it. Here’s why:
● Large wellness providers are merging with each other to get bigger.
● Aggressive funding rounds are pressuring companies to innovate and grow quickly to meet investor expectations.
● Large wellness providers are acquiring niche solutions to market.
● Providers are building functionalities that go beyond traditional wellness program capabilities.
Corporate wellness certainly isn’t the first HR category to see wild fluctuation periods. All technology markets move through cyclical waves of change, which follow a surprisingly consistent cadence:
● A period of initial growth. Companies launch to compete with one another with similar solution sets, vying for popularity and mind- and market-share.
● A period of growth stymies. Growth hits a standstill due to economic conditions or market saturation.
● A period of consolidation. Larger players acquire market-share and technology enhancements through partnerships and mergers.
The HR world saw this cycle play out with integrated talent management systems in the early 2000s.
Back then, many different providers sold recruiting, performance management and learning technologies. Hundreds in each category competed with one another, and dozens attracted significant funding to try to dominate the market.
In 2007, the talent management market hit its peak. Companies consolidated, some went out of business, and eventually, we were left with a few dominant providers — SAP, Oracle and IBM.
What did these leaders do right during the industry’s tremendous growth cycle? They mastered their core platform capability before moving on to the next stage of an integrated platform.
So SuccessFactors, now a part of SAP, hitched its wagon to performance management and built a complete vision before expanding its talent management offering. Taleo (now with Oracle) and Kenexa (now with IBM) did the same with recruiting and learning, respectively.
Other talent management providers jumped on the integration bandwagon too early. They tried to cover everything ─ but weren’t good at anything. They couldn’t differentiate themselves in a crowded, shrinking market. Most were shut down or acquired.
I don’t know if corporate wellness will follow this exact path. But the history of enterprise technology indicates an inevitable tipping point. Here are my predictions for what’s to come:
1. Consolidation isn’t going away. It’s clear we’re in a phase of consolidation. Larger companies and private equity buyout firms are acquiring smaller companies, and we expect even more mergers and acquisitions to close the capabilities gap across wellness solutions.
2. The pressure’s on for heavily venture-capital-backed firms. Investors see a ticking clock in front of them. Many want their payoff, and they want it fast. The period of market consolidation doesn’t last forever — and the opportunity to quickly expand to get bought is often made at the expense of product stability, support and internal innovation. Exit pressure increases later in the life of a venture fund as well (for all but the most long-term investors).
3. Providers will jump into unfamiliar waters. Companies with niche offerings will try new things. Recognition providers might add well-being and learning services, and performance companies might try to add analytics tools. But merging different companies, cultures, customer-facing teams and approaches can be difficult and time-consuming, and potentially confusing for employees. Even when providers acquire companies that already specialize in purely complementary capabilities, the devil is in the details. Every acquisition takes time to integrate, and every new feature set takes time to develop.
4. Buyers will be frustrated with all of it. If you’re looking for stability and measured outcomes, then the wrong provider can be a nightmare of new account representatives, technology change and product difficulties. Corporate wellness as a category has room to grow into solutions that embrace the whole employee. Choose wisely.
Three things to focus on
It’s not an easy time to choose a long-term wellness partner. But buyers can take precautions to avoid getting swept into the carnage of acquisitions and consolidations. Here are some best practices to follow when you’re purchasing technology in an unsteady environment:
1. Prioritize your needs as an organization. What major issue is your organization trying to solve? In a crowded market, many challenges and solutions exist ─ but you need to prioritize what’s critical to your success. What is your company trying to achieve in the market? What key capabilities do you need to meet your overarching business goals? What features aren’t as important?
2. Address those needs. This seems obvious, but broader platforms often lure buyers into making decisions that compromise on critical areas. The solution you choose should have excellent bench strength in your highest priority area. For instance, if your main goal is improving employee well-being (and related outcomes), look for a partner that specializes in it ─ not a benefits provider with one small well-being feature.
