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 Less Stress, Better Health and More Love was honored  by AARP’s Social Impact Award as “a simple mind-body-spirit program  for seniors, adults and teens of any faith, or no faith.” 

It is an evidence-based approach – summarized by two poems and four Satisfaction Skills – that integrates music, story-telling, videos and eLearning to help participants to solve each piece of their Wellness Puzzle –  while collaborating closely with the professionals who provide their medical, emotional and spiritual care. About 90 percent of  over 3,000 workshop  participants agree that this program  can help them to:

  • stop stress, at least for a moment, before your hours of peacefulness grow into days of satisfaction
  • control chronic illness
  • forgive themselves, others or God, (as evidenced in this evaluation of a typical workshop)

The core concepts and graphics in the Less Stress, Better Health and More Love workbook are published by Dr. Tom DeLoughry under a Creative Commons license  Thus, counselors, social workers, nurses, physicians, ministers and others may freely improve or distribute  any of the  Living Well content or graphics for use in their own materials, lectures and/or sermons without needing to seek prior permission.

A SIMPLE SYSTEM TO SOLVE MANY PROBLEMS

Seniors, adults, teens and caregivers often struggle with a range of emotional and medical problems that are addressed by a bewildering array of solutions.   By contrast, Living Well uses an evidenced-based systems approach  to help participants Create a Happier Story while learning from their successes and stumbles  while collaborating closely the professionals who provide their medical, emotional and spiritual care.

Traditional approaches to care typically focus only on the most urgent symptoms or the current crisis while ignoring the other pieces of the Wellness Puzzle.

Often, the social determinants of health are ignored. “Patients” are encourged to be passive, rather than volunteering to help create a better world, even though volunteering, by itself is “good medicine” that can reduce lonliness, depression and mortality.  By contrast, two of our stories, Because of All the Pictures, and Like a Different Person, encourage participants to discuss the benefits of volunteering.  And, in our final workshop, Choices for Change encouraged participants to consider local social action initiatives as well action-oriented Spirit Groups and the rich resources for satisfaction available through AARP’s volunteer portal.

YOU’RE INVITED TO IMPROVE LIVING WELL!

The core concepts and graphics of Living Well are published under a Creative Commons license so that counselors, social workers, nurses, physicians, ministers and others may freely improve or distribute  any of the core Living Well content or graphics for use in your own materials, lectures and/or sermons.  We will convene quarterly “continiuous improvements” meetings of the professionals, volunteers and aides that are using (and improving!) Living Well, so we can learn from each other’s experience.

EVALUATIONS

We intend to evaluate the program through self-reported surveys; (that include CDC validated items measuring emotional and physical health).  In addition we will assess: caregiver burnout and turnover rates among home health and hospital aides who participate in “Living Well” as one component of their mandated annual training.

WORKSHOPS, SKILLS and POEM

The program consists of:

  • Less Stress, Better Health and More Love – a four part online workshop for seniors, adults and teen  (suggested donation is $25, but participants may attend for free by registering through EventBrite
    • each participant will creates a personal plan to reduce stress (and acheive medical and other goals) by using the Learning Poem (Choose your goals and check your signs. Take some steps and learn each time) .as prompted  by  “Success and Satisfaction Journal (see below)

The bottom of each page, prompts participants to “beware of blinder-vision”; use the Satisfaction Skills (i.e. awareness, appreciation, action and acceptance); and consider the “Wellness Puzzle.”

 

  • Improving Outcomes for Professsional providing Medical, Emotional and Spiritual Care – a two part program for professionals to discuss (in the first sesion) how using the “Learning Poem” can improve outcomes and how the “Satisfaction Skills” can improve communication and satisfaction with care.  In the second session, they discuss their successes and stumbles in implementing this with their patients, clients and/or members.
  • Living Well Collaborator’s Conference (as described above under “You’re invited to improve Living Well”) 

The Learning Poem helps particpants focus on one or two specific problems.   The Planning Poem, (illustrated below as published on the back cover of the workbook)  reminds participants not to just focus on the most urgent problem or the immediate crisis.  Instead, after a Learning Plan is in place to address the emergency, the Planning Plan prompts them to: 1) use the Wellness Puzzle as a guide to assess all the factors that might help or harm; 2) find help in the community and online;  3) continue using the Satisfaction Skills to improve communication, reduce stress and avoid “blinder-vision”; and 4) use mutiple Learning Plans to address each specific issue and discuss it with the professionals who provide your medical, emotional and/or spiritual care.

 

To learn more  our workshops  and training programs for professionals, volunteers and aides, please sign up for our newsletter. (coming soon)  We also encourage you to read: