191.Holiday Burnout vs. Bliss: The Corporate Wellness Take on Festive Fitness

Links for today's episode:
Blog post that includes bonus resources: https://www.kathieowen.com/blog/hande-holiday-burnout

Hande’s Website: www.handeerel.com

Hande’s Linkedln: http://bit.ly/Hande-LinkedIn

Hande’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/hande_personal_trainer

Hande’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hande.bertelsen

In today's episode:
Managing Holiday Burnout with Expert Tips from Hande: Fitness & Stress Solutions

In this episode of Kathie's coaching podcast, I'm thrilled to bring a special guest, Hande from Barcelona, Spain, who is an expert online personal trainer focusing on corporate wellness.

Together, we discuss the prevalent issue of holiday burnout and share actionable strategies that can be applied year-round.

Hande talks about her background, the challenges people face during holidays both personally and professionally, and the importance of balancing time for fitness even in a busy schedule.

We also delve into the impact of exercise on the immune system and provide practical tips for incorporating movement into the workplace.

Tune in for a wealth of knowledge and ways to maintain your well-being during stressful times!

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction and Special Guest Announcement 
00:50 Meet Hande: Personal Trainer from Barcelona 
03:47 Challenges of Holiday Season and Fitness 
12:45 Exercise and Immune System Boost 
15:31 Healthy Eating During Holidays 
18:06 Incorporating Movement in the Workplace 
21:55 Final Tips and Conclusion

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to Kathie's coaching podcast. I'm your host, Kathie today. We have a special guest. We're always talking about burnout and ways to prevent that. And all kinds of great things, but today I'm bringing in a special guest from Barcelona, Spain. In case you didn't know I'm in Texas. And this friend of mine is from Barcelona. Spain. She's an online personal trainer. And works with companies on corporate wellness. And today we're talking about holiday burnout, but let's say you're not dealing with the holidays right now. You can apply what you learn today. Across the board any time. All right. Let's get into the episode and I hope you enjoy today's show.