3. Consider integration capabilities instead of a one-size-fits-all. One positive development of the consolidation phase? Companies want to make it easy for you to connect with different services. This means you don’t need a provider that does everything. Choose the (integration-ready) one you love ─ and tailor it to meet your own unique needs.
Choose technologies that meet your core needs rather than finding a provider that claims to do it all. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Focus on what’s important to your organization:
● What’s going to improve your employee experience the most?
● Who has the capabilities and people to guide you to your desired outcomes?
● What do you need right now, and what can you wait a few years for?
You are the only one who can answer these questions for your organization. When you do, you’ll find the corporate wellness provider that aligns best with your business strategy – and your employees’ needs.
Hearing and Vision Being Tied into Wellness Programs
Originalpost benefitnews.com
Medical experts have long argued that poor oral hygiene and neglected vision care can undermine overall physical health. The same thinking is now being applied to hearing loss, which is reportedly on the rise and taking a toll on employee productivity, emphasizing a need for more advisers and their clients to consider the inclusion of hearing and vision health with wellness programming.
Advisers “can make sure their clients are aware that healthy senses are often missing from traditional wellness strategies,” says Brad Volkmer, president and CEO of EPIC Hearing Healthcare, “and they can bring solutions to help clients integrate areas like hearing and vision health into their wellness offerings.”
As many as 30% of working Americans suspect they have hearing loss, but have not sought treatment and admit it has affected their work performance, according to a 2013 EPIC Hearing Healthcare survey of 1,500 U.S. employees.
This seems to be one area that worksite health and wellness has overlooked. A 2015 EPIC survey of 518 benefits professionals, for example, found that only 8% of employers integrate hearing health into their wellness programs. Most of those respondents (86%) said they were willing to take action if they knew that untreated hearing loss was hurting employee job performance.
As many as one-fifth of Americans 12 years or older have hearing loss so severe that it may make communication difficult, according to a Johns Hopkins study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers estimate that 30 million Americans, or 12.7% of the population, have hearing loss in both ears, and about 48 million, or 20.3%, have hearing loss in at least one ear. What’s surprising is that 65% of people with hearing loss are actually younger than age 65, notes the Better Hearing Institute.
EPIC offers a hearing-health wellness program called “Listen Hear! Live Well” that can be integrated into an employer’s existing wellness effort or offered on a stand-alone basis. Among the company’s suggested tips for producers when talking with employer clients about the importance of treating hearing loss and maintaining healthy senses:
- Integrate hearing, vision and oral health into health education. The hope is that through these efforts, employers can help erase any stigma associated with hearing loss and quell employee fears about being poorly perceived by their employer. Content for company wellness newsletters, brochures, videos, presentations, advice hotlines, etc., is available free of charge through some programs.
- Check healthy senses through screenings. This can be done at employee health fairs and events with the help of local audiologists, optometrists and dentists who may be willing to offer complimentary screenings and deliver educational presentations.
- Make incentives accessible. Employers can offer incentives and discounts to employees who complete vision and hearing exams in order to promote preventive care. For example, those who participate in four educational activities in EPIC’sListen Hear! program can earn a discount on hearing treatments.
- Minimize financial barriers to care. Employers can elect to cover healthy senses through ancillary benefits and the use of various savings vehicles to help ease out-of-pocket expenses. An HSA or FSA can be used to help pay for hearing aids, eyeglasses or contact lenses. Without such assistance, these costs can be staggering. Hearing aids, for example, cost on average about $1,500, but can be as high as $3,000 to $5,000, according to the National Institutes of Health. Also, more than one-third of people surveyed in 2014 by Wakefield Research on behalf of National Vision, Inc. said did not see their eye doctor that year because they couldn’t afford the visit.
Wellness Study Touts CFPs
Original post benefitspro.com
Only 22 percent of employees tracked in Financial Finesse’s 2015 year in review report being on track for retirement.
The provider of workplace financial wellness programs says that is a slight improvement from 2014. Of those that are not prepared, 81 percent have never used a financial calculator to estimate their retirement preparedness.
While the number of retirement-ready workers remains bleak, those participants who have repeated engagements with planning tools, and financial planners, are showing marked improvement in retirement readiness.
Enhancements in retirement workplace plan design, like auto-enrollment and auto-escalation, and technology that addresses asset allocation are vital tools for addressing workers’ retirement preparedness.
But the Financial Finesse’s data suggests those tools alone are not enough.
A good portion of the review is committed to comparing retirement readiness of those savers who engage in live interactions with financial planners.
About half of participants that had five or more interactions with a certified financial planner report being on track for retirement.
Levels of confidence drop in lock step with the number of interactions with financial planners: 32 percent of those with three to four interactions say they are on track to retire with adequate savings; 31 percent with one to two interactions believe as much; and only 21 participants who only interact with online planning tools say they are on track to retire with enough savings.
Interacting with CFPs also translates to higher confidence with investments and how they are allocated, as 64 percent of participants with five or more interactions say they are invested appropriately, compared to only 42 percent who use an online planning tool but don’t seek live financial advice.
Overall, retirement readiness is lacking across generations. Last year, only 30 percent of baby boomers say they are on track to reach their retirement goal, which was unchanged from the previous year.
Only 22 percent of Gen Xers and 16 percent of millennials said they are on track to retire well.
Debt is a major obstacle for boomers’ retirement readiness, the report says, as 42 percent of financially distressed boomers have no plan in place to pay off their debt, and increase from the previous year.
Participation rates in workplace retirement plans was high across all age groups, as even 73 percent of workers under age 30 report being enrolled in a plan; 91 percent of pre-retirees participate in their workplace plan.
Despite high rates of enrollment, financial planners and participants sited insufficient retirement savings as the top financial vulnerability for all age groups.
Flexible Work Schedule Doesn't Hurt Productivity
Original post benefitspro.com
Schedule flexibility should not be perceived as a gift to employees, suggests a new study. If it were, the employer would be giving up something, presumably employee productivity.
But an increasing body of research indicates that flexible workplaces are no worse for wear than others with stricter schedules.
The most recent study, published this month by Phyllis Moen, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota, analyzed the effect that flexible work policies have on IT workers at a major firm.
Half of the 867 workers continued working under the company’s existing policy, with standard schedules and exceptions occasionally granted by supervisors.
The other group was given an entirely open-ended schedule, with no restrictions, so long as the employees completed their assigned work. Supervisors were also encouraged to think about ways to reduce work-family conflicts for employees, and were even prompted twice a day reminding them to come up with such ideas.
The study found that those who were granted the additional flexibility were not any less productive than those who labored under the traditional schedule. Those with the flexible schedules also reported being much happier because of the reduced stress of trying to make time to pick up kids and other typical work-family conflicts.
The study prompted a major feature story in the New York Times Magazine, “Rethinking the Work-Life Equation,” which profiled the growing ranks of experts in favor of flexible scheduling. Employers are under increased pressure to help their workers strike a work-life balance because of shifting gender roles, as more and more married couples commit themselves to both career advancement and child-rearing.
Even employers that are generous to employees seeking schedule flexibility may not produce the same level of stress-reduction as a policy that explicitly grants unlimited flexibility.
‘‘What people told us, over and over again, was that the new policy removed the guilt,’’ Erin Kelly, an MIT professor who collaborated on the study, told the New York Times Magazine. ‘‘We heard that word a lot.’’
3 Ways to Boost Employee Health with On-Site Wellness Program Support
Original post benefitspro.com
When employers launch a robust employee health program, too often corporate wellness becomes another job for someone who already has a full range of responsibilities.
That’s why it’s crucial to have someone “on the ground” who owns health and wellness and can in turn play an active role in building a successful health management program.
We see the benefits of providing an on-site wellness presence. Our client sites that have a dedicated on-site program manager enjoy a 33 percent higher participation rate compared to similar programs that don’t include an on-site manager.
The benefits of having an on-site wellness program manager include the following:
- Screening participation: 58 percent increase
- Health advising participation: 43 percent increase
- Coaching enrollment participation: 21 percent increase
In addition to on-site program managers, here are three ways our clients inspire employee wellness with on-site solutions—and how this option might make sense for your organization.
