Wellness Bloggers and the Gaps in the Health System

I was approached by an ECU Daily journalist a couple of weeks ago in regards to the Popularity of controversial Wellness bloggers like Belle Gibson is a side-effect of major gaps in health system.

See below some insights I shared with Danielle Austin of ECU Daily:

How should Consumers approach Wellness Information on the internet?

  • Consumers should exercise a degree of care when looking for wellness information online. Whilst this is the predominant method of research for the vast majority of people these days, it is much harder to make a distinction on ‘what’s right for them’.

Where should people seek their medical information and how can they be sure that health information they read on the internet is not fraudulent?

  • Depends on the type of health information they are looking for. If due to a medical illness, they should consult their doctor or qualified health professional
  • Do research online to see if the website is supported by such institutions or purely commercial interests.
  • A good example of a credible site would be the Betterhealthchannel.vic.gov.au, which was created by the Victorian government. However, the user-friendliness of design and content could be improved significantly, and this is where a lot of credible sites are managing poorly. Consumers then take to other more ‘attractive’ sites by celebrities and big brands.

How should consumers approach celebrity endorsed diets/ health claims (e.g. Pete Evans Paleo for babies)?

  • Celebrities are entitled to their opinion on what products and services they wish to recommend. However, consumers should do a check that the health results are verified by independent scientific bodies, which determines the validity of those claims. Every person is an individual with individual needs in terms of diet, exercise, mental, social and environmental needs. They should consult qualified health professionals if they have specific health needs. They should also listen to their bodies in terms of any concerning symptoms, and consult a health professional.

How can cancer patients, and patients of other illnesses, find wellness programs to support them without giving them false medical information?

  • Patients with severe illness should ask their doctor, hospital or qualified health professional about wellness programs that are right for them. Some hospitals such as the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse (affiliated with RPA) and Olivia Newton John Cancer Wellness centre in Melbourne (Austin Health), all are affiliated with hospitals.
  • In Perth there is the Solaris Care Centre which has provided good quality wellness care. They all have a good track record or providing care, support ongoing research and are affiliated with medical professionals in some way.

Read the full ECU Daily article here

How about you, what are your thoughts on this topic? Do share your comments and suggestions with me and the Energesse wellness community. I look forward to hearing from you.

New Mobile App & Tools for Wellness

In recent times, organizations are looking for new and better ways of engaging their employees and obtaining the highest level of performance from staff, plus a myriad of engagement programs and surveys. These organizations are still challenged with ensuring the wellbeing of employees not only in the workplace but also out of the workplace.

The reason for this is that they started to realize that holistic wellness is determined not only within the work environment but also the balance between work and life. And organizations are starting to realize that they have to play a bigger role in the bigger picture of an employee’s life and wellbeing in order to ensure that their physical output at work are the best that they can be.

In my talks to members of the New South Wales Business Chamber (NSWBC), I addressed CEOs, HR directors and HR Managers from these organizations on how they can implement wellness as a high performance strategy for their organization. I covered a number of aspects including Personal Wellness Diagnostic  where attendees spent 10 minutes scoring their own wellbeing using our proprietary wellness tool.

I encourage you to give this tool a go as it only takes 10 minutes and it immediately gives a snapshot of your personal wellbeing. It also then guides you as to some of the actions that you need to take in order to restore your wellbeing and give yourself the best chance of performing at a high level.

pwd2

In addition, if you are a CEO, HR Manager or HR Director, I’ve also attached the slides from my presentation at the NSWBC which you can view and utilize the information to help you with implementing a wellness program that delivers the best results for your employees.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out by emailing me at avnesh@energesse.com and I’d be happy to spend 30 minutes with you on how you can use the information to best enhance the lives and performance of your employees.

Finally, I’d also like to mention that I was recently invited to join a group of technology entrepreneurs in San Francisco who have created this app called Audvisor. This app has incredible bits of audio advice for executives on a whole variety of topics including wellness, but also on high performance, innovation, management, marketing and various other aspects of business.

audvisor

I highly encourage you to download this app as it’s free and incredibly useful to broaden your horizon and explore new areas of advice.

Once again, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.

How do you know you need an ‘Energy Makeover’?

By Martine Negro and Dr Avnesh Ratnanesan

One of the interesting and challenging aspect of understanding your own energy field is that most of us cannot ‘see’ it. In fact most of us cannot taste, hear or smell it.

Most of time however, we can ‘feel’ it or ‘sense’ a problem, though in many cases, we don’t realise that the root cause of the problem is related to our Energy field.

This is common in Western societies as the concept of human energy fields is not widely taught. In Eastern societies however, the concept of a body’s energy as the cause of health problems is pervasive.

I recently spoke to Martine Negro, our Energy Practitioner at the Divinity Wellness Institute with over 30 years experience in diagnosing and treating energy fields, using modalities such as Acupuncture, Reiki and Emotional Freedom Technique.

Here’s what she had to say about “How to Know if you need an Energy Makeover

Q: Martine, how can you tell if there is a problem with your Energy?

A: There are several ways, for example:

  • You have physical symptoms or illnesses that are not responding to conventional treatments or the treatment is taking too long to work. Perhaps you have been taking medication, herbs or supplements for months with little noticeable change or the symptoms return as soon as you stop the treatment.
  • Occasionally, no physical reason can found for your illness, despite extensive tests and medical consultations.
  • You have bouts of feeling physically tired or mentally exhausted for no obvious reason.
  • You become moody, anxious, angry or depressed very easily.
  • You have a history of trauma (physical or psycho-emotional), either a major one (e.g. accident, death of a loved one, miscarriage, abortion, divorce, betrayal, etc.) or multiple minor stresses (long term irritation, financial or relationship frustrations, etc).
  • You are aware that something is not quite right about yourself but you are not sure what is happening
  • You have difficulty moving through a difficult issue, despite your best efforts and counselling from family, friends and professionals.
  • You dislike a habit or phobia and cannot change it
  • You have a destructive addictive pattern that you are unable to control

Q: Is there a way to test yourself to see if your energy is being affected?

A: Sure, focus on the issue or problem that you currently have – can you sense how your body responds? Do you feel any tension or negative change in your emotional state?

Nothing is “trivial”, energetically speaking. Over time, small prolonged stresses can cause as much damage as a major one that happened once!

Our society and “disease care” system rarely encourages people to be aware and listen to the body’s messages. The Western medicine approach is often geared to be more “re-active” rather than “pro-active”.

In order to to be proactive, you need to pay attention to your Mind-Body system.

 

Q: What typically happens at an ‘Energy Makeover’ consultation with you Martine, or in fact with other similar energy practitioners?

A: During an energetic session, you are invited to tune in into your body and start connecting to your innate inner wisdom which knows exactly the core issue behind the symptom.

As you connect, you will be guided to activate the energy flow through various energetic tools (acupressure, hands on, imagery, deep breathing and so on)

Quantum physics research demonstrates that when you observe something for a period of time…it changes! Observation is a major component of the energetic experience, a highly unique, organic and flowing process simultaneously involving mind, body and energy. As the energy block gets untangled, the brain gets “rewired” in such a way that after one or several sessions, you feel different. You may gain new insights, new perceptions of the situation and also have great new tools to engage yourself actively in your treatment.

So an energetic session is very much a “team-working” exercise between you, the ultimate expert on your body and the practitioner’s expertise in energetics.  We explore and work together to allow the energy to naturally get back into balance, ultimately inviting you to trust your amazing Mind-Body system which is designed to heal.