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Refresh Your Life

refresh your life

As a counselor, coach and interventionist I am passionate about moving people in a healthy direction in every area of their lives. Here is a fun and easy tool for you to quickly assess how you’re doing and come up with some action items. So grab a pen and piece of paper and take a few minutes to Refresh Your Life– you are worth it!

Now that you’ve made your list, the final step is to enter your action items into your calendar so you are sure to follow through!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this or what one of your action items are.

Call me at 949-303-8264 or email me at randy@randymoraitis.com
Websites:
www.carepossible.com,
www.randymoraitis.com
Facebook: facebook.com/RandyMoraitisCoach
Twitter:     @rmoraitis

About Randy Moraitis

Randy is married to Kim and they live in Laguna Niguel. Together they have a blended family of five adult children and three beautiful grandchildren. (If you don’t believe Randy, he will gladly show you pictures!)

Randy is a Certified Intervention Professional (CIP) and expert in helping families and individuals affected by addiction and/or mental health issues. He is a Board Certified Pastoral Counselor and is both licensed and ordained as a pastoral counselor. He has five professional coaching certifications and loves working with clients on executive coaching, life coaching, wellness coaching and recovery coaching. Randy has a master’s degree with emphasis in theology and counseling, a bachelors degree in management and leadership, and a certificate in health and fitness with emphasis in exercise physiology and sports psychology from UC Irvine. He has been helping groups, individuals and families get mentally, physically and spiritually healthy in Orange County for over 25 years.

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Social Support and Health

By Randy Moraitis, MA, CIP, BCPC

Our social support system is truly a key factor in both our mental and physical health. Having a lot of friends on Facebook may be fun, but it is not a true social support system. Here is a quick look at what social support is, and why it is so important.

What is Social Support?

Definition of social support: social support is the perception and actuality that one is cared for, has assistance available from other people, and is part of a supportive social network.

There are four different types of social support, and each of these is very important. As you’re thinking about the health of your social support network, you want to think about the structure, but you also need to determine whether or not you have all four kinds of these supports readily available.

The first kind of support is emotional support. This is where you have someone who will listen to you and will give you a shoulder to cry on. We need those emotional support providers.

The second kind of support is informational support. Sometimes we need someone to bounce ideas off of or we need people to provide us with advice about our situation.

The third type of support is tangible, or practical, support. This is someone who might not be skilled emotional support or who might not be a good problem solver or advice giver, but they can at least help you cook dinner or do some chores or tasks.

The fourth type of support is companionship or belonging support. Feeling isolated is difficult and unhealthy. In this type of support this isn’t the individual that you necessarily tell all of your problems to, but it is someone who is willing and able to spend time with you. This is that person who calls for no reason, and you feel connected.

Social Support and Our Health

Numerous studies link our social support systems to our mental and physical health. When you think about it, it seems obvious that our social networks—the people we spend the most time with—strongly influence our behaviors. Behaviors with long term consequences like smoking, diet, and exercise.

Research shows that lower social support is related to greater cognitive impairment and disability in adults. Conversely, strong social support equals a much better chance of survival after a heart attack as well as lower mortality risk among women with breast cancer. In addition, during pregnancy, greater social support is linked to fewer labor complications and better birth outcomes.

Conclusion

Take a moment to honestly assess your current social support system. If you do not have people in your life that can provide emotional, informational, practical and companionship support then perhaps it’s time to get out there and join a support group, club, church, or class where you can connect with healthy people. My goal as a coach, counselor and interventionist is to help people be the healthiest version of themselves. You can only be your best with a strong social support system.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. My email is randy@randymoraitis.com. My websites are www.randymoraitis.com and www.carepossible.com.

Special thanks to the work of Jason M. Satterfield, PhD for info in this post.

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Coping With Job Stress–Do You Have a Gas Tank or Solar Panels?

stress

By Randy Moraitis, MA, CIP, BCPC

Job stress is both a real and a growing problem. Current research shows that 30% of U.S. workers are often or always under a lot of stress at work.

People who have a high level of occupational stress have up to three times the rate of back pain–usually lower back pain. Research also shows that high job stress doubles the risk of death from heart disease and was associated with increased cholesterol and body mass index. So it’s a big problem affecting millions of people and needs a solution.

One way to help combat job stress and prevent burnout is to do some perspective shifting, so let’s give it a try.

Start by making a decision about whether you have a gas tank or you have solar panels.

Gas Tank Mindset  

Imagine a person goes to work tomorrow and has a very busy day. They start the day dealing with their first task, it’s challenging but they succeed. This burns a little fuel from their gas tank. As the day progresses they deal with multiple issues, problems and tasks, each draining more fuel from their tank.

By the end of the long, hard work day they’ve completed all of their tasks and duties, but now their gas tank is empty and they’re exhausted. So they go home to their family exhausted.

Solar Panel Mindset 

 
The second option is to imagine a person going to the same workplace. They also start the day dealing with challenging tasks and duties. And they continue to have challenging tasks throughout the day. But they have the perspective that they are blessed to have a job, and privileged to have skills and talents, that can contribute to helping others and making a difference in someone else’s life.