1. Drive engagement with health advocates
To meet the needs of more than 12,000 employees in 18 locations at a leading automotive parts manufacturer, my employer HealthFitness provides six on-site health promotion coordinators and eight full-time benefits advocates to help employees and their families navigate the health care system.
On-site advocates serve as corporate wellness navigators and answer questions employees may have related to their benefits—from how the medical plan works to how to earn incentives.
Advocates work as a touch point for employees—whether they meet before, after or during shift breaks.
Results:
Support from on-site benefit advocates has paid off in providing real results for both employees and the company.
- 48,000 benefit advocacy contacts driving referrals to benefit providers
- 6.2 percent year-over-year reduction in health risks
- 93 percent completion rate of health assessments and screening for employees and spouses
2. Activate boots on the ground
To build rapport with the manufacturing population at a leading producer of agricultural products, our on-site staff regularly meets employees where they are—donning steel-toe boots and protective gear to join them in the field, safety meetings, or break rooms.
Our on-site presence lets them know we are here for them and are committed to their health.
For example, to make it easier for employees to participate in wellness activities such as screenings, on-site staff are scheduled to work early hours (from 4 a.m. to 12 p.m.), giving workers the opportunity to participate in blood pressure screenings without leaving the worksite.
The mindset of ‘we bring the program to you’ is essential to program participation success.
Results:
- 11.3 percent decrease in average number of high health risks from 22.47 to 2.19 among 2,400 participants.
- 97 percent of participants were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their on-site biometric screening event.
- 63 percent of employees participated in one or more lifestyle management programs in 2013.
3. Build a network of on-site wellness champions
Our on-site program manager leverages a wellness champion network of more than 30 employees to meet the needs of 12,000 employees at an agricultural and construction equipment leader.
Wellness champions build employee awareness and increase engagement in corporate wellness programs.
Employees at 20 sites throughout the country turn to the wellness champions as a resource, to share ideas and ask questions. Wellness champions also represent employees during ongoing conference calls and help ensure health and wellness continues to be part of their daily routines.
Results:
- 85.3 percent of the employee population has participated in at least one health management activity.
- 43.1 percent participation in a walking program that challenges employees to walk 10,000 steps a day.
- 21.1 percent participation in health coaching so employees can develop an individual, confidential plan to help them reach their health goals.
Top healthcare benefit trends to watch
Original post benefitsnews.com
The number of employers offering a healthy living/incentive program grew in 2015, and is one of several trends to watch as the year 2016 unfolds, analysts say.
Plan design changes and programs such as incentive and wellness were of increasing interest to employers last year and most “continue to turn to their brokers and consultants to learn more about new health plan benefit designs and distribution models,” says Tiffany Wirth, executive director of the Healthcare Trends Institute.
“Helping employees better understand the value of provided benefits and making cost-conscious benefit decisions continues to remain important to employers,” she says.
The number of employers offering a healthy living/incentive program grew from 29.8% in 2014 to 34.6% in 2015, according to the HTI’s 2015 Healthcare Benefit Trends Benchmark Study.
During a webinar unveiling the results, Wirth said 21.8% of employers are considering such a program and 16.7% are still learning about them. About 1 in 4 employers (24.7%) indicated they weren’t interested in offering such a program.
“We’re starting to see these types of programs take hold as [healthcare] reform is being adopted and companies are pushing employees to understand their decisions, their purchases, and all of the different things that go along with healthcare benefits,” she says.
As part of incentive program tracking, HTI has also been examining what sort of wellness programs companies are implementing, Wirth says.
Almost half (44.6%) offer at least one type of wellness program, the survey found. Thirty-one percent offer biometric screenings and about 30% offer an opportunity for health risk management.
Key differences from the 2014 benchmark study, Wirth says, included the ranking of top benefits offered by employers. The three highest company-offered employee benefits in 2014 (PPO, family plan and prescription drug) continued to rank high in 2015, but dental came in at No. 1 this year, with about 74% of employers offering it.
