The awareness of the importance of healthy lifestyles and work life balances has grown exponentially over the past several years. Health and wellness has become an integral component of successfully navigating through life's challenges - both professionally and personally. Planning's instructors have over 20 years experience in providing information and coaching to individuals to help them attain their wellness goals and techniques to enable effective lifestyle/lifecycle transition. Objectives for each workshop are established and worksheets and handouts are provided. Our programs are designed around two basic themes - health and wellness and work/life balance.

Health Workshops

Wellness is defined as "the constant and deliberate effort to stay healthy and achieve the highest potential for well-being". Our workshops expound on that and cover the following topics:

• The Components of Wellness
  
  • Program discusses wellness and the elements of wellness in an effort to achieve a healthy balance of energy in all aspects of life. Behavioral tendencies that are contrary to wellness are also addressed.
    
    
• Identifying One's Fitness Level
  • Four major components of fitness (cardiovascular strength and endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, body composition) are discussed as well as how the lack of motion is linked to disease.
    
    
• Designing Muscular Strength and Endurance Programs
  • The focus of this seminar is to outline the steps necessary to develop a lifetime strength-training program that will minimize the effects of atrophy, improve wellness and offer preventive measures to reduce the risk of deteriorating muscle condition.
    
    
• Designing a Cardiovascular Fitness Program
  • This workshop speaks to the crucial need to increase physical activity and reduce the chance of succumbing to chronic health-related problems due to inertia.
    
    
• Understanding Why People Don't Lose Weight 
  
  • Behaviors and perceptions that lock individuals into patterns that prohibit successful weight loss are identified. It addresses how individuals process this information and increases awareness of personal barriers while at the same time provides the tools necessary to design individualized weight loss programs.
    
    
• Body Fat Assessment
  
  • Information about body composition including the percentage of body fat and the effects of aging and genetics on that percentage is provided. Participants can then tailor their own regime of wellness and weight loss to achieve their goals.
    
    
• Creating the Right Recipe for a Balanced and Healthy Lifestyle
  
  • Learn about yourself and your perceptions to better control the varied aspects of your life. Discussion emphasizes motivating yourself to become whole and balanced which will create harmony in your life.

Work Balance Workshops

This workshop helps participants develop personalized life skill plans with the objective of achieving an awareness that allows them to defeat self-imposed restrictions of thought and behavior. Topics presented are:

• Perspectives on Life Transitions
  
  • Change usually brings some degree of stress. This course explores the challenge facing everyone as they mature and their lives progress. It teaches how to recognize emotions related to change and how to channel those emotions to create a productive and positive experience.
    
    
• Creating a Balanced and Satisfying Retirement
  
  • The goal of this seminar is to create awareness of the retirement process. Retirement requires us to negotiate changes that are associated with our new identity as a “retired person”.. One of the most important factors affecting a successful transition into retirement is attitude and this is explored in depth.
    
    
• Positive Thinking -- Make It A Choice
  
  • Positive thinking is a mindset that focuses on thoughts, words and visuals. It is a mental attitude that expects good and favorable results. The right mindset often requires a change in beliefs. This seminar teaches you how to master change without fear and emotional distress and how to evolve to the optimum mental attitude.
    
    
• Mid-Career Transitions
  
  • This course discusses issues that affect those people who are at the mid-point in their lives and careers. It addresses change and how to effectively manage change, including stress, for a productive and positive transition into the next stage in life.
    
    
• Stress Without Distress
  
  • Stress is inevitable in life. Distress is not the logical outcome. This seminar covers the impact of stress in our personal and professional lives. It shows how to convert stress to our advantage, ultimately improving the quality of our lives.
    
    
• Caring For the Caregiver
  
  • The caregiver wears many hats. We will define the role of a caregiver and recognize the stress both mental and physical associated with this job. Learn the balance between helping others without neglecting yourself.