Does a 25 Year Old Have What it Takes?

I am a Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach. You probably don’t know what that means. 

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you are aware of health coaching, and maybe you even have an idea of what a health coach does, but no offense, chances are your best explanation is vague and inaccurate. 

Throughout my years as a coach, I have encountered a recurring problem. I experience it with clients as well as health professionals, such as personal trainers, nutrition professionals, and even medical doctors. 

People who are aware of the health coaching profession have a vague, yet confident understanding of what coaches actually do, and, in turn, behave in one of two ways:

• They assume the coaching role themselves, without any knowledge of, or training in conversational interventions, and oftentimes do not help their clients succeed

Or

• They do not believe coaching to be an effective and useful intervention, imparting their opinion on clients and people who may benefit from coaching

My views were further validated when I posted the following polls on social media:

• Can a 25 year old be a good Life Coach?

• Can a 25 year old be a good Health Coach?

• Why or why not?

The majority of people deemed a 25 year old to be an inadequate life coach, yet the majority also deemed a 25 year old to be an adequate health coach.

The most common reason was that a 25 year old is not experienced enough to give life advice but can obtain enough knowledge to provide health advice. For those who voted in favor of 25 year olds, their opinion was that a 25 year old can be wise enough to give good life and health advice. 

This data and feedback illustrates my point. People assume a coach’s job is to give advice, and this inaccurate representation of coaching causes people to inappropriately determine who can be a good coach, what constitutes good coaching, and if it’s even effective. 

In a nutshell, health coaches help people set the right goals, and establish the perspectives, habits, and routines that align with those goals.

As per my experience, the general public views coaching as a listen and prescribe process, similar to a conventional doctor/patient exchange. The coach listens to what the client wants to achieve, shares with the client all the information they know about the topic, and then provides the client with advice on how to proceed. This is a big misconception. 

“..the coach is primarily an investigator and question asker.”

In reality, health coaches take a client-centered approach to coaching. This means we collaborate with clients, as opposed to instruct, to figure out what goals are important, and how to accomplish those goals in a sustainable, enjoyable, and realistic manner. 

The client-centered approach makes perfect sense. Who is best suited to determine the goals and actions that are most realistic for the client; the coach (who is usually a stranger in many ways), or the client themself?

When client-centered, the coach is primarily an investigator and question asker. Their job is to be curious about their client's situation, ask powerful questions, and respond with reflections, affirmations, and feedback that provoke critical and progressive thinking by the client. 

“To bypass the client and go straight to the coach’s opinion rarely results in client action and sustained efforts.”

There is a time and a place for coaches to give advice, but it is almost always after first exploring the client’s knowledge, skills, and personal vision. To bypass the client and go straight to the coach’s opinion rarely results in client action and sustained efforts. There are times when the coach’s advice is not needed at all. And times when the coach doesn’t have an answer when the client needs one. At that point, the coach has to find additional resources.

A coach does not need to be personally experienced in what the client is going through in order to effectively help that person overcome their challenges. With all the things people experience in the world, how could that even be possible? 

So with that being said, can a 25 year old be curious about their clients situation and needs? 

Are 25 year olds capable of asking thought provoking questions, and responding in ways that promote further thinking and problem solving? 

Can they help their clients establish action plans, accountability systems, and provide support?

I certainly think so. 

For those who still think 25 year olds are too young to be a good coach (brain development is just coming to a close), I somewhat agree. Time spent on this planet is incomparable. With age comes wisdom and compassion, especially as it pertains to client outcomes and tendencies, but is it a requirement to be able to listen and respond with curiosity?

Personal Trainers, if your clients improved something about their stress, nutrition, sleep, or NEAT, how would that impact your training results? How might collaborating with a health coach help your clients and your business? CLICK HERE and let me know what your clients struggle with, and what I can do to help.

If you’re interested in signing up for coaching, what do you envision for your health in the future? How can working with a health coach help you be successful and maintain that success over time? CLICK HERE to learn more about how my 8-week coaching program can help you achieve more.

Comment below and let me know what you think about this topic. Does a 25 year old have what it takes? Tell me why you agree.. or why not! 

Thank you for reading!

Gerard

Create New Habits Without Lifting a Finger

A habit is a consistent craving and thought that leads to predictable emotions, actions, and behaviors. Habits are reflective of your old self. They represent the activities of your past, and predispose you to a foreseeable future. Good habits are the process by which we achieve long term goals. Bad habits do not align with what we hope to achieve. Society typically views habits as a physical phenomenon. Something you do, focused primarily on actions and behaviors. Rarely talked about, is the physiological impact of habits, and how we can create a new future before lifting a finger. 

