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Let us keep our focus on our action and not our data, particularly when it comes to our sleep. Good sleep hygiene involves disconnecting with our devices. Many of us may use sleep apps or other sleep monitoring devices, and these can be beneficial. It is though important to make sure we are not obsessed with checking these devices every time we might wake up at night, because this can cause the negative effects we are trying to correct.

Be mindful about how much emphasis you are placing on your commercial health devices. They are still not a substitute for qualified health professionals. Heart rate, blood pressure, and ECG readings are great information to have as a relative indicator about your progress. These readings have been improving, but they are still subject to errors that can give random values that are not accurate.

These random values, data, and need to monitor every aspect of our health can cause unnecessary stress to an individual that can be detrimental to achieving a balance healthy lifestyle. It is important to remain calm and understand that these are not medical devices that provide diagnosable readings, or an absolute look at your health and achievements. It may be beneficial to many to seek out a Kinesiologist when starting out a lifestyle change or attaining health goals. A Kinesiologist can provide clarity on best practices with using health devices, explain the value of the information, and be a reference point between the devices and valid forms of measurements.

If you become concerned with any of these devices, it is important to check in with your physician or Kinesiologist to gain accurate information regarding your health.

By Tara Santavicca, Kinesiologist

COVID-19 has had profound effects on our levels of physical activity and sedentary behaviour – both here in Canada and abroad. Almost two years into the pandemic, and we have become accustomed to new work and study habits, inclusive of decreased opportunities for physical activity and surges in sedentary screen time.

What is sedentary behaviour? It is the act of sitting, reclined or lying down and exerting very little energy. Examples include work, eating meals, reading, or screen time. Not considered sedentary behaviour is sleep. Aiming for 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night can provide wonders for the human body.

As we do shift to a new normal, it is important to schedule in movement breaks to reduce long bouts of sedentary time. Are you still walking over to your colleagues’ desk? For many, the answer is ‘no’, as we hop on to our various digital platforms and type away our questions. The list goes on and one thing is clear, we are more sedentary and moving less during the day.

So, one might wonder, “What’s the problem with increased sedentary time if I attain the recommend 150 minutes of physical activity per week?” Sedentary behaviour is distinct from physical activity. It is a risk factor for all-cause mortality as well as chronic and metabolic diseases. The answer is to focus on both behaviours each day – move more and limit sedentary behaviours each day!

By combining regular physical activity, reducing sedentary behaviour and implementing healthy sleep habits, you can lower your risk of mortality, and many conditions including cardiovascular disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol as well as several cancers (think breast, colon and endometrial), anxiety, depression, and dementia. The result? You are likely to have improved physical function, cognition, bone health, and quality of life.

Unsure where to start or how to improve your movement patterns around the clock? Find a Kin today to help you move better and more often!

References

Knight, R. L., Mcnarry, M. A., Sheeran, L., Runacres, A. W., Thatcher, R., Shelley, J., & Mackintosh, K. A.. (2021). Moving Forward: Understanding Correlates of Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour during COVID-19—An Integrative Review and Socioecological Approach. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(20), 10910. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182010910

Lavie, C. J., Ozemek, C., Carbone, S., Katzmarzyk, P. T., & Blair, S. N.. (2019). Sedentary Behavior, Exercise, and Cardiovascular Health. Circulation Research, 124(5), 799–815. https://doi.org/10.1161/circresaha.118.312669

https://www.ted.com/series/sleeping_with_science

https://ocw.utoronto.ca/movement-breaks/about-movement-breaks/

https://csepguidelines.ca/guidelines/adults-18-64/

The new year is often a time when people often make resolutions to improve their health. However, these resolutions do not last as long as originally planned. To help you stay on track with your resolution, it is important to understand concepts relating to exercise adherence, such as, emotional affect – i.e. the extent to which an activity is experienced as positive or negative.

People may experience positive emotions after a workout, possibly relating to a renewed sense of accomplishment. However, research suggests that experiencing positive emotions during exercise is associated with longer term adherence to an exercise program.

Two important factors that can impact one’s emotional affect include exercise intensity and the experience of low back disorders.

In making a resolution to exercise more, it can be common to start too intensely. Higher intensity exercise tends to create negative feelings for people. It causes higher physical stress on the body, which is likely largely responsible for the negative effect experienced. A person who is new to exercise would be advised to first set a goal of maintaining an exercise routine for a set period of time, rather than a goal relating to improving their physical conditioning. Those who establish exercise routines are more likely to adhere to it long-term and are therefore more likely to reap the benefits associated with it.

One easy way to determining the intensity of an activity would be the talk test.

• If you are able to speak complete sentences during exercise, the activity is likely to result in a positive effect response;
• If you are able to speak 3 to 5 words max, per breath comfortably, then you are training at a moderate intensity. This intensity tends to result in a varied response, positive in some negative in others;
• If it is difficult to speak between breaths, this intensity is likely to result in a negative effect response.