More than half (52.1%) of respondents said they had some familiarity with defined contribution plans and private exchanges, with the majority of those who indicated they were interested in offering a DCP identifying 2017 as the year they would likely do so.
Wirth says continued interest is growing among employers to learn and understand more about DCPS.
3 ways gamification can improve your team’s well-being
Original post benefitsnews.com
What does a big, fancy word like “gamification” mean anyway? Simply put, it’s the idea that game-like rules and rewards make the hard stuff fun. And smart leaders now use it to engage and motivate their employees.
Well-known game designer Jane McGonigal says “living gamefully” helps people bring curiosity, passion and balance into their lives. It gives them a higher purpose so they keep moving forward in their mission even when obstacles block their vision.
Gamification is the reason fitness apps work. When the buzzer signals that you hit 10,000 steps, you win. Even performance reviews contain elements of game design – when your employees exceed all their goals and move to the next career level, you both win.
Let’s go for that big win. Help your employees achieve their goals and improve their health by introducing these gamification strategies.
3 gamification strategies to implement:
1. Wellness quests. As noted above, wearable technology makes tracking exercise so much easier. But gamification for health doesn’t require that level of sophistication — you can make a game out of almost anything when you keep score by pencil. Challenge your team members to sneak extra exercise into their day. Have them jot down a checkmark every time they take a stretch break. Heat up competition by posting results on a whiteboard for all to see. Add rules or creative complexities as time goes on and the activities become easier. The more quests employees complete, the healthier they’ll be.
2. Social communities. We all need a little help from our allies. We crave support from one another, and we’re willing to dig in deeper when we know others are rooting for us. So it’s no surprise that social interactions and competitions help employees stay motivated and happy. Hook your employees into healthy activities with team vs. team challenges, photos, comments, nudges and cheers. Recognize accomplishments in ways that best fit your company’s culture – whether that’s sending around leader-board rankings each week or letting peers nominate each other for special badges.
3. Power-ups. The journey to well-being is never over — but it’s nearly impossible to keep going if you don’t hit milestones. This is when you need to activate “power-ups” — the quick tasks that feel like small wins. Remember how satisfying those power-ups were in your video games of childhood? Encourage your employees to take baby steps toward their goals. For instance, they may not have time for a lunchtime workout, but can they sneak in a few jumping jacks before every meeting? How about simply standing up for two minutes? Or taking a mid-meeting plank break? Achievements like these provide a burst of feel-good energy and intrinsic motivation to help us stick with lofty commitments.
5 reasons you could be tired all the time
Waking up after a solid night of sleep may have you feeling you can take on the world. That is until your energy drops and all you want to do is sleep at your desk.
Health.com suggests these 5 things could be zapping your energy levels.
1. Skipping Workouts
It may seem like the best thing to do is sleep instead of workout when you feel sluggish, but skipping your workout will work against you. A brisk 20 minute walk could help perk your energy level.
2. Dehydration
Next time you're feeling tired, grab a glass of water. The slightest bit of dehydration can send your energy levels dropping.
3. Skipping Breakfast
Breakfast may feel like a waste of time, but skipping breakfast is a bad idea. Food is fuel and your body burns fuel as you sleep. So, when you wake up, you need to fill your tank back up.
4. Drinking before Bed
A nightcap may help you fall asleep, but it could also wake you up during the night. 0
5. Checking Email in Bed
Wrapping your day may mean a last minute check of emails. However, you may want to do so before you get into bed. The bright light from your smartphone or tablet can interfere with your bodies natural sleep/wake cycle.
Signs your body is burning out and tips to relax
It's often easy to determine your stressed out. But too much stress can lead to burnout. The Health.com article, "7 Subtle Signs You're Burned Out," pinpoints what you may be overlooking as burn-out and not just another health issue.
"Our bodies try to tell us to slow down, and we just don't listen," says Alice Domar, PhD, founder of the Domar Center for Mind/Body Health in Waltham, Mass. "If you ignore the distress signals for too long, they can turn into health problems."
You keep drawing blanks
When you're under stress, your adrenal gland pumps out cortisol, and research has shown that this fight-or-flight hormone can hinder your powers of recall, making it tougher to access stored facts (including so-and-so's name and where you left your phone).
Add late nights or insomnia to the mix and your recollection may get even slipperier. "During sleep, your brain replays whatever you learned that day and moves it into long-term storage," explains Sandra Ackermann, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in biopsychology at the University of Zurich. If you don't get enough shut-eye or you go to bed with your cortisol levels still spiking, that process of encoding details is disturbed.
Your cuts take forever to heal
Whether you graze your knuckle with a vegetable peeler or develop a nasty blister on a long-distance run, expect to wear a Band-Aid for a while if you're overtaxed.
"When you get an injury, your immune system engages right away, sending signals to produce collagen, form a blood clot and recruit cells to protect against germs," explains William Huang, MD, assistant professor of dermatology at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. "But when you're stressed, your body has higher levels of chemicals called glucocorticoids, which suppress your immune system and make healing slower."
Researchers from Ohio State University studied this effect in the caregivers of dementia patients: They found that people shouldering such responsibility healed 24 percent more slowly than those in a control group.
Your cramps are lethal
You already know that stress can make your period late. That's because when the hypothalamus, the regulatory center of the brain, senses that your body is running on empty, it can delay the release of an egg, shifting your whole cycle offtrack.
But for some women, feeling frazzled may make PMS worse as well. In a National Institutes of Health study, researchers followed 259 women for more than a month and quizzed them on how often they felt, for example, nervous or not in control of their lives. Those who reported more stress early in their cycle were more likely than relaxed women to have moderate to severe symptoms before and during their period. (Because killer cramps are just what you need right now.)
Your GI tract protests like whoa
Christa Reed, from Park Ridge, Ill., had always had a stomach of steel. But about nine months into a TV news gig that required her to be on-site by 3 a.m., she was diagnosed with gastroesophageal reflux disease. Her doctor prescribed a modified diet and more sleep. Six months later, the pain was worse.
"Instead of carrying lip gloss and gum in my purse, I had Tums and Pepto Bismol," says Christa, who was then 27. "My doctor told me that if I didn't get more rest, I'd end up with esophageal cancer." So she decided to quit her job, and within two weeks, the reflux was gone. Christa's story is far from unusual.
"Stress can alter gut secretions and slow or speed up digestion, causing problems like reflux, nausea, constipation or diarrhea," says Michael Gershon, MD, professor of pathology and cell biology at Columbia University and author of The Second Brain.
There may be farther-reaching consequences as well: "When anxiety disrupts digestive processes, the gut's microbiome may begin to change," explains Dr. Gershon. "The presence or absence of different bacteria can influence the strength of your entire immune system, your weight, even your mood." The good news: A little R & R can help restore the balance of bugs in your belly.
You can't stop scratching
In response to any sort of trauma or pathogen, the skin's nerve endings release chemical signals called neuropeptides that communicate "Houston, we have a problem" to the brain. Weirdly, a looming deadline or crammed social calendar can activate the same messengers—resulting in inflammation that makes you feel itchy.
"The skin is a dynamic organ, and skin and stress have a complicated interplay," says Dr. Huang.
Your dreams are downright wacky
If your sleep scenes play out like Dancing with the Stars-meets-The Walking Dead fan fiction, you may need a lot more shut-eye. People who are sleep-deprived tend to have more intense dreams, though experts aren't entirely sure why.
One possible explanation: When you're not getting enough rest, your brain prioritizes REM sleep—the most restorative stage, which also happens to be when dreams occur.
"Typically, REM sleep doesn't begin until about 90 minutes after you fall asleep," says Joyce Walsleben, PhD, associate professor at the Sleep Disorders Center at NYU School of Medicine. "But if you're exhausted, the brain can get there in as few as 10 minutes."
Throughout the night, it will cycle quickly through the other two stages of sleep to make up for the deficit in REM, which means more time for creative nocturnal imaginings to unfold.