Neurologically, habits are strong and steady electrical signals, wave types, frequencies, polarities, and patterns in the brain and body. 

From an endocrine perspective, habits are high resting levels and mobilization of hormones associated with chronic emotional states. 

From a genomics standpoint, habits are the expression or down-regulation of genes.

Habits are rhythms. Biological expectations. After a habit is formed, our body anticipates its occurrence. If you eat lunch every day at noon, by 11:30ish, your stomach starts releasing digestive enzymes, preparing you to eat and digest. If you go to sleep every night at 10pm, by 9:30ish, your brain releases melatonin to prepare you to sleep. Location, the five senses, and time of day all pool together to form associations with the habitual activity. The more associations you have, the more likely you are to engage in the habit. 

Example: If I am trying to form the habit of meditating, I will increase my chances of forming that habit by:

• Meditating at the same time of day (time)

• Meditating on the same couch (location)

• Meditating with the same pillows and blanket (sight, touch)

• Lighting a sweet smelling candle as soon as I sit (scent)

• Ringing a bell at the start and end of every session (sound)

• Leaving the candles and bell in clear sight next to my meditation couch (sight)

There are associations everywhere. Most of the time they go unnoticed by the conscious brain, yet influence our behaviors. Thankfully, we can control many of these cues, to weaken strong associations that are undesirable, and strengthen associations to behaviors we want to engage in consistently. By controlling your cues, you are controlling your subconscious, and improving your ability to create new, or discontinue old habits. 

As we know, habits are persistent cravings and emotions that lead to behaviors. These behaviors influence, or are influenced by, the expression or repression of genes that regulate cells, which regulate tissues, which regulate organs, which regulate systems. Genes alone do not determine anything. They are about potentials and vulnerabilities. Environment is the driving force that tells us whether a gene will be expressed to its fullest potential, or down-regulated and dysfunctional. 

Environment is typically thought of as the physical space around us, the people we spend time with, the culture we adhere to, the food we eat, the air we breathe, but it is also an internal state. Internally, our environment is our cravings, thoughts, and emotions, aka the root cause of our habits. Chronic stress, over time, has been proven to make us sick and diseased. Chronic stress is a product of thoughts and cravings. Chronic stress, therefore, is a habit. The beauty about this phenomenon is that if our thoughts can make us sick, our thoughts can also make us better. Our thoughts condition our physical body and drive habits. By focusing our thoughts, emotions, and intentions on a new and different outcome, we can change our internal environment, signal genes in new ways, and anticipate a new future. 

This type of internal work enhances our ability to make and break habits before we even lift a finger. It stacks the deck in our favor, and sets us up for success. When attempting to start a new habit, or break an old habit, consider first doing this:

1. Manage your external environmental cues in ways that support your new habit or weaken associations to the habit you wish to break.

2. Change your internal environmental cues through clear intentions, and elevated emotions:

   1. Utilize the meditation cues listed above, close your eyes, and:

      1. Identify exactly what you want to achieve

      2. How would you feel if you were to achieve it? (Grateful, accomplished, happy, healthy, proud)

      3. Place your focus on your heart, the area surrounding your heart, and the empty space surrounding your body

      4. Fill that space with your elevated emotions (grateful, accomplished, happy, healthy, proud)

      5. Feel it! 

      6. Stay there for a given amount of time (10-60 minutes)

      7. When you are ready to stop, do an extra minute

      8. Do it every day

Through this practice, you are changing your internal environment, and conditioning your body to a new mind. You are discontinuing the energy of old habits, and predisposing yourself to a new future. This work can enhance your ability to successfully create new habits, break old ones, and stop living in the past. It is time to create a new future.

Do you want more information on the science of this practice? Are you skeptical? Would you like guidance during this internal work? Dr. Joe Dispenza has introduced a new course that will give you the foundation on how to make this work. Follow THIS LINK to check it out.

Comment below and let me know what you think of this practice! Be sure to post and share it with others so that we can all raise our collective energy. Enjoy!

Racism and Protest Through the Lens of Biology

The research cited in this article can be found in “Behave” by Robert Sapolsky

In the last few months, Americans have witnessed the murders of unarmed black men at the hands of white vigilantes and police officers. These are unfortunately not isolated incidents, as violence and discrimination towards minority groups has plagued American for well over a century. 

The horrific perspectives, actions and behaviors of racists, xenophobes, homophobes, anti-semites, and other hate-based groups have been supported, encouraged, and made mainstream since the election of a presidential demagogue. 

The murder of George Floyd, at the hands of a police officer, is the tipping point which activated protests across the country. In Brooklyn, NYC, blocks away from where I was raised and currently live, these protests turned violent, as protesters clashed with the NYPD and set fire to police cruisers and vehicles. 