Low Back Disorders (LBDs) impact a significant portion of our population and can potentially be a barrier for participation in exercise. To gain a better understanding of the nature of your LBD, create a list of daily activities (walking, picking-up things from the floor things, etc.) and place these activities in one of three categories, “This movement…”

• increases my pain or discomfort
• does not cause any change
• decreases my pain or discomfort

The answers to these questions will help us better understand which movements and exercises are safe, and which are contraindicated.

Our body is made to move regularly. Exercise intensity and the experience of LBDs are two factors that can significantly impact one’s emotional affect during exercise. Find a kinesiologist to assist you with a tailored exercise regimen to help you achieve your health and fitness goals in a safely and effectively.

WELLNESS WILL BECOME THE NEWEST METRIC THAT COMPANIES USE TO UNDERSTAND THEIR EMPLOYEES. 

For years, executives have experimented with different metrics, such as employee satisfaction or engagement, to understand their employees. In 2022, organizations will add in new measures that assess their mental, physical, and financial health.

Many companies expanded the wellness support they provided to their employees in the wake of the pandemic. A Gartner 2020 survey of 52 HR executives found that:

• 94% of companies made significant investments in their well-being programs
• 85% increased support for mental health benefits
• 50% increased support for physical well-being
• 38% increased support for financial well-being

These programs work for those that take advantage of them. Gartner analysis shows that employees who utilize these benefits report 23% higher levels of mental health, 17% higher levels of physical health, and are 23% more likely to say they sleep well at night. These improvements in personal outcomes translate to higher levels of performance and retention.

However, there has been limited uptake of these programs by employees. Across the last 12 months, our data shows that less than 40% of employees have taken advantage of any well-being offering provided by their employer.

In 2022, organizations will adopt new employee well-being measures that capture the financial health, mental health, and physical health of their employees to more accurately predict employee performance and retention.

Hire a Kinesiologists or Find a Kinesiologist near you: https://www.cka.ca/en/find-a-kin

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It’s beginning to look a lot like the holiday season, which means more family time, baking, watching classic movies on TV and cozy nights by the fire. Baby it’s cold outside and the COVID-19 pandemic will certainly pose new challenges for Canadians this December with the closure of gyms and other indoor fitness facilities. This is why it is especially important to get creative with your workout routine this winter.

A healthy active lifestyle is essential for your physical and mental health and offers numerous physiological and emotional benefits. Unfortunately, the Canadian Health Measures Survey reports that only 7% of kids and 15% of adults are meeting the recommendations for moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (60 minutes per day for children, 150 minutes per week for adults) (Colley et al., 2011). Being apart from family and friends this holiday season will surely increase emotional distress but incorporating exercise into your routine can aid in reducing those COVID-19 blues! Physical activity is proven to improve mental health through allowing increased blood flow to the brain. This assists with reducing anxiety and depression while simultaneously improving mood, self-efficacy and other cognitive functions (Sharma et al., 2006).

If the uncertainty and chaos of this holiday season has you struggling to stay active, focus on fun activities that will motivate you. Getting outside even in the cold weather is important for your mental and physical health! To help you, we have created our version of the BINGO challenge; the KIN-GO challenge. This is a creative way to get you moving this winter- and you can even challenge friends and family to see who the first one is to complete the whole card!

There has never been a time in our lives where taking responsibility for our own health could be of greater significance. We have taken unprecedented measures in an attempt to deter the impact of this invisible enemy however Sars-Cov-2 continues to endanger the human race with its rapid exponential spread across the country. This virus although indiscriminate of color or creed has shown a decisive focus on the most vulnerable amongst us. Those already suffering from chronic disease have been shown to have a much greater risk upon contractive COVID-10 with a likelihood of increasing severity for every diagnosed comorbid condition (Sanayaolu et al. 2020P. With these stats in mind it brings us to ask the question, “how can we reduce the incidence of comorbid conditions amongst the general population to help combat the severity of COVID-19 on the human race?

How can a Kinesiologist help? Hypertension, Dementia, Cardiovascular Diseases, Diabetes, Renal Diseases, Respiratory Diseases, or cancer.

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We are all human beings, and each of us has a physical body. We also all have a mind, and we all have emotions. In the same way that we all have a state of physical health, we all have a state of mental health. Mental health is more than the absence of mental illness.

Here’s something to think about: You might have an illness or a disease, say diabetes. Maybe you deal with the symptoms through diet, physical activity, medication or in other ways. When it comes to your physical health, you might feel absolutely great.

On the other hand, you might not have any illness or disease, but for any number of reasons, you might not feel physically well at all. Say you don’t sleep well, or you are rundown.

