Starting this fall, UNCG employees (faculty and staff) can receive free coaching services.
If you are an employee, please see the HealthyUNCG Coaching Services page to learn more and sign up.
Hypertension
Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke
We hope that they are helpful for coaches integrating their tools and skills into helping clients with these common health concerns!
As you may know, we have been adding modules for health and wellness knowledge to help our coaches prepare for the ICHWC Exam. Check out our current modules, as well as our future plans here: Health and Wellness Modules.
Are you familiar with Metabolic Syndrome? Do you or your clients have questions about it? What does it mean to be diagnosed with it?
We hope that our new module, Metabolic Syndrome, will help clarify how to define it and how to integrate that into your health coaching.
As a reminder, check out our other Health and Wellness Modules for wellness content to prepare you for the ICHWC exam, and work on your coaching skills!
We are currently preparing a series of online modules to help you prepare for the health and wellness competencies.
Our second module is on a topic that we find many of our clients wanting to focus on: Physical Activity!
To check it out, go here: Physical Activity Module
Don’t forget about our first module on sleep! Go here to access that module: Sleep Module
To see what else we currently are planning on doing, go here: ICHWC Competency Modules
Stay tuned for upcoming modules!
*Our modules are all still in a beta stage. This means there may be technical/other issues.
We are currently offering our modules for free to past participants in our coaching program
We include a section at the end for you to give us feedback, which we would greatly appreciate.
If you have any other comments/questions/concerns, email coaching@uncg.edu
As a member of the health coaching team who recently underwent surgery, I became aware of the progressive questions the hospital staff asks before a procedure. In a pre-op appointment, a nurse asked me questions like “Do you have transportation to get here on the day of the surgery?”, and “Do you have access to a pharmacy after surgery?”. I was thrilled that the hospital system is thinking of these kinds of questions and making sure patients can be adequately taken care of throughout the surgery process, even after they leave the hospital. But can they do even more? Not just physically, but mentally as well?
Prior to this surgery, I had an unexpected back injury that put me out of commission for longer than I would have liked. As someone who loves to be outside: running, hiking, and being on the move, this injury affected me more than it should have. Without being able to do the things in life that I enjoy most, I mentally lost it. It took longer than it should have to think of strategies and goals for myself while I was unable to do the things I really enjoyed, and get my life back on track.
As my surgery came closer, I thought back to this injury and wanted to be sure this would not happen to me again. I prepared for being forced to sit around the house and not be as active as I would like by coming up with many activities I could do on the couch, and talking it out with friends and family. Can that also be an option for a pre-op appointment at the hospital? What if a nurse could also offer a health coaching session to discuss post-surgery goals and ways to cope with being down for a while? What if there was even an option for a home health coaching visit if it turned out that you were not coping well?
After thinking about what I could do while forced to stay at home, and with the support of friends and family, the healing process has been so much better than before. How can health coaching be incorporated to form a post-surgery strategy?
We are currently preparing a series of online modules to help you prepare for the health and wellness competencies.
Our first module is on a topic that we find many of our clients wanting to focus on: Sleep!
To check it out, go here: Sleep Health Module
To see what else we currently are planning on doing, go here: ICHWC Competency Modules
Stay tuned for upcoming modules!
*Our modules are all still in a beta stage. This means there may be technical/other issues.
We are currently offering our modules for free to past participants in our coaching program
We include a section at the end for you to give us feedback, which we would greatly appreciate.
If you have any other comments/questions/concerns, email coaching@uncg.edu
Georgia started her career by student teaching a health class. She had just graduated from ECU with a bachelor’s degree in Physical Education. Georgia recalls: “we had learned all about the different sports and how to teach physical education to the kids”. When she went in on that first day to help teach the health class, she realized she had only had one lesson on teaching health! The class was hard for Georgia to teach; it was difficult to come up with lesson plans for the students. School did not prepare her for this health side, although this was an important aspect too. This is when she fell in love with health education.
Through the years, she worked at a Health Department focusing on a variety of different topics such as tobacco use prevention, employee wellness, and others. However, always wanting to work on a college campus, when she saw a posting at ECU for peer health education, she went after it. After moving up the ranks, Georgia’s role now takes on a variety of tasks for her department depending on the day, and she is now looking forward to planning their 11th annual cancer event on campus. Her journey to health education and health coaching took her through many turns and walks of life, and has brought her where she is today.
Georgia recently went through the three-day health coach training at ECU in May of 2018 with 21 of her colleagues. They are working together to create a comprehensive model that uses health coaching skills in their practice. For Georgia, the biggest takeaway from the training was authenticity. She plans to “care for the client as soon as they walk through the door, no matter who they are”. She knows she is not there to solve peoples problems. For her, it’s all about “helping people figure out what their own wants and needs are and helping them find their own path with that”. She understands that some people “just want to be heard before making a change instead of going to someone who wants to be the savior”. She plans to help clients help themselves.
