Spring is finally in the air! Warmer weather and blooming flowers are awesome motivators for getting more active and boosting your health. Plus, summer is just around the corner! Many of us lose a bit of motivation to lead healthy lifestyles during the winter months – mainly due to the holidays, cold weather, and less daylight. Picking things back up during the springtime will help you get back on track before the summer months take over!

One of the best ways to get back into the swing of things is to challenge yourself to some mini wellness challenges. Wellness challenges are a fun way to pick up on new healthy habits. From now until June 21^st (the first day of summer), we challenge you to boost your health and happiness this spring with some of these mini wellness challenges:

If a hot cup of coffee is the first thing you think about after waking up in the morning, you’re not alone! According to research from Villanova University, about 90% of Americans consume caffeine in one form or another every single day. With more than half of American adults consuming more than 300 milligrams of caffeine each day, caffeine consumption isn't dying down anytime soon. 

For many full-time employees, consuming caffeine is an easy way to get a quick jolt of energy and feel more productive in the office. However, choosing unhealthy caffeinated beverages or going overboard with caffeine can lead to some negative health consequences – which is why it’s important to make healthy choices when getting your caffeine fix. Below are five tips to help you enjoy caffeine without it disrupting your health:

Biometric screenings are a fantastic tool for employers to utilize.

Screenings are an easy way to get employees involved in your workplace wellness initiatives and learn more about their current health status. They provide helpful information for both employers and employees by collecting health data that can be translated into actionable goals. It’s a convenient and free opportunity for employees to take a more active role in their health and gain some motivation to develop healthier habits. 

Typically, a biometric screening consists of a simple finger prick or venipuncture blood draw and measures the following health factors: 

• Body Mass Index (BMI)
• Blood pressure
• Waist circumference
• Glucose
• Total cholesterol
• HDL and LDL cholesterol
• Triglycerides

Offering an annual biometric screening is an essential step in creating a successful employee wellness program. The results provide a baseline for employee health, and employers can use these results to track wellness progress, trends, and changes over time. Most screening providers provide an aggregate report after your company’s screening has been completed. While these reports are beneficial for collecting data, many employers aren’t exactly sure what to do with this data.

Stress is inevitable. It’s a part of life and, unfortunately, a part of office culture. Most employees deal with stressful situations or obligations on a regular basis. According to a 2017 survey by Paychex, over 60% of employees said that they felt stressed three or more workdays per week. This stress can lead to chronic stress or eventual burnout, which can both negatively impact physical and mental health.

Since stress can’t necessarily be avoided, it’s important to learn how to handle and cope with stress in a healthy way. Some employees might turn to alcohol, smoking cigarettes, gambling, or other risky behaviors to cope with stress, but these unhealthy habits only make things worse. To truly manage work-related stress, employees need to prioritize their physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing.

If you are starting to feel the signs of chronic stress, it’s urgent to learn coping skills before it’s too late. Chronic stress can lead to high blood pressure, heart problems, digestive issues, chronic aches and pains, and much more. There are many healthy habits that employees can practice to better deal with stress. Below are 12 habits of employees who handle stress like a boss that you can try out for yourself!

A wellness program won’t be successful without any type of behavior change from its employees. Wellness challenges are the core of behavior change, and are essential to any winning workplace wellness program. Hosting regular challenges is a fun, engaging way to help employees practice healthy lifestyle behaviors and create new habits – which can lead to the development of permanent healthy habits. 

Wellness challenges can also be utilized to vamp up your company’s wellness initiatives. In fact, hosting a wellness challenge can:

• Help you climb out of a rut in your program
• Be used to celebrate special events, milestones, or holidays
• Provide some momentum after a new program or campaign launch
• Stimulate engagement by instilling a sense of friendly competition among teams and colleagues

Most wellness challenges don’t usually require a big investment on the employer’s part – which is another reason why they are so appealing. However, sometimes it can be a bit tricky to get employees to participate in a wellness challenge. The key is to promote the challenge with some excitement and motivate employees to get involved for their own benefit. Below are a few ideas to help motivate employees to participate in wellness challenges: 

Being happy is an important aspect of health and wellness.

When you’re not happy, your body feels it. It’s challenging to stay productive and focused, and you’re a lot less likely to make healthy choices when you’re feeling unhappy.