All this to say that you might have an illness or disease on one hand, but feel well on the whole. On the other hand, you may not have a disease but are not feeling “well” at all.

The same is true about your mental health. You might have a mental illness, but that doesn’t mean you’re mentally unhealthy. Or that you can’t feel well.

And even if you don’t have a mental illness, you may at times feel mentally unwell. Stress, an overwhelming schedule, and difficult life events or circumstances can put pressure on your mental health.

Mental Health Week is approaching, and we’re getting ready to #GETLOUD about what mental health really means. We can all have a state of mental wellbeing, whether or not we have a mental illness. Every single one of us.

Source

https://mentalhealthweek.ca/how-is-mental-health-like-physical-health/

The Canadian Kinesiology Alliance (CKA) is a non-profit corporation that advocates and promotes the advancement of the profession of kinesiology in Canada. It is the unifying voice for kinesiology in Canada and represents nine provincial kinesiology associations and over 4,000 affiliated Kinesiologists. Their goal is to push the science of kinesiology forward.

Understanding the challenge

As a brand, however, CKA wanted to reposition itself and kinesiology in the health sector; it had big strategic goals to have the science recognized across Canada as a prevention and treatment aid. Visually, its brand consisted of a clinical red primary colour with a few other elements to express their personality. The biggest struggle came down to how CKA viewed itself — it couldn’t decide if Kinesiology was a field of practice or a brand? The question we posed was: Could it be both?

Modern brands shape the customer’s identity and build communities around a shared passion. When Canadians hear or see the word “Kinesiology,” we wanted them to understand what it is, who it’s for and how it differs from other health professions in Canada. We needed to build a brand that helped Canadians identify with the word “Kinesiology” as well as the science of it.

Part of the challenge around redeveloping CKA’s brand was that we were asked not to change the primary logo. As well, whatever brand story and strategy we developed had to cover the various needs of Kinesiologists in different regions, be an expression of their values and passion for Kinesiology and connect customers to their reason for being, rather than to a product or service.

Finding the concept

From the start, we realized that there were a lot of moving pieces and a lot of people who needed a say in the process. After all, the brand needed to resonate with more than 4,000 Kinesiologists across Canada in such a way that each one would not only understand it but would also feel confident in standing behind it.

In order to collaborate with the various stakeholders, we took the approach of engaging provincial association members early and often in the process. Every idea was debated and discussed. As we narrowed down the final concepts, we ensured that no one was surprised by what was presented. This also gave us was a clear understanding of the language and tone Kinesiologists themselves use when talking about themselves to customers and other stakeholders. Asking the question, “how do you work with people?,” allowed us to find the language that drew on their experiences and helped bring the brand vision forward.

What happened next?

“Move better to live better” and “With a Kin, you can” soon emerged as the overwhelmingly favoured taglines. Those concepts drove us to bring the brand alive through colours, illustrative elements and stock images that all Canadians could connect with. The brand needed to speak to real Canadians and to do so we used elements that showed a diverse demographic. The science of Kinesiology speaks as much to high–performance athletes recovering from injury as it does to an elderly person who refuses to let age limit their abilities. We created a brand to support CKA’s view of movement as medicine.

With a new brand and brand story in place, we supported CKA during National Kinesiology Week. With a focus on osteoporosis, we launched a digital advertising and video campaign to express their primary message in an exciting, tactile and engaging way.

Going forward, CKA’s brand story has informed the direction of its website, inspired its marketing campaigns and encouraged new CKA members to join the movement.

Tips for great brand work

1) Get stakeholder buy-in early. Regardless of how many stakeholders have a say in your brand work, get their buy in early and often. There’s nothing worse than thinking you have a fully solidified brand then discovering you don’t have buy-in from those who matter.

2) Have brand ambassador input. While stakeholder buy-in is important, it’s also essential to ensure that the brand concept resonates with those who will live and breathe it every day. By soliciting their input, you know that what you come up with will not only feel genuine, it will also have their full support.

3) Storify your visuals. When you have a limited budget, sometimes expensive photo shoots and conceptual, original photography just aren’t going to make the cut. But you can still personalize stock photos to create your own spin. For CKA, we developed illustrative elements that conveyed movement and science that, when overlaid on images, add a unique, lively and conceptual representation of the work kinesiologists do.

STAYING ACTIVE DURING COVID-19

In response to the recent COVD-19 pandemic and requests we have received from several members around the world, ACSM and EIMC leaders put together a Prescription for Health on Staying Active During the Coronavirus Pandemic. This prescription is not geared to any one group of individuals but may provide guidance to all individuals during this challenging time.

Access EIMC/ACSM Blog

Walking the Talk: Why Kinesiologists are Joining the Conversation on Mental Health

Studies and kinesiologists’ practice show regular physical exercise can improve mental wellbeing, including living with depression and anxiety.

