An integrative health coach helps individuals achieve healthy lifestyles and overall quality of life by identifying and addressing all aspects of their lives, not just physical health. They work with clients to set attainable goals and may be recommended for patients with chronic illnesses.
An integrative health coach works with individuals to help them achieve healthy lifestyles, achieving both short-term and long-term goals. The trainer often encourages clients to see the different ways in which each aspect of their life is related to and can affect their physical health. A health technician’s goal is to improve the overall quality of life of their clients and reduce or eliminate the need for frequent doctor or hospital visits.
Clients may meet with their integrative health trainer frequently during the first few sessions as the two participants get to know each other and form a partnership. Trainers can ask clients to share their personal goals with them in areas related to fitness, personal emotional development, and career opportunities. The health coach can then use these responses to help clients frame attainable goals and identify things in their lives that may be keeping them from achieving them.
An integrative health trainer tends to operate from the principle that all aspects of an individual’s life work together. A client may seek the advice of a health coach to help them achieve fitness goals such as exercising daily and eating right. The practitioner may determine, through a series of sessions, that the client is held back from achieving goals by emotional depression or being part of a negative or toxic relationship. The health coach can help the client connect each separate avenue of their life, from work to personal relationships, to uncover the things that are preventing them from living the active, healthy lifestyle they desire.
This type of trainer is usually employed by a hospital or may receive many referrals from doctors. The role of the integrative health coach is part of an overall model often referred to as integrative health care. This model seeks to address a patient’s overall health and lifestyle rather than just treating the physical illness that brought them to the hospital or doctor. Patients with chronic conditions such as cancer, severe arthritis and heart disease are often recommended for this type of training. While not all chronic illnesses can be completely cured by lifestyle changes, many of their negative side effects can be lessened or eliminated by making healthier choices.
A patient seeking treatment for diabetes in the integrative healthcare model may be an excellent candidate for referral to an integrative health coach, for example. This patient typically requires insulin injections, as well as regular check-ups with a healthcare professional to monitor blood sugar levels and healthy circulation throughout the body. Obesity, poor eating habits, lack of exercise and genetic predisposition are factors that contribute to the onset and continuation of diabetes. A health coach can help the diabetic patient out of the doctor’s office or in the hospital learn new foods and recipes that lower their weight and help maintain healthy blood sugar levels. The trainer may also recommend exercises to increase circulation, reduce weight, and decrease a patient’s chance of suffering heart disease or circulation-related amputation later in life.
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