Grow Into Your Wellness

Wellness gets weirdly hard the moment we start treating it like a scoreboard. So we’re hitting reset and talking about “growing into your wellness” in a way that’s personal, flexible, and actually doable. We share why wellness is not one size fits all, how to stop comparing your habits to someone else’s, and how to keep your goals simple when summer schedules and everyday life feel chaotic.

We also highlight a fun, practical workplace wellness idea: a wellness activity card challenge that rewards small healthy behaviors. Think reusable silverware, exploring a new park or library, drinking more water, taking a walk, catching a sunset, or joining one of our wellness workshops. These tiny actions matter because employee wellness is multifaceted, and real progress often comes from repeating the basics long enough to feel the payoff.

From there, we break down four pillars you can return to anytime: movement, rest, fueling, and positivity. We talk about finding movement you enjoy, using an “all or something” mindset when motivation is low, and why short walk breaks still count toward your wellness goals. We dig into rest and recovery, including sleep and mental breaks, and how they support immune function, injury prevention, attention, and mood. We cover nutrition and hydration with a whole foods focus and intuitive eating, including listening to hunger and fullness cues and making room for fun foods without guilt. We close with the science of optimism and how a more positive outlook can reduce stress and support heart health over time.

If you want a simple, sustainable approach to workplace wellness and everyday health habits, press play. Subscribe, share this with a coworker or friend, and leave a review to help more people find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And The Wellness Mindset

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Welcome back to the Employee Wellness Wellcast. My name is Jane and I will be your host for today's episode. Today we're talking all about growing into your wellness. And this really is at the heart of everything we do as your employee wellness team. Wellness isn't a one-size-fits-all approach. Everyone is on a different wellness journey. It's not about comparing your journey to someone else's. It's about showing up for yourself every day, listening to your body, and pushing yourself to be just a little bit better than you were the day before. Maybe that's being a little bit kinder to yourself, offering yourself more self-compassion, more accountability, more understanding, whatever it is you need to become well overall. That is wellness. This July, employee wellness is offering points for participating in a wellness card activity challenge that encourages healthy behaviors. Some of these activities include, but are not limited to using reusable silverware at work, visiting a new park or library, drinking eight cups of water, going for a walk on the Jordan River Parkway, watching a sunset, or try one of

July Wellness Card Points Challenge

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our wellness workshops we offer. These activities are all focused on strengthening our overall health and wellness because as we know, wellness is multifaceted and it encompasses more than just our physical health. I don't think there is a better time to improve your overall wellness than right now. Let's talk about some simple ways to stay consistent and accountable to yourself and your wellness goals this summer. And let's face it, for life, wellness is not a one-time purchase, it is a daily buy-in that has a really rewarding return on that investment. And I know what you're thinking, it can feel so overwhelming some days to reach our wellness goals when we're balancing the chaos and the grind of just everyday life. But wellness does not and should not be overcomplicated. Let me say that one more time. Wellness does not and should not be overcomplicated. When we feel that way, we need to bring it back to the basics and

Keep Wellness Simple Not Perfect

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have our wellness work for us. This can be hard when we live in a social media-driven world where we're constantly being bombarded by opinions and workout regimenes and all sorts of health and wellness information. We get to choose what works for us. Do not compare your journey to someone else's. Here are some ways we can do this every single day. The first one is moving more. Movement in any enjoyable form is better than no movement at all. The CDC suggests that when we get 150 minutes of moderate to intense aerobic movement paired with at least two days of strength training each week should be our goal. If you find movement enjoyable and

Move More With All Or Something

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fun, way to go. Keep up the great work. Find ways to push yourself and get stronger faster or build muscle and endurance. The health benefits to these are endless, but physical activity is one of the best antidotes to chronic disease prevention such as fatty liver disease, heart failure, depression, osteoporosis, and type 2 diabetes. If you find movement to be a struggle or difficult, perhaps due to an injury or lack of mobility or desire, consider reframing your thoughts from an all or nothing mindset and adopt the all or something approach. Something is better than nothing at all. And often in wellness world, we think if we're not running a marathon, we're not doing enough. And honestly, this is so far from the truth. If you're training for a race, that is amazing and truly motivating. But if you're simply just getting up and moving that body of yours in a way that you enjoy, that is also amazing and truly motivating. You see, any movement is worth celebrating. This mentality will serve you greatly as you focus on whatever movement you can do. Capital letters can. This is all about becoming a little bit better than you were the day before. If you can't fit a full 45-minute workout into your day, then try finding time to get up and move around more throughout your day. Those short 15-minute walking breaks add up, and that movement counts towards your wellness. The next way our wellness can work for us is to prioritize our rest. We're not meant to run faster than we have strength. And yes, it is good to push ourselves and work hard, but if we're working hard, then we should also be resting hard. Rest, recovery, sleep, decompressing, self-care, these are all vital in improving our overall wellness.