Audio Only - All Participants: 0:50

All right, today we're going to talk about something really popular any time of year, anytime we, we're going to be talking about the holiday season. However, you will find this applies to any time of year, and I brought in my expert guest, Hande first of all, before we even get started, I want Hande to tell you a little bit about herself and where she lives and what she does. So we can get right down to the topic. Absolutely. With pleasure, Kathie my name is Hande. It means joy in Turkish. I take pride and joy in what do as a personal trainer. I provide my services online and on site to individuals and corporations here in Barcelona, globally and, uh, locally. Um, I started, uh, as a personal trainer because I was a sport enthusiast myself. I did freestyle uh, swimming. First and then open sea swimming and gymnastics. So that got me interested in wanting to learn how do we do this and what are the systems that needs to work perfectly to make these movements of daily life happening injury free. If so, if there was to be injury, how do we overcome? So I went to school and studied about this and I got fascinated the more I learned about human mechanics mechanics and biomechanics and kinesiology and I specialized in post orthopedic surgery recovery. Then my journey with my clients and working in physiotherapy centers in Istanbul, in New York, now here individually in Barcelona and with my Companies led me to dive into more of the component of overall well being, applying lifestyle medicine essentials to longevity that can be applicable to an athlete, to a person who has a desk job, and how to enhance productivity, through movements. Awesome. Love it. Across the board. And we talked about corporate wellness and Hande is one of my specialists who comes in and works with, companies. She does online workouts and I will have links to her in the description and show notes below. And you can always check that out and find out How you could work with Hande and incorporate these tips inside your workplace. So let's start with a question because we're in the right about to hit the holiday season and today's topic is going to be Finding time management for fitness. This is one of our most popular questions as a personal trainer. How do I find time to exercise and also help with the stress management that comes up during the holiday season? So Hande, my first question for you is, What are the common challenges people face during the holiday season? Oh, Kathie what a great question. Well, I'll start it out. I would divide this into two categories. On an individual personal life, People's struggles and also in their professional life, right? On a personal level, you might be, holiday season could be very busy, stressful season for you. That could mean overspending, over traveling. It could be, it could have its strains on your budget. It could,, be time, be if you have to travel to be with family and friends, taking time off. It could take toll on personal, whether you have a conflict in the family dynamics or you're maybe grieving of a lost one. So holiday season brings a lot of, emotions and how do we regulate them? You could be one minute over the top with joy, the next you could be very sad. So how do we try to balance this on an individual level and also looking at reaching your or maintaining your fitness goals. And on the professional level, you could say it could be also stressful time of the year because you could be, you might have deadlines. it could be your end. If you're on a contract base, maybe your contract at work is coming up at the end of the year. Or your bonus negotiations could be taking place again,, holiday, happy hour with clients, and also with colleagues and holiday season parties with, how do you, stay fit, physically and mentally, these are the general challenges. And these definitely have a profound impact on our productivity and overall well being. It could lead to anxiety, it could affect in a negative way our sleep quality, that can affect your clarity of focus and productivity at work, leading into anxiety, depression and weight gain, basically. So, it sounds like, oh, jeez, okay, we want to have fun holiday season, this is you portraying the whole of a horrible scenario here, but no, we know that exercise helps. This is scientifically proven fact. Through exercise, it can help you balance hormones, right? Like all the hormones that we want to keep low, you can get that with exercise, like Your cortisol, your stress hormone could be reduced through exercise and your good hormones that we want to increase like your endorphins aka feel happy hormones could significantly, uh, go up and keep you energized and it will have a profound impact on on your mood, uh, your productivity, helping you identify and prioritize tasks, your time management. All of these will give you time to have me time. So overall, exercising, you need to invest in yourself to invest in others rules. It also applies to holiday season. Absolutely. So how do you recommend, or what type of exercise would you recommend somebody does that has a busy schedule and can't actually fit it in to get those happy hormones going? Just maybe, um, a quick workout or something like that. What would you recommend? Alright, what I would recommend is, first of all, take a deep breath. Go easy on yourself. Let's focus on your mindset, right? Let's take the anxiety out of here by setting realistic goals, I would say. Let's start there. What does that look like for you? If you're someone Uh, normally, uh, training, uh, systematically three times a week, an hour, and now you may not be able to do this holiday season. Your gym could be closed, you could be traveling, not have access to gym, you might have a personal trainer that you don't, or your company provides. Uh, services, uh, like through Kathie or me is not accessible to them, then you're like, Oh my, what do I do on my own? So let's take a deep breath and ask ourselves, what's my goal here? Maybe this is not my optimal time to reach my fitness goals, but it could be maintenance phase. Meaning do what you can do. If Set realistic goals. Maybe once or twice a week doing short term, uh, all out workouts that doesn't require space or equipment could help you. Another approach could be if you have a personal trainer or your company offers online Uh, personal training that they may continue granting you that online services and there you have your accountability, you still have your access, so your regime may not be affected at all. Individual level, then you might also think about incorporating family time into this. I have two little boys and I'm telling you, they are amazing. The best dumbbell ever. They're, they're, they weigh different every month, just lifting them, doing squat, good luck, you know, with a five and a seven year old, and we have a great time together. And in fact, one of the first few words my all oldest Dominic learned was plank. So in order to maintain and also pass on the