Because happiness is so vital to wellbeing, the United Nations declared March 20^th the International Day of Happiness. It’s a day to recognize and celebrate the importance of happiness in lives of all different people around the globe. 

The International Day of Happiness should remind employers of the value of a happy workplace. Since many Americans spend a good portion of their time in the office, it’s important that they work at a company that prioritizes employee happiness. A principal responsibility of an employer is to create and promote a happy work environment. A happy work environment is not only good for a workforce, but it’s good for the bottom line, too. According to LiveHappy.com, unhappy employees cost employers $300 billion each year in lost productivity.

Wellness coordinators don’t always get the recognition they deserve. They are responsible for a variety of tasks, as well as the preparation and evaluation of wellness initiatives. As a wellness coordinator, your attitude can not only make or break employee participation but can impact how well an employee does throughout the wellness program. Taking a positive, proactive approach to your wellness program can make wellness initiatives more popular and effective.

Being a proactive wellness coordinator means taking action when it comes to your wellness program. A proactive wellness coordinator will reach out to employees, encourage them, and empower them to make healthy changes in their lives. Taking a proactive approach to employee wellness is more effective than a reactive approach for many different reasons:

• Health and wellness is an ongoing process – there is always action to be taken.
• Activity is contagious, so the more effort you put into employee wellness, the more your co-workers will, too.
• A positive, proactive approach sets employees up for success by providing a strong foundation that helps employees develop motivation, excitement, and momentum. 

March is National Nutrition Month! One of the easiest ways to celebrate is by adding more vegetables to your diet. Veggies are very underrated when it comes to their health benefits. By simply eating more veggies on a daily basis, you can improve your diet, eating habits, and overall health. 

Veggies are loaded with powerful nutrients. They are high in fiber, antioxidants, and other essential nutrients, while also being low in sugar and calories. Veggies are also very satiating, so they’ll keep you a lot fuller than fake food will. Some of the most important health benefits of eating more vegetables include: 

• Better gut health
• Reduced risk of chronic diseases (like diabetes, obesity, and heart disease)
• Healthy skin
• Weight management
• Mood-boosting
• Improved immune system

Unfortunately, many Americans don’t take advantage of the amazing health benefits vegetables have to offer. In fact, according to the Harvard School of Public Health, the average American only consumes a total of three combined servings of fruits and vegetables daily. This is concerning because it’s recommended that adults eat between 5 to 13 servings of fruits and vegetables each day – depending on age, gender, physical activity levels, and overall health. You can use this Vegetable Chart to find the right amount for you. 

Spring is almost here! That means it’s time to “spring forward.” Daylight Saving Time begins on Sunday, March 11^th at 2 a.m. While it’s exciting to think about longer days and warmer weather, Daylight Saving Time can sometimes be a difficult transition for many full-time employees. 

The loss of an hour can take its toll. In fact, the week after Daylight Saving Time has an increased rate of car accidents – which are often blamed on sleep deprived or drowsy drivers. A study by the University of Colorado at Boulder found an increase in fatal motor vehicle accidents the first six days after the clocks spring ahead. The study reported that in the first six days of Daylight Saving Time there were 302 deaths and a cost of $2.75 billion over a 10-year period.

Springing forward is much more difficult for your body than “falling back” is in November. Getting sleepy before bedtime becomes more difficult due to the changes in the amount of daylight, which can throw off your circadian rhythm (your body’s internal clock). When sleep cycles are disrupted, it can take about a week to start getting back on track. Losing even just an hour of sleep can cause drowsiness throughout the day that can lead to accidents or difficulty concentrating at work. 

Your attitude in the morning sets the tone for the rest of your day. If you walk into work feeling grumpy, chances are, you’ll walk out of work feeling grumpy, too. Having a negative mindset at work can lead to added stress, trouble concentrating, and irritability – and none of those are great for your work performance. Arriving to work with a negative attitude can also hold you back from forming any positive social connections in the office.

 While we don’t always have complete control over our physical surroundings, we are capable of controlling our mindset. Developing a positive mindset before the workday will help you stay productive, optimistic, and mentally healthy – no matter what the day throws at you. So, instead of swatting at your alarm clock and spending your morning dreading the work ahead of you, try out these tips to help you set the mood for a positive workday: