“Welcome to the three minute clinic on Wellness Planning, where we go over strategies that empower you to stay well and be well for the rest of your life. This week our subject is stress reduction, and how stress reduction works. We are going to specifically talk today about exercise and stress reduction. So let’s review the big picture. Number one: stress, over a long period of time, causes illness. And number two: exercise, particularly regular exercise, reduces stress. Now remember, stress is a bodily tension, that’s what we’re talking about. When we talk about stress, we’re talking about how you’re tense, you’re uptight, your muscles are tense, your body feels tight, your head feels tight–that’s what stress does, it gives you tension. Well that’s perfect, because what exercise does is reduces the emotional tension and physical tension, and makes you feel better. Now here’s a question I want to ask you–are you taking steps to protect yourself from stress-related injuries? In other words, are you taking steps to protect yourself from stress-induced aging, from stress-induced burnout, from stress-induced disease, or are you being passive about it? Now I want you to have a toolkit, because let’s face it, stress has become a way of life. Is that a predicament? Well, no. Because as we’ve talked about, stress can become an opportunity for you to become stronger, to become healthier, to learn more about healing yourself, to enrich your relationships and improve the quality of your life. So stress by itself isn’t burdensome, it’s how we deal with stress that becomes burdensome. So we want you to have a toolkit–a toolkit with things like a positive attitude and meditation–but today we’re talking about exercise, physical exercise. Write it down! Physical exercise reduces bodily tension. So I need you to be in touch with what tools that you have–your toolkit–to combat stress. What effects does exercise have on stress? It’s multi dimensional. Exercise calms the mind, it rejuvenates the nerves, it relaxes the body, and takes tension out of the muscles. It puts you in the right state of mind, and most importantly, it releases endorphins that make you feel good, that help your immune system, and keep you upbeat and change your mood. So what am I trying to say? Stress is a way of life, but not to worry about it. Do you have a toolkit? Do you have ways, and measures, and maneuvers, and ideas, and visions to deal with stress effectively? Well I want you to have that–and one of them is a regular exercise program, which will help you reduce your stress level. So keep in mind, stress in itself isn’t the predicament, it’s how you deal with the stress. You’ll need a toolkit. So the tip for today is this: stay physically fit, get involved in a regular exercise program, and do something everyday to work your physical body to reduce physical tension and watch your stress level go way, way down.”

“Welcome to the three minute clinic on Wellness Planning; Wellness Planning 101. The theme for this month is self-care versus self-wear, the most basic theme of our program; taking care of yourself versus not taking care of yourself. In other words, we’re looking to build Immune Power; we’re looking to stay well and be well, and how to stay powerful and vital. So we’re talking about self-care today. I want to pick out an area of self-care today—and remember, it comes down to habits, it really comes down to your living habits; your thinking habits, your eating habits, your fitness habits, your attitude habits, and how you manage stress; that’s a habit as well. So self-care versus self-wear, let’s pick out one important area. Physical fitness: your fitness habits, your relationship with your body! Now everybody knows that exercise is good for them, from little kids to older people—everybody knows they need to stay in shape and that they need to work their bodies. I don’t need to tell anybody here about the epidemic of obesity, and what that’s doing to our lifestyles. So now, sedentary living versus active living, it’s a no brainer. You have to stay active; calmly active, actively calm, actively fit. Fitness feeds and fuels your body; fitness feeds your spirit; fitness feeds your mind. Being fit and being healthy go hand in hand. So self-care is about personal nutrition—food nutrition, physical nutrition, bodily nutrition. Your blood vessels, your heart, your lungs, your arteries, your veins, your capillaries—all your vital organs need oxygenation and need circulation. Without circulation it would be like having a planet without water. The key I want you to come out of this discussion with is this: that for those of you who are looking to stay well—which means you’re going to be powerful, you’re going to be vital, you’re going to be purposeful, you’re going to be mindful, you’re going to be soulful throughout your life; can you imagine what that’s like, how empowering that is? See that’s what it’s about, self-empowerment. Self-empowerment is what wellness planning is about; helping you plan your own ways of empowering yourself to be powerful. Think about it—if you don’t really work to empower yourself to be powerful, how can you stay that way? You see, people when they’re young have wellness, but as you get older you have to work at wellness. In the early part of your life, wellness is a given and a part of the warranty of being alive. But after thirty-five to forty, you have to work at it. So the self-care tip today is about exercising, here’s what I want you to do—number one, figure out what kind of exercise you love to do! It can be whatever you want, but you want to enjoy it. If you like jogging, if you like surfing, if you like tennis—pick out something you like to do, and I want everybody to have what I like to call a twenty-minute active period in the morning. It’s what we call the “hour of power” for self-care, and it begins with exercise. So whether you want to do a rapid walk, you want to work on the elliptical, or you want to take a jog, I want everybody out there to size up their physical fitness program and make sure that in the morning, in the first hour of your day you do some physical exercise. The second feature I want you to think about is strength training and resistance training. Somewhere during the week, perhaps two, three times you can get some weights. If you’re busy with your family, or you work long hours, or you have time to go to the gym, I want you to work on your toning. As you get older, the physical body requires toning and requires resistance training. So the key for today is this, remember self-care versus self-wear. The more self-care, the less self-wear, the better your wellness is—the more vital you are, the younger you are, the more energy you are and the happier you are! So the tip for today is again, focus on your physical fitness— I’d like everybody to have at least one aerobic or cadio experience in the morning for twenty minutes, and to figure out a way during the week to find two or three times when you can go to the gym, or go do some workouts to build resistance training, to build your strength, to build your endurance, and to tone your body.”