We rarely talk about kinesiologists when it comes to mental health barriers or a mental wellness strategy.

But as kinesiologists gain a deeper understanding of clients’ health histories, they’re uncovering a pattern of mental health issues.

“I would say, conservatively, that 70 per cent of my clients are on antidepressants,” says Kathie Sharkey, a Regulated Kinesiologist (R.Kin) who has been practicing for 23 years.

While clients of Sharkey aren’t typically coming in strictly to deal with depression, or even with a referral from their doctor because of the condition, it is often part of the larger picture of their health.

“Typically, I’ll work with a client for another condition… a knee replacement or heart condition or injury that they need some assistance with and do a health history and uncover depression or anxiety,” she says.

Kinesiologists are well-practiced at customizing an exercise plan that accommodates pre-existing conditions and injuries – but not many realize that this can include mental health concerns, as well.

“We can use the analogy of a knee injury,” says Sharkey. “I can find out what their mental health barriers are; what makes it worse and what makes it better? I can also offer suggestions for additional resources if their condition falls out of my scope of practice.”

As always, kinesiologists’ practice begins with evidence-based research, and thanks to recent studies released by Harvard Medical School, we know a little movement goes a long way to helping people feel better mentally.

“We saw a 26% decrease in odds for becoming depressed for each major increase in objectively measured physical activity,” says Karmel Choi, study author and clinical and research fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

“Ideally, to prevent depression you should do at least 15 minutes a day of higher-intensity exercise, like running, or at least an hour of lower-intensity exercise, like walking or housework.

“Intentionally moving your body in more gentle ways throughout the day — like walking, stretching, taking the stairs, doing the dishes — can still add up in good ways for your mood,” says Choi.

We’ve long known the benefits of exercise for mental wellbeing ­– but this and another recently released study in the Harvard Gazette, confirm “increased levels of physical activity can significantly reduce the odds of depression, even for those genetically predisposed to the condition.”

This means we can quite literally stave off depression with consistent physical exercise.

Choi’s study also reveals that due to exercise’s impact on the brain, creating new neurons in the hippocampus, exercise can not only decrease the likelihood of depression, “it can significantly reduce anxiety and depression as effectively as behavioural therapy or medication.”

So, we now know a very simple to moderate exercise plan can decrease symptoms of or reduce depression and anxiety, and in some cases, even prevent it.

But, we also know the challenges associated with getting started on an exercise routine – especially if you’re dealing with depression or a lack of motivation.

Enter kinesiologists: your partner in designing and sticking to a custom workout plan that works for your body and mental health goals.

Here are five ways kinesiologists can get you moving better to feel mentally stronger.

1. Get you started moving in the right direction

Most people Sharkey sees come in with a physical condition in addition to depression. They may start out a new year with lofty goals, and then actually aggravate an injury working out on their own, worsening their injury, slowing them down, and thus, deepening their depression.

Kinesiologists can design a program to get you started on the right track moving safely.

2. Make safe movement possible

A common scenario Sharkey sees is a client feeling like they can’t exercise safely because they’ve tried and felt pain in the past. Then, they stick to a sedentary lifestyle and their symptoms and moods worsen. This cycle can be broken by building a long-term plan with short-term gains (and modifications) that gets you moving safely.

3. Keep you accountable (on your terms)

Having a program and guidance to make sure it all goes well can’t be overstated. And it doesn’t have to cost you your life’s savings, or even the cost of a personal trainer. “I can meet with someone maybe four times over four to six months and we can slowly work on a program and slowly implement change,” says Sharkey. “Slow, miniscule change is how you’re going to be successful… and if you only have $500 worth of insurance, I don’t need to burn through it in two weeks. We can be here for you just to check in and make sure you’re on the right track.”

4. Help you enjoy the things you love

Ultimately, learning to move safely and improving your cardio fitness will help you better enjoy the things you love in life. Whether it’s playing with your kids or grandkids, walking your dog or gardening, you’ll move better about your day, increasing your enjoyment of the things you love.

5. Prevent future health concerns

There’s no other mental health intervention or treatment that has as many benefits as physical exercise – and besides decreasing your risk of major heart conditions, diabetes, many types of cancer, depression and anxiety, physical exercise can significantly reduce the likelihood of Alzheimer’s – further proof that what’s good for your body is good for your mind.

For further reading, visit:

Ontario Kinesiology Association’s Position Statement on Mental Health

Harvard Medical School’s “More evidence that exercise can boost mood”

The Harvard Gazette’s “Lower risk of depression with elevated exercise”

ParticipACTION’s “Why physical activity needs to be part of the mental health conversation”

Looking for some mental health support?

Visit Bell Let’s Talk’s resource page