In that moment where they focus on the privilege of connecting with others and making a difference, the thought radiates on their solar panels and they feel charged. They carry this perspective throughout the day and by the end of the work day they may be physically tired but their soul feels charged. And that’s what they take home to their family.

So you decide. Do you have a gas tank or solar panels?

I would love to hear your thoughts or experiences with job stress. Email me at randy@randymoraitis.com. Websites: www.randymoraitis.com and www.carepossible.org.

About Randy Moraitis

Randy is married to Kim and they live in Laguna Niguel. Together they have a blended family of five adult children and three beautiful grandchildren. (If you don’t believe Randy he will gladly show you pictures!)

Randy is a Certified Intervention Professional (CIP) and expert in helping families affected by addiction and/or mental health issues. He is a Board Certified Pastoral Counselor and is both licensed and ordained as a pastoral counselor. He has five professional coaching certifications and loves working with clients on executive coaching, life coaching, wellness coaching and recovery coaching. Randy has a master’s degree with emphasis in theology and counseling, a bachelors degree in management and leadership, and a certificate in health and fitness with emphasis in exercise physiology and sports psychology from UC Irvine. He has been helping groups, individuals and families get mentally, physically and spiritually healthy in Orange County for over 25 years.

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8 Strategies for Coping with Stress

By Randy Moraitis, MA, CIP, BCPC

Everyone experiences stress to some level on a daily basis. Stress is when the outside world gets inside of us. Not all stress is bad, in fact some stress may actually be good. A little bit of stress—just the right amount—can actually help improve our performance.

Stress is the biological, psychological, emotional, behavioral, and social responses to a stressor, which is the real or imagined event that sets things off. To thrive in life we need effective strategies to cope with stress.

We all have different ways of coping with stress. One way to measure coping is to use the Ways of Coping Questionnaire, developed by psychological researchers Folkman and Lazarus. This 66 item questionnaire divides coping into eight different categories or strategies.

Here are the 8 strategies, further divided into active and passive methods of coping:

4 Active Coping Strategies

  • Confrontive coping: You take action and confront the problem.
  • Seeking social support: You seek informational and emotional support. An extremely effective strategy.
  • Planful problem-solving: You make a deliberate and analytical plan to solve the problem. Also an extremely effective strategy.
  • Positive reappraisal: You try to create a positive meaning and focus on personal growth.

4 Passive Coping Strategies

  • Distancing: You expect that the problem solves itself (involves detachment). This is the second to least effective strategy.
  • Self-controlling: You make efforts to regulate feelings and actions.
  • Accepting responsibility: You accept your own role in the problem.
  • Escape-avoidance: You try to avoid the problem by wishful thinking and behavioral efforts. This is the least effective strategy.

Big Question

Which is your go-to strategy for coping with stress?

Big Takeaway

The best strategies for coping with stress are seeking social support and planful problem-solving. So the next time you feel stressed-out, reach out to healthy community for support and/or sit down and think through an analytical plan to tackle the problem.

In addition to social support and planful problem-solving, I am a big fan of prayer, meditation and exercise for stress management. If you aren’t already incorporating these tools into your life, perhaps now is the time to start!

I would love to hear your favorite strategy for coping with stress. Email me at randy@randymoraitis.com or visit my websites www.randymoraitis.com or www.carepossible.org.

About Randy Moraitis

Randy is married to Kim and they live in Laguna Niguel. Together they have a blended family of five adult children and three beautiful grandchildren. (If you don’t believe Randy he will gladly show you pictures!)

Randy is a Certified Intervention Professional (CIP) and expert in helping families affected by addiction and/or mental health issues. He is a Board Certified Pastoral Counselor and is both licensed and ordained as a pastoral counselor. He has five professional coaching certifications and loves working with clients on executive coaching, life coaching, wellness coaching and recovery coaching. Randy has a master’s degree with emphasis in theology and counseling, a bachelors degree in management and leadership, and a certificate in health and fitness with emphasis in exercise physiology and sports psychology from UC Irvine. He has been helping groups, individuals and families get mentally, physically and spiritually healthy in Orange County for over 25 years.

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Need to Chill?

breathe
By Randy Moraitis, MA, CIP, BCPC

Stressed out? Tense? Anxious?

If so, here is a simple technique to help you relax. This technique will lower your heart rate, your blood pressure, and your potential for doing or saying something you may regret.

The technique is called “four square breathing” and is taught to military special forces units and first responders to help them stay calm in very stressful situations.

Four square breathing is a quick and easy way to get calm, cool, and collected and can be done virtually anytime and anywhere. I’ve used the technique very successfully with many clients over the years.

Here’s how to do Four Square Breathing:

1. Inhale through the nose for four seconds.
2. Hold the breath for four seconds.
3. Exhale through the mouth for four seconds.
4. Pause for four seconds.

Repeat for 1-3 minutes.

Tips to make this exercise even more effective:

1. Drop and relax your shoulders on each exhale.
2. Focus on a positive, encouraging, relaxing short phrase on each of the four breathing steps and say it in your during each of the four steps.
3. Listen to relaxing music while doing this technique.
4. Once four seconds per step becomes easy, you can increase the duration of each step to six or eight seconds.

I would love to hear any suggestions you have for relaxation. Contact me at randy@randymoraitis.com. Websites: www.randymoraitis.com and www.carepossible.org.

 

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