Georgia, eager to become a certified health coach, is also very excited to teach a planning class in the fall and “watch the students light bulbs go off”. She even hopes that one day, ECU will have its very own semester-long health coaching class because she believes more people in the health field should know about health coaching.
We all get cravings every once in a while, right? Well, according to a research spotlight from the NIH, “cravings are known to contribute to addiction and obesity-related health outcomes”. This study shows that when we have cravings, it is something separate from hunger. The two are different and distinct feelings.
This research shows how cravings can be manipulative and place more value on the items you are craving in your mind. Results from this research demonstrated a correlation between the cravings we have and the amount we are willing to pay in order to fulfill them. People are more willing to pay more after exposure to an item, and after recalling memories of that item. Another interesting finding from this research discovered that people were willing to pay more for higher calories and for higher sugar/fat content.
How does this affect health coaching? Awareness of this information could help coaches with empathy and positive regard. Let’s remember that people have a tendency to give external reasons to why they don’t make a behavior change, but give internal reasons to why others don’t make a behavior change. Reading research like this about food cravings help us to remember there are many external forces that could be working against our client. Although our client may have a lot on his or her plate, we need to understand their feelings and where they are coming from, as well as support them no matter what they say or do.
Cravings are just one more obstacle in attempting to prevent addiction and obesity-related health outcomes. There are many more external factors that may be contributing to a client’s ability or focus towards a specified goal.
To read the research spotlight or other spotlights from the NIH, please go to the link provided here.
Emily is a self care coach and yoga instructor based out 
of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. After a period of working in public health, she found herself at a crossroads, unsure of what she wanted to do next – counseling and workplace wellness were both appealing, but not perfect for her. She found coaching as an “in-between space: helping people work on health, but also having meaningful one on one conversations with people so that they could feel empowered.” She became one of the earliest participants in UNCG’s Health Coach training and began to work as a health coach before transitioning to being self-employed.
When she began her own practice, Starting Now, Emily saw a need for a focus specifically on self care. She had worked with clients who were burnt out and struggling with keeping up with all the things they “should” be doing, while having difficult relationships with how their bodies looked. Emily sees her practice as “weight-inclusive,” which means that she wants her clients to find peace, positive well-being and self-satisfaction regardless of their size. By combining health coaching practices with her knowledge about public health and yoga, Emily guides her clients to help them prioritize themselves, and gives them tools to get there.
Emily recognizes the difficulties her clients face in a world that often seems to work in opposition to the goals they have. While she can work with them to change their mindsets, they may still be facing criticism from their families, and coworkers. In moving past these challenges, she wants her clients to be able to say “this is about treating myself with more compassion and being able to set boundaries better, and also being able to relate to my body in a way that I can actually take care of it without micromanaging the size of it.”
“Health coaching just came together for me” Emily says, when reflecting on how she got to where she is. Even though her clients will always face internal and external challenges, she continues to feel inspired to help people. She is excited to continue learning new ways to facilitate radical positive shifts in the lives of her clients and guides them towards compassion for themselves.
Jennifer is a stay at home mother of two children. Her oldest son has autism. Jennifer is also military spouse, business owner, public health educator, and health coach. She knows first hand the unique stressors women and girls often face. Jennifer has used her very personal experiences with stress to create a digital platform to promote the whole health of women and girls: Love Life, Live Life Health Education Services. Launched about a year ago, Love Life, Live Life aims to promote better stress management to improve overall well-being.
When Jennifer decided to build her own business, she realized she wanted the necessary credentials to provide a tangible service to her clients. This is when she discovered UNCG’s health coaching training and decided to integrate health coaching into her business. As a graduate from UNCG, her love and trust for the university and the public health program was a driving force behind why she chose our health coach training over other programs. Jennifer provides health coaching services through her fully digital business in which she uses Facetime, Skype and other online meeting tools to connect with her clients.
In her Level Up program, a personal health and development experience, Jennifer has made connections with teenage girls experiencing family trauma and issues with miscommunication. In this program, Jennifer guides teens to confidently navigate their own stress and improve their overall wellbeing by building positive attitudes, positive beliefs, and stronger communication skills. Level Up utilizes skills Jennifer obtained through the health coach training to include affirmations, smart goals, and vision boarding to foster personal growth within her clients.
Jennifer is engaged in health promotion through her increasing social media presence oriented around her Let Mama Live series, a faith-based initiative celebrating the joy in the struggle of motherhood. She features a different mother each day on her Instagram, and hopes to develop a non-profit under the same name to benefit underserved mothers. Jennifer is currently in the process of producing a Mama Moments video blog. Her vision behind these projects is to provide a candid reflection on the daily struggles of motherhood and emphasize the importance of personal wellness when caring for others. Jennifer is using her skills and knowledge as a health coach to both fulfill her professional goals and assist others in their journey to wellness and self care.