Plus, if you're stressed-out and sleeping fitfully, you're more likely to wake up middream, or just after one, and remember the details vividly—especially if it involved, say, flamenco-dancing zombies.
Your head pounds on Saturdays
After a brutal week at the office, the weekend feels like a gift from the gods. You sleep in, enjoy a leisurely brunch and then...develop throbbing pressure in your skull?
"We're not exactly sure why, but migraines are sometimes triggered by the letdown after a period of stress rather than the stress itself," explains Peter Goadsby, PhD, a neurologist who specializes in headache disorders at Kings College London.
The effect might be the result of a sharp drop in cortisol. Who knew?
POSES FOR PEACE
Your brain and body are screaming for z's—but stress is keeping you up at night. Help! This simple yoga series from celebrity instructor Mandy Ingber can help relax your mind for better rest.
1. Easy seated pose with alternate-nostril breathing
Sit on the floor, legs crossed. Use your right thumb to close your right nostril. Inhale through your left nostril. At the top of the inhale, close your left nostril with your right ring finger and release right nostril. Exhale and inhale through your right nostril. Close right nostril again and exhale through left nostril. Repeat the sequence 16 times.
2. Reclining Pigeon Pose
Lie on your back, knees bent and soles of feet on the floor. Cross right ankle over left knee. Clasp your hands behind left hamstring and draw thigh toward your torso. Hold for up to two minutes, breathing deeply. Switch sides.
3. Legs-up-the-wall pose
Sit by a wall with right hip and shoulder touching it, knees bent. Roll onto your back and extend legs up the wall. Stay here for 5 to 10 minutes. "This mellow inversion reverses blood flow, encourages lymphatic drainage and brings renewed blood to your heart," says Ingber.
TENSION-BUSTING TIPS THE PROS USE
"I've created little cues to remind myself to take breaks. Now, whenever I'm stopped at a red light, or whenever I glance at the clock at work, I practice diaphragmatic breathing." —Alice Domar, PhD
"Some whole foods can actually help you handle stress better. Berries, red bell peppers and kale are all good sources of vitamin C, which helps regulate cortisol. And avocados contain loads of potassium, which helps keep your blood pressure healthy."—Wendy Bazilian, RD
"For the best sleep, you have to find a way to separate the day from the night. That might mean taking a quick shower before bed or starting a new bedtime routine, like writing in a journal or doing some yoga."—Joyce Walsleben, PhD
Many employees unaware of hypertension
Original post ebn.benefitnews.com
Some of the biggest annual price tags for employers include stroke and coronary artery disease, and many employees may be unaware they are at risk.
New research published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and released by Health Advocate shows that more than two-thirds of employees (68%) whose hypertension was discovered during workplace health screenings didn’t previously know they had the condition.
The study analyzed more than 31,000 members of self-insured employer group plans. In addition to the high percentage who had undiagnosed hypertension, the study said prescriptions for hypertension medications spiked following the screenings, indicating that plan members were quick to respond to the bad news.
“It’s a reminder that we’ve known for a long time that the most cost effective screenings you can do is for blood pressure,” says LuAnn Heinen, vice president, workforce well-being, productivity, and human capital at the National Business Group on Health. “They’re easy to do and can be done by onsite clinics and kiosks, or it can be part of a broader biometric screening.”
The study also looked at other factors and characteristics that may increase the risk of an employee having undiagnosed hypertension. Specifically, the study noted that obese patients have a 155% greater risk of having undiagnosed hypertension.
“Hypertension becomes particularly concerning, especially when combined with sedentariness, smoking, diabetes, obesity and a poor diet,” Heinen adds.
Some of the common steps employers are taking to combat hypertension, and enhance overall well-being, include providing fitness facilities, learning programs and tobacco cessation programs.
“Our analysis shows the value and necessity of these onsite health screenings for both organizations and their employees,” says Antonio Legorreta, president of engage2Health, Health Advocate’s health informatics division. “By identifying issues like hypertension sooner, employees can access appropriate treatment earlier, leading to improved health outcomes and reduced costs.”