As a 34 year old lifelong resident of Brooklyn, I have never seen anything as intense or remarkable as the riots that occurred this past weekend. As a white male, I am incapable of fully understanding how these times have impacted the psyche and health of the black community. As a Jew, I am no stranger to the reception of hate, discrimination, and violence. Although I have not personally experienced blatant antisemitism, I feel the sting and deep, burning anger and sadness when I read about anti-Jewish violence in other parts of the country and world. 

Finally, as a Health Coach who studies human behavior and decision making, this writing is an attempt to consolidate my thoughts through the lens of behavioral science, and try my best to add value and purpose to the conversation regarding our current socio-racial landscape. 

Before we can change people’s behavior, it may be best to try and understand the reasons why people behave the way they do. The following is an incomplete and superficial list of factors that influence decision making:

• Prenatal environment

• Genes

• Hormones

• Historical culture of where your ancestors grew up

• Current culture and societal norms where you grew up

• Childhood experiences

• Blood glucose levels

• Sleep quality and quantity

• Stress hormone levels

• Pain

• Dopamine D4 receptor gene variant

• Cognitive load from the last 5 minutes

• Amount of time you have to react

• Interacting with an “Us” or a “Them”

And so on...

As we can see, behavior is complicated, and understanding why people make certain decisions is an insanely tall order. That being said, let's make an attempt to understand the actions of both sides of our current situation; the protesters, and the supremacists. 

Why do the protesters lash out and become violent? Why do people of color (POC), black people in particular, live in fear? How does our societal organization promote inequality and poor mental health?

When people who are not valued in society are beat down and suppressed, they lash out and redirect their suffering. People of lower status living in unequal societies become less kind and more likely to displace their anger onto those lower down the pecking order. This can potentially explain the looting and destruction of business and infrastructure. The redirection of negative energy is an evolutionary strategy used to reduce stress and suffering. It is nature’s tool for comfort and relief, and is behavior demonstrated by many different species across the world, such rhesus monkeys. 

By directing negative energy and physical aggression to businesses, infrastructures, and police vehicles, people are reducing the amount of discomfort they are experiencing, even if minimal. I work in a high school, and see teenagers behave this way often. After an intense disagreement or argument with a teacher or peer, after being reprimanded by a disciplinarian, after being yelled at by a coach, a student may punch a wall, slam a door, throw a desk, or scream out curses in frustration. It is a physical response that was normal when we were hunter-gatherers, but is now looked at as uncivilized in the modern world. Unfortunately, our environment evolved faster than our biology. After years of attempts at peaceful protest, should we be surprised and appalled that violence and rioting has finally emerged? Evolution tells us that it makes sense and is the next logical step. “Giving ulcers can help you avoid getting them.” (Sapolsky)

How does the brain of a high school student differ from the brain of a matured adult? We know that the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the modern part of the brain responsible for high level thinking, analytical processing, reasoning and executive decision making is not as developed in a teenager. The PFC can override the amygdala, which is a more ancient part of our brain that coordinates responses to our environment, especially those which trigger an emotional response. The amygdala plays an important role in fear and anger. With less PFC oversight, our fear and anger response is heightened. This is why teens are typically more violent than adults, and act on impulse, rather than reason, to a larger degree.

How does this apply to our current conversation? What does childhood deprivation and inequality do to a person’s brain? How does rank in current society play a role? How does hereditary rank (our rank back in the day) play a role? Society today is unequal. Equality in the past was even worse. People who experience this type of exposure, with the addition of genes inherited from slave ancestors, are predisposed to higher levels of amygdala activation and lower PFC activation. This can help explain the fearful and violent emotional states that a POC may be experiencing at this time. It is partly due to cultural norms of the past and present. 

Additionally, the PFC consumes huge amounts of energy to function properly. With centuries worth of stress, fearful apprehension, and high cognitive load from Covid-19, PFC function will tire out. As we lose our ability to reason in a “modern” way, we will revert to the biological stress responses of our ancestors. POC are rioting in response to the current climate? Again, it makes sense. That being said, rioting, although mostly driven by anger and fear, also comes from a place of reason, value and compassion. We must understand that these responses are justifiable on a biological level, and to attempt to separate people from their biology would be an attempt at removing their humanity.  

How can biology explain the behavior of racists, xenophobes, anti-semites and so on? As we mature from adolescents to adults, we learn to separate people and groups into categories of “Us” and “Them.” We view “Thems” as different and inferior to the inherited mainstream. This is seen in babies as well, although the younger the person, the less likely there will be values attached to the distinction. 

