When starting a wellness coaching program, the first thing that a person will do is to complete a health risk assessment (HRA). An HRA is a questionnaire that’s designed to evaluate a person’s lifestyle related behaviors and health history. Said another way, an HRA tells a person what they are doing well and where they need to make changes if they want to be healthier and live longer. HRA’s can look at all types of lifestyle related behaviors like – smoking status, levels of stress, perceptions of health, health history, driving habits and many, many other areas.
Using this information a wellness coach is able to come up with a for lowering those health risks and improving a person’s quality of life. Common areas a wellness coach might help are; stress management, cholesterol levels, weight loss programs, ergonomics and diet / nutritional counseling. Good wellness coaches motivate the clients to create goals, improve their health status and ultimately have a healthier, fuller life.
Core Wellness Coaching Components
- Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)
- Diet & Nutrition
- Disease Management
- Family & Marital Relationships
- Physical Fitness Education
- Pre-and Post-natal Wellness Programs
- Smoking Cessation, Tobacco Cessation and Prevention
- Stress Management Programs
- Walking and Exercise
- Weight Loss and Weight Management
- Work/Life Balance
Wellness coaches interact with clients in a wide range of ways. Some of the ways include; face-to-face meetings, telephone calls, video conferencing, instant messaging and via email. Good wellness coaches offer many of the above modes of contact. The reason is simple – to be as accommodating and to make it as easy as possible for the person being coached to get the help and support they need to make changes and reach their goals.
Wellness coaches – good ones – have many different tools at their disposal to help their clients. Many offer a full set of online wellness tools to help educate their clients, record goals and track the changes being made by their client. It’s vital to make sure that the information provide to a wellness coach is secure – both online and in their office. Not all wellness coaches do a good job with this so it falls to the client to make sure that they’ve verified the safety protocols used by their wellness coach.
Regularly schedule calls or appointments with your wellness coach are to be expected. The frequency and type of interaction depends largely on what’s wanted by the client. Some want / need more interaction with their wellness coach while others prefer to have less interaction.