The Final Challenge of the Year

We are coming up to our last challenge of the year! The Fall Challenge will start at the end of this month and will run from October 24 through December 3.

For the Fall Challenge, you will be given five new daily activities. The activities for this challenge are:

1. Wear your seat belt each time you are in the car
2. Express your appreciation to someone
3. Sing out loud
4. Eat dinner before 8 p.m. and include a vegetable
5. Do 15 minutes of physical activity and 15 crunches

Throughout the year, we have built upon each challenge to help you create a healthy diet and exercise plan. We started with breakfast; we then worked on eating lunch and a healthy snack; and now that you have those down, it’s time to wrap it up by improving your dinner habits.

We’ve taken this same approach with exercise. Our hope is that you have continued with your lunges and leg lifts to work your lower body, added in curls and kick-backs to improve your arm tone, and will now include crunches to strengthen your core.

Having said that, we know that wellness comes in many forms and is not just about diet and exercise. So, as with each Wellness challenge, we’ve tried to give you activities that will help you improve not only your physical wellness, but also your emotional and social wellness.

You may think that singing out loud is silly for the Wellness challenge or maybe it embarrasses you, but we’re positive that once you start doing it, you will feel the benefits. Singing out loud requires you to use your lungs in a way that you don’t typically, allowing you to take in more oxygen to your body which increases alertness. Then there is the stress relieving factor of singing out loud. The great thing is that these benefits come whether you are lead alto in the choir or whether you sound like nails on a chalkboard. If you classify yourself as the latter, sing in the shower or along with the radio on your car ride home where you will always sound like a Rockstar!

Along with singing, we are asking you to express your appreciation to someone. This can come in many forms such as telling someone thank you or that they did a great job, or even writing a simple note to tell someone what they mean to you. Expressing your appreciation does a few things: it helps to take your mind off yourself and feel gratitude for those around you, plus it can boost the confidence and self-esteem of those who receive your kind words.

Good luck with this last challenge!