Rest Recovery And Sleep Matter

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After exercise or physical strain, the body uses rest periods to rebuild muscle tissue and adapt to training. Rest also helps us prevent injury. Continuous physical stress without adequate recovery can increase the risk of overuse injuries and fatigue. The immune system also benefits from rest. Adequate sleep and recovery time support immune function and they help the body respond better to illness. Rest is also important for our mental and emotional health. We know this. Taking breaks and getting sufficient sleep can enhance our attention, our memory, the way we retain information, and even our decision making. Rest helps regulate emotions, and sleep deprivation is associated with increased irritability, which I can definitely attest to. Stress sensitivity also happens when we don't get a good amount of rest, and it's hard for us to manage our emotions properly. Mental rest is important too. Activities such as meditation, spending time in nature, or simply taking breaks from demanding tasks can really help reduce that mental fatigue. The next section we're gonna highlight is fueling yourself. Nutrition and hydration are a pillar of our health. Food can quite literally heal us from the inside out. In June, we learned all about fueling our bodies by focusing on whole foods. Food influences our wellness in almost every single way. We should focus on eating foods rich in nutrients and add more color

Fueling With Whole Foods And Hydration

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to our plates with vegetables and fruits. A good benchmark for us to reach for is five servings of fruit and veggies a day. Two cups of fruit and three cups of veggies. We have countless resources on our website and our YouTube channel when it comes to nutrient-dense foods and fueling your body intentionally and intuitively. If you've been around here for a while, you know that we live and love the intuitive eating method and model. Intuitive eating is all focused on listening to your body and paying attention to your hunger and your fullness cues. This also includes reaching for nutrient-dense foods first, all while focusing on carbs, fats, proteins, and fibers, and not depriving yourself of air quotes, fun foods. If you're interested in learning more about intuitive eating or you simply just want to get better at this eating pattern, we have countless workshops and articles on our website. And you can chat with any of us health educators, and we would be so happy and excited to talk to you about something that we're very passionate about. Please email us and we can send you a compiled list of all the resources to help you on your journey. One more thing when it comes to food, can we stop obsessing over it? Let's just eat when we're hungry and stop when we're full. Let's fuel our bodies with good food that makes us feel good. Eat the vegetables, eat the bread, eat the birthday cake at our grandkids' birthday party. Let's just let food gather us and connect us together. Food is so much more than just food.

Stop Obsessing Let Food Connect

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It really is the heartbeat of wellness. One last way that we can improve our wellness daily is through positivity. Positivity doesn't mean that we're forcing ourselves to be happy or that we don't recognize when bad things happen. It simply means that we're choosing to focus on the good. Because let's face it, there is so much good. Looking at the glass half full actually has science to back it up. Research

Positivity Backed By Real Science

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suggests that optimistic people often pay more attention to the good around them and are more likely to expect and experience favorable outcomes. Makes sense, right? We reap what we sow. If we're putting out goodness and positivity in the world, we will get that in return. Positive thinking and positive living all contribute positively to our health. When people approach challenges with optimism, they often experience less prolonged stress. Chronic stress triggers the release of hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, which can contribute to high blood pressure, inflammation, sleep problems, and other health issues over time. A more positive outlook can help the body return to its baseline state more quickly after stressful events. But that's not all. Studies have found that optimistic people tend to have lower risk of certain cardiovascular problems. Researchers believe that this is partly because optimism is associated with lower levels of stress, healthier blood pressure patterns, and better health behaviors. And if that's not convincing enough, positive emotions have been linked to healthier immune responses in some studies. While positivity is not a guarantee against illness, lower stress and better overall well-being may help your immune system function more effectively. We sleep better, we eat better, we're able to move our body. So positivity can quite literally benefit every aspect of our wellness. There are so many behaviors you can adopt to grow your garden of wellness. And our wellness activity card this month might just help you find something you didn't know you needed to improve your wellness. You've got this, and we are cheering you on every step of the way. And don't forget, wellness is supposed to be fun. Share it with others. Invite people to join in

Make Wellness Fun And Share It

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in bettering their lives and bettering their health. You'll be happier and so will they. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll catch you next time. Bye.