healthy, sustainable, um, Life habits. It's a great opportunity to incorporate, uh, wellness into your family time. Seriously. Or, uh, tap into using technology. Watch, uh, you know, positive, um, podcasts like this one to give you that extra boost, right? Um, these are the things that I find very helpful, uh, going into no equipment required. Thank you, Gary. Short, full out exercises and planning ahead. If you're planning to have a family time, you could tell them, you know, this afternoon, I'm going to need an hour to myself. And in that hour, you could maybe have a 20, 30 minute run or jump rope or move your body, dance. And then you have another 30 minutes to have a quick, you know, banana and shower and Get going. So it's just about planning and thinking about these things and sharing with people. That's great. I love that. I love how you incorporated, um, adding your family, getting them involved in it as well. I think that that's very beneficial and also. Probably my favorite thing is you started with the deep breath because that's going to start getting oxygen to the brain and getting your brain to settle down and focus. So maybe even just setting the realistic goal and being kind to yourself and taking that deep breath and just relaxing into the present moment and then perhaps getting the kids involved. And so you said that your son's. One of his first words was plank. I love that. So what that tells me is Hande invites her, her children into the wellness sphere as well. And Sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves. And when the holidays come up, that is just a given. It, like she started with, with the emotions, the ups, the downs. We all experience that. And being kind to yourself and feeling those emotions. Just letting them process. And then settle into the present moment and doing what you can do. If you have to put the kids in a stroller and go for a walk, that's good too. So I like how she incorporates a little of everything in that. So let's talk about the, how exercise helps your immune system, and then we'll get into some strategies we can do inside the workplace as well. But before we get into the workplace setting and, and Perhaps adding some movement in our day at work. Let's talk about how exercise helps with our immune system, because as we know, the holidays add that stress and any time of year, we can always benefit from having a healthy immune system. So let's talk about how exercise helps our immune system. Right. It's going back to, I think hormones, uh, play a big role in this by exercising, uh, trying to restore balance in the hormone levels can help us, um, make healthier choices. By that, I mean, the more relaxed you feel, the more, uh, the, well rested you are and more efficiently you go through your day, then that's going to lead into another healthier approach. Maybe that's going to be like, okay, today I feel the workout from yesterday. So most likely when you're feeling that, uh, muscle soreness in a good way, most likely you're not going to go, eat junk food. You know, maybe you're going to be like, I need to refuel my body. So it can recover. So these, through exercise, it, over time, it has a positive impact on, affecting everything. The lifestyle medicine pillars that we look into from nutrition choices to exercise, to stress, to sleep, to community, all of these will be becoming more coherent. And we know also that immune system Uh, with the reduction of stress, it, it, it boosts itself, it, it protects itself really well. One of the things we do. I'm going to say, um, healthier eating choices, right? The healthier, the cleaner we start eating, then your body will have the nutrition, uh, to protect and defend itself. And, uh, whatever, that may not prevent you from having a flu, you may still have a flu, but you may, uh, pass it much easier., this is very important, uh, effect we, we get. And you see that immune system's positive effect in your productivity. You show up to work on time, you, you are more rested and you may be taking more, uh, personal and sick leave days less. How would you recommend eating healthy with. all the holiday food choices that we have out there. Um, because I mean it's kind of hard to turn them all down and then we're trying to eat healthy and stay healthy. So what would you recommend? Oh, great question. It's a tough one because imagine you haven't seen your grandma who's 80 years old and made this delicious pie for you and, you know, you can't say no. You shouldn't say no. So keeping that perspective in mind, I would always say moderation, moderation, moderation. People may not want to hear this, but honestly, it's simple as that. Um, don't look at food as an award. Your affiliation with food should be something Like you need to refuel your system to function. So you need to give food, uh, calories to your body to do its job. And also bringing it back to strengthening your immune system. So keep that in mind and have a healthy relationship with food. What I recommend on addition to moderation is that simple things as eating Start off with giving your body a choice to eat something that you know is healthier. Even all the choices on the table may not be the best choice you think, but choose what's the most healthiest option you have. First eat that, and then you can in moderation enjoy, uh, something without overindulging. Because once that idea how the brain works with food is that if you want that, uh, you know, um, cinnamon cookie, it's in there. You can try to trick it all you want, but the brain and body is going to crave that. So you might as well enjoy it. Guilt free. Have an apple, have a grape, something like that, and then go ahead and enjoy that slice of pie guilt free. And I think this is very, uh, something as basic as it may be. Sometimes we forget and need to hear this. Right, I agree. And um, this leads me right into the next thing, like in the workplace. Um, not just food and nutrition, but let's talk about movement and exercise because we're seeing a new type of, I want to call it a pandemic, is the, that sitting, is the new smoking, um, how can we get more movement in. at the office, in the workplace. What do you recommend? Yes, I think HR can play a significant positive role in this one, Kathie, by access to gym or having a space within the office that is designated for people to go in and do exercises or bring in in person or online trainer. To help them move and stretch, whether it's in the form of fitness, it could be in the form of meditation, it could be in the form of workshops. Um, these are the things that HR can help. Also, selecting food. If they're going to have a meeting, maybe instead of ordering pizza, maybe they can, uh, order a healthier sandwich option. They're out there. Or, Order the pizza, but also order a salad. You know, these are the things in the workplace. HR can have a positive impact on it. Also, on a personal level, if your company is not in a position to provide these services, you can, um, try to get up by