Dear Life Stages Community,

With summer closing out, we here at Life Stages are looking forward to fall. We are excited to continue sharing health & wellness tips with you. Whether it be through our social media platforms, in-person events or Inner Sanctum, we are always learning more about ourselves and about each other.

In September and October, we hope you’re ready to engage with us at our in-person events! We’re collaborating with the City of Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation on a series of wellness hikes, and Molina Health to host a Community Wellness Fair and Mindfulness Berry-Picking. Read on to find out about these events and learn about our other collaborations and wellness tips!

The Power Of Habit-Building

Humans are beings of habits. A large amount of our daily actions are driven by our automatic habits, even if we don’t realize it. There are both positive and negative habits that work with us or work against us. Trying to break negative habits can be tough, but we can empower ourselves to change by making small adjustments to our daily routine.

We can better understand our habits by breaking it down into four easy pieces: cue, craving, response and reward.

An example of a negative habit is found in our smartphone usage. Let’s say you’re attending a social gathering with a group of your friends. The conversation drifts to the topic of vacations your friends have taken recently. You want to share your recent trip, and you go to your phone’s home screen to find your photos app. But then you see you have an unread social media notification. Your initial response may be to check that instead, and before you know it, you’ve been browsing for 5 minutes and forget the reason why you were using your phone in the first place. Sound familiar?

Our behavior can be changed by using James Clear’s “Four Laws of Behavior Change” as outlined in his book Atomic Habits. They are: 1. make it obvious, 2. make it attractive, 3. make it easy and 4. make it satisfying.

You can prevent the above situation from happening by doing something as simple as moving your social media apps to another page on your home screen. It’s an obvious choice that will prevent your attention from wandering. This action takes little effort, and your reward is that you can nail the timing on sharing something with the rest of the group.

If this sounds like something you would like to explore more, click on the button below to watch a summary made by Successful By Design about James Clear’s book Atomic Habits.

Watch The “Atomic Habits” Summary Here!

City Of Santa Cruz x Life Stages Present: Mental Health & The Outdoors

The City Of Santa Cruz Parks & Recreation and Life Stages invite you to a 5-week Mental Health and the Outdoors course. This in-person experience will not only allow you to work on your health, but tailor a guided wellness and development just for yourself! As an added bonus, your will also get a chance to directly influence our approach to wellness and have a sneak peak at our upcoming Life Stages App!

Learn More & Register Here!

Inner Sanctum Revamp

The idea of improving your health can seem like a daunting task. You might not know where to even begin on fulfilling your goals, let alone how much it might cost you in the long run. Inner Sanctum helps make the process easier not only by giving you a variety research-backed wellness resources, but is available to you free of charge as well!

Through our collaborations with professionals and organizations in the health & wellness industry, we have been able to add a few new courses recently:

• Alignment Through Yoga – Life moves faster than we’d like, and we often forget to slow down and look around once in a while. In our 3-part collaboration with Stephanie Ho, you will be able to think of yoga as a metaphor for life. By slowing down and processing different movements through yoga, you can graciously accept where you are in this moment in time.
• Spring Bloom – In this 2-part video series, our founder Zulma Terrones and Dione Sheehan of Caliber D Fitness will help you learn what a self-concept is and understand what your values are. While you’re strengthening your self-concept with Zulma, you will also be strengthening your physical health as well through a 30 minute workout section with Dione.

Join To Access Our FREE Tools!

WARNING: SEXUAL ABUSE RELATED CONTENT BELOW

The Beyond Surviving Program

Sexual Abuse is a major problem in the United States. It’s an issue that affects everyone, regardless of your status. It’s consequences can be deeply traumatic, and may seem like an impossible task to move past that experience. Life Stages and Rachel Grant Coaching are here to help let you know that it is possible, and you can be taught the steps to do so.

The Beyond Surviving Program is an in-depth program of live coaching calls and support that teach you how to finally be free of the past and move on with your life. If you want step-by-step support on this difficult journey, please register below for a complimentary consultation with Rachel.

Book A Complimentary Consultation Here!

Stress, Hormones, And Your Health

The stressors in our lives are not just mental, but physical as well. A large number of hormones in our body contribute to our mental state of well-being. When a traumatic experience, no matter how big or small, affects our hormone balance, it can often seem like you’re in a never-ending cycle of feeling unwell. The key to feeling better is understanding which hormones do what, and how to maintain their balance.

In this Inner Sanctum blog, registered dietitian Michelle Cherry will break down which hormones do what, and how we can maintain a balance of these hormones through a healthy diet. In addition, you will also be able to read a thorough overview of how the body handles physical and emotional stress as well.

Learn About The Stress Response System Here!

Summer Programs Recap

We’ve had an incredibly productive summer at Life Stages and have been busy learning more about ourselves and about each other. We’ve been able to engage in community through our Summer Bike Ride Series, as well as our collaborations with Centro Community Partners, Breathe CA and Campbell Union School District.

In case you missed out on the action, here’s a quick summary of what we’ve been up to:

• We’ve hosted several successful bike rides along the coast of Santa Cruz. It was a fantastic way to enjoy the summer sun and make new friends.
• We partnered with Centro Community Partners to offer business development workshops for local entrepreneurs. It was inspiring to see the innovative ideas and hard work from our community members.
• Our collaboration with Breathe CA focused on lung health and included informative workshops on the importance of clean air and how to manage asthma.
• We worked with Campbell Union School District to provide mindfulness and wellness programs for students, helping them to develop healthy habits early in life.

We are grateful for all of our participants and partners who made these events possible. We look forward to continuing our mission of promoting health and wellness in our community.