Dr. Joel Edman, Professional Certified Coach (PCC), National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC), Director of Nutrition
All of us have the potential for feeling better and feeling our best when we eat better, exercise more and/or are more resilient, especially when we maintain these approaches over the longer term. The challenge is to be clear about what works best for us, and to be able to manage and navigate these approaches during difficult and potentially chaotic weeks (and sometimes longer), as well as weeks that go smoothly.
Health Coaching is defined by the National Board (1) as “engaging with individuals and groups in evidence-based, client-centered processes that facilitate and empower clients to develop and achieve self-determined, health and wellness goals. Coaches assist clients to use their own insight, personal strengths, and resources to set goals, commit to action steps, and establish accountability in building an envisioned healthy lifestyle.”
Integrative health coaching is also described as being most helpful for people who know what they need to do but have a hard time doing it and/or maintaining it – this happens because coaching fosters behavioral changes and it can be helpful for everyone.
Table of Contents
Why Can Integrative Health Coaching Be Helpful?
- It can be very challenging to manage and navigate healthy diet and nutrition; stretching, movement and exercise; and mindfulness, resilience and stress management, all at the same time, especially when there is also high stress and/or a lot going on;
- It is increasingly difficult to get effective support or care using lifestyle and more natural approaches, especially for clients and patients with chronic and/or complex conditions;
- The number of people who are being diagnosed with chronic disease and multiple chronic diseases is significantly increasing;
- The number of people and teens who are experiencing significant anxiety and/or depression is also rapidly increasing, making self-care more difficult;
- The healthcare system is becoming more and more stressed, making it more difficult to get the individualized and effective care that clients and patients want and need.
What to Look for in a Health Coach?
Health coaches partner with you and often act as your personal support ‘team’ to help you develop the knowledge, skills, tools, and confidence to take charge of your health and well-being. Here are the keys to finding the right health coach for you:
- Experience and expertise: health coaches should have significant experience and expertise, especially if they are working with clients that have chronic disorders – I have also published an article about the good results that I have gotten working in a healthcare system and coaching their employees (practitioners and staff) (2).
- Good rapport: make sure you feel comfortable with and connected to your health coach, since trust, rapport and a strong partnership is important for getting good outcomes.
- Credentials: the two leading credentials are the NBC-HWC and the International Coaching Federation credential (PCC), and I have both of them.
Other Potential Benefits of Integrative Health Coaching
- Improve your diet, and develop an effective foundation and framework that makes it easier to maintain
- Stay positive and stay engaged – people can easily get discouraged and are often hard on themselves, which can be frustrating and unhelpful
- Take advantage of all available resources and support so that the path of least resistance, for following a healthy lifestyle, is just doing it
- Improve overall medical and healthcare by partnering with helpful and important practitioners, and a responsive healthcare team
When I took health coaching courses and training 12+ years ago, I found that it complemented my nutrition counseling work perfectly – ‘icing on the cake’. It also helped me personally in many ways – I love integrative health coaching and now teach it at Metropolitan State University of Denver. I also will be offering two group health coaching programs beginning in September (more info to come during the summer, and I plan to publish the results)
References
- National Board of Health and Wellness Coaching; www.nbhwc.org.
- Edman JS, Galantino ML, Greeson JM, et al. Health Coaching for Healthcare Employees with Chronic Disease: A pilot study. WORK 2019;63:49-56.