This distinction is, at times, accidental and seemingly innocent, such as a teacher telling the class to “Sit down, girls and boys.” In other situations, this separation is purposeful and can be due to strongly held beliefs inherited from past and present cultures. “Uses” are prone to foster negative feelings towards the “thems.” Hatred, disgust, contempt, homogeny, and viewing others, worst of all, as less than human comes with the territory. If we are prejudiced against one group, we tend to be prejudiced against others, and a leader condoning prejudice will only strengthen a culture of hatred and violence. 

On the flip side, just as we are negative about “them” we tend to be more generous and forgiving towards our own kind. We feel more empathy and compassion. If we watch a video of a hand being poked with a sharp object, our own hand clenches, but more strongly if the video is that of a hand from our own race. If we screw up, it's a special circumstance. If they screw up, it's because that's how they are. 

We form opinions about others after the subliminal, negative signaling. Hate first, then explain later why the hate is justifiable, because we do not like being wrong. “The road to hell is paved with rationalizations.” (Sapolsky)

How does this play out in our brain? Show someone an image of a person from a different race for fifty milliseconds, and a brain scan will show high amygdala activity (fear, aggression) and lower activity in the PFC, as compared to images of people of the same race. 

Additionally, the fusiform gyrus, a part of the brain responsible for facial recognition, and facial expression, sheds some light on this question. Expose someone to a picture of a person from a different race with a neutral expression, and we perceive it as threatening, not neutral. This does not hold true of pictures of people from the same race. The brain processes information about gender, social, and/or economic status within milliseconds and can be based on next to nothing.

These attempts at explaining behavior are in no way exhaustive and could be highly debatable, as I am not a behavioral psychologist nor an expert on the topic. I am scratching the smallest part of an enormous surface. Regardless, society needs to change. We need to move past old evolutionary traits that no longer serve a purpose. We need to figure out how to address these insanely complex problems we face today. The answer will most certainly be holistic and focus on many different aspects of life, however, I think we can start by changing how we view each other. We need to end the discrimination and negative bias of “thems.” We need to end duality and recognize that we are all the same. We are all “us.”

How do we do that? We start with children. We educate them to recognize that we are “constantly being shaped by seemingly irrelevant stimuli, subliminal information, and internal forces we don’t know a thing about.” (Sapolsky) They need to be self aware. They need to be environmentally aware. This awareness is the first step, and changing our dualistic approach is next. No more “Take your seats, boys and girls.” No more hateful rivalries between schools. No more hierarchies and totem poles. We need to embrace the notion that we are all the same. Let the generation of people immersed in the dualistic style of thinking fade away. Children are the future. Lets create the type of society that does not predispose them to amygdala activation. Let them develop a PFC that supports and acknowledges diversity and inclusiveness. Our words and behaviors are bigger than we can imagine. Let us break down the barriers of separation and break the mold that created a divide in society.  We need to eliminate the notion of thems, there is only us.

“An unexpected pleasure yesterday is what we feel entitled to today, and what won't be enough tomorrow.” (Sapolsky) The movement will never stop. It will not go away. Once we experience minimal progress, such as the sentencing of a murderous police officer, we will demand more. This is the workings of the dopamine system and it will ensure that we will not accept the status quo, and continue to push for a better tomorrow, because today is not good enough.

Why Your Trainer Needs a Health Coach

Athletic trainers, personal trainers and physical therapists use exercise to help people achieve goals related to pain, performance, and body composition. However, any good trainer or therapist will tell you that what happens outside the gym, AKA life, will greatly impact what  happens inside the gym, AKA gains. 

Although trainers and therapists have knowledge in lifestyle fundamentals outside of exercise, it is difficult to have meaningful conversations with clients, that lead to long term change, during workout sessions. If a trainer spends extra time providing resources and information following a session, the effort typically does not lead to behavior change, and is often not financially compensated.

Trainers and therapists need a colleague to refer to who can provide their clients with the space and guidance needed to identify priorities, discover inner motivations and intentions, establish environments and support systems, and create an actionable plan to achieve their ideal vision. The ability to do so will compliment client efforts in fitness, and improve outcomes associated with training or therapy. Win/Win for everyone involved.

Health coaches serve as a resource for trainers, therapists, and the general population in this regard, and utilize evidence-based coaching practices needed for structured, detailed, individualized coaching that leads to long-lasting, meaningful change. For a more details on health coaching, check out the earlier blog “What is a Health Coach?”

If you are a therapist or trainer and have clients that you think would benefit from health coaching email me and tell me why. 

Be sure to inquire about my client referral program and how trainers and therapists can earn passive income through health coaching with Bellhouse Fitness.

Thanks for reading!

Gerard