the hour, set an alarm, move, go grab a glass of water, and then stretch your body a little bit, instead of maybe asking a question to your, uh, colleague. Get out of your chair and go talk. Have that human connection. Walk while you're standing. Maybe stretch a little bit. Or like I am right now, right? Imagine me in front of a computer. I could just have these little movements. I can add some stretch here and there. Little bit of these things can go a long way because I agree. Sitting is a new smoking. It compromises body's entire center of gravity and it has a huge impact. It's not just the aesthetics we're talking about, but body's capacity to function the way it should be. Right. I agree. And I like that how, how you recommended doing sitting stretches and moving your body in different ways, because if we're sitting all day, this is going to start happening with our posture and everything. Another thing she said that I really want to hone in on is walking meetings and the connection that happens there. So if we're going to have meetings where we're walking, it's, it's going to open up. new types of communication, as well as your neural pathways will change and things will happen differently where the meeting will be a lot more effective because you're getting that exercise at the same time and you're getting the social connection too. So I love how she mentioned that and also just making sure you're getting the movement in there. So HR directors can have something where they recommend this, or they have a room where they recommend it, or they even have a personal trainer that does the workouts online. And you could easily just go into the room where you have this set up and go through the movements. And another thing is the stretches. You can also have these stretch movements. as well inside this little movement, because if we don't stretch and move, we tighten up and that just, that just does not help at all. All right. So in closing, what would you recommend? Number one, first thing for managing your time with your fitness and getting your fitness in, like, Give us a simple tip that we can take away right now. And again, remember this is not just during the holidays. This is one of our most frequently asked questions is, how do I squeeze in exercise in a busy schedule? Oh, it's a hard one to say because everyone has different approaches. What works for me personally, I'll share, is that if I don't Start the day with the workout. It's just most likely not going to happen. And if it doesn't get happened into the day, I'm looking, going through the day. Time is clicking and ticking and I don't have time and I'm having less energy, more things to do. I'm beginning to stress out. So in order to avoid not only I have an exercise, but also adding stress of not having a time to exercise. So I go ahead and set the alarm. I get up. And I'm like, I have to do this. And at the beginning, um, this could be challenging, right? In winter time, you could feel like it's dark, it's cold. I just want to be under my bed. It's just like, but take that, push yourself or have someone push you. Make that first move as hard as it can. But trust me, once you start doing it, you're going to be like, after that, Even if it's 20 minutes, you're going to be like so happy, so proud of yourself that you did that. Because what workout actually represents, it's more than just moving. It's achieving something that you put set forth. You plan to do that and you have done that. This is Also your time and it also, uh, empowers you, uh, as a person, as an individual. And afterwards you have more energy. I feel more positive that I can give that, uh, transfer that energy to my clients and everyone else, uh, from my neighbor to everyone I see. They get the best version of me. So try to do it. Take that leap of faith. Push yourself and do that and then you're going to be going back to it again and again and when you do that just turn around and be like you did great. I love it. I love it. So yeah, I agree with her a hundred percent but if it's the holiday season and it's kind of stressful and a busy, busy time it at the very least get in some type of movement if it's just 15 minutes and And just get in a walk or a yoga exercise or some breath work, bottom line, what happens when you exercise, like Hande told us, that you're, you're kicking in the good feeling hormones in your brain and the neurochemicals in your brain, and you're balancing out the stressful ones. So we want to be able to do that and exercise is the solution. And if you have to just push yourself to get up. little bit earlier, go do that exercise. You'll be so glad you did. And it, it'll, it'll shift everything. And that's what I like about that. So I also want to mention how Hande and I met. She had wrote an article about sitting in the workplace, and she does corporate wellness for companies. I And it caught my eye. And it, it, she, it was on LinkedIn, I think. And I just connected with her right away. And we're like besties now. And she's on the other side of the world. I'm in Texas, and she's in, what, what, Barcelona? Am I right? That's correct. How we connected was so awesome. And I am going to have Hande back. on a future episodes to talk about more corporate wellness and physical health in the workplace. But I also love how she touched on the mental health too, because that's, that's something near and dear to my heart in the mental health in the workplace and how it all comes together and employee engagement. Everything just makes a big shift when you have a corporate wellness program in your company. And so, Hande is also one of my experts inside my course that will help us learn how we could have the exercise in the workplace and do other things. But today's episode was about holiday and stress. And so I think in the future our episode we'll be talking about is sitting in the workplace and how we can stop doing that as well and start incorporating more movement and even probably have Hande give us some exercise tips. So you can look forward to that in the future. with us. Thank you so much for joining me today, Hande, and I know everybody's gonna just love this episode and how their holiday stress may be diminished and what, what an awesome thing. All right. And again, I will have links to Hande in the show notes and description below, where you can learn more about working with her, as well as her online content. So, thank you very much for being here today, and you have anything else you want to say? Well, I want to say thank you, Kathie uh, for, uh, reaching out to my posting, and I feel like this is going to be, which already has been so far, beginning of a great, uh, Friendship that we can hopefully touch, uh, improving people's lives together. And with that, that, that's awesome. All right. So thanks for watching today. And I trust that you found it helpful. If you know somebody who can benefit from this, please share with them. And until next time, I'll see you next time. Peace out and Namaste.