This workshop was orginally called "Food and Mood", but to avoid confusion with Amanda Geary's Food and Mood Project we decided to rename as, "change your food / change your mood".
The Challenge
Stress causes people to eat badly. I don't just mean talking with your mouth full or spilling drinks - although both could be symptoms of a stressful life. The real problems are consuming comfort foods and drinks without any thought to how these are going to affect how you will feel in the medium or long term.
The Solution
As with everything to do with stress the problem can be approached in two ways. Here, rather than focusing on the stress that is causing the bad eating we turn the tables and give people a fantastic opportunity to change eating habits that they may not even have realised were causing them stress.
The Result
Participants get to see their food and drink as more than just sustenance and sources of short term pleasure. Gaining an overview of the many food/mood links opens up new ways of reducing stress. In the longer term eating food that is good for the mood is surprisingly good for physical health too.
The Follow up
Participants are encouraged to pair up as well as selecting someone outside of work who will help them make one or two small changes to demonstrate to themselves that they can indeed take control of their food and hence influence their mood. All participants choosing to do this will receive support from Stop Paddling as we can be contacted by email and will try to respond quickly to all requests for help and further information.
Benefits to your business
Changing diet for the better has indirect benefits on health and feelings of self-worth that in turn lead to improved performance.
Time for a session
This can be as long or short as you like.
It has been given as a 30 minute talk.
A 90 minute workshop version is of course far more effective.
A half day session is even more fun with extra practical work including tasting of healthy alternatives during a mid-morning break.
A full day course with two facilitators can be arranged that would cover this massive subject to a depth that would allow many myths to be explained as mostly true or mostly false. A full day would allow many aspects of general nutrition and diet to be discussed that could not possibly fit into less time.
Suggested number of participants
Workshops so far have been for up to 12 employees.
Higher numbers for workshops are possible with 2 facilitators.
Talks with aid of powerpoint and handouts can be for much larger groups.
Things to consider before booking
Be prepared to make changes and be prepared to be helped by everyone around you.
061008