Submitted by Susan Tweed, PhD, RN, health educator at Optima Health, on the health benefits of yoga. Susan has been practicing yoga since her early 20′s.  Yoga has changed my life in many ways. It has helped my body stay flexible and strong and my mind become more compassionate and accepting of others. The postures are only one part of yoga. Sometimes I take classes and other times I use a video at home or ...

Terrina Thomas, Director of Health and Preventive Services, Optima Health. I don’t know about you but right about 2:30 p.m. each day, I start to hear the faintest chant of my name coming from the downstairs of my building! No wait, maybe it is coming from my stomach and echoing from the vending machine downstairs. At any rate, if I haven’t remembered to bring a bag of grapes or granola bar from home, I find ...

Lyon Shipyard was established in 1928 and is currently one of the leading east coast ship repair contractors. Lyon Shipyard supplies their customers with marine services including but not limited to marine electronics repair, barge repair, pier side, and out-of-water ship repairs. Located on the northern and southern shores of the Elizabeth River – adjacent to the Intercoastal Waterway in Norfolk, Lyon Ship ...

Heather Robbins of Elizabeth City, NC, isn’t the typical member referred to the Mission: Health program for help managing their diabetes. Her type-1 diabetes was caused by complications arising last year from gall stones. In most cases, the painful condition can be simply treated by removal of the gall bladder, but in Heather’s case, she wound up in Sentara Norfolk General’s ICU for 13 days on a ventilator ...

As a child, arguing with our friends or siblings seemed like a necessary part of life. Confrontations about board games and sporting events were usually resolved in minutes and everyone quickly recovered. Now, as a career professional, the stakes are higher when we encounter conflict. Conflict in the workplace is impossible to avoid, and unless it’s handled effectively, the results can be damaging to good t ...

If your employees are not as bright-eyed as you would like every day it’s probably not because they have been out late hitting the night spots. It’s because they’re stressed out about their jobs. A new Consumer Reports study said almost 60 percent of subscribers surveyed had trouble falling or staying asleep or woke up feeling tired at least three times a week. The top reason cited (47 percent) for getting ...

Princess Anne Country Club has a reputation as a leading country club in Hampton Roads.  The staff prides itself in performing at their personal best, being an efficient company and healthy at heart.  Recently a team of employees worked with Optima Health to create a fun, innovative wellness program called REACH which stands for Realistic Energetic Approach to Complete Health. The team that developed the pr ...

You may have read articles detailing the complex algorithms used to determine the benefits of an employee wellness program, but unless you have an advanced math degree from MIT, you probably will not replicate those efforts to equate the financial benefit for your own company.Experts say for every $1 you spend on wellness, you will save $3 to $4 in healthcare costs. That sounds great, but from a functional ...

Certainly you’ve heard of paint-by-number, and if you’ve ever assembled a piece of furniture or a child’s toy, you know that requires following a numbered schematic. But what do numbers have to do with improving health? Quite a lot, actually. It’s called “predictive analysis,” and health insurers and clinicians use special software to identify certain populations of people by various qualifications to deter ...

By guest blogger Terrina Thomas, Director of Health & Preventive Services, Optima Health Exercise—for some of us it is the dreaded “e” word!  Many folks hear the word exercise and they immediately turn to their magic bag of excuses (another “e” word if I may add). Excuses include: No one can watch my children. I’m too tired after work. My _____ (enter body part here) hurts. I tried to exercise onc ...