KRISTEN FOLEY
JOIN HR DIRECTOR, KRISTEN, IN HER JOURNEY WITH WELLNESS
What does wellness mean to you? How do you center your life and work habits around this personal definition?
Wellness to me means a continuous balance of mind, body and spirit. It means finding satisfaction in all areas of life and continuing to adjust when they’re out of alignment. In my training at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, it really became clear that all areas of life impact wellness as a whole. If your career isn’t fulfilling, your may overeat due to stress, or being overworked and burnt out may lead to often eating takeout and not getting proper nutrients, which then affects your sleep, which affects your mood and your relationships. On the flip side, focusing on all areas of wellness and in using stress as an example, finding ways to minimize or manage your stress or burnout can positively impact your nutrition, energy, and social life. Wellness to me is the priority, because without it, most areas of our life are positively or negatively impacted by our choices. In speaking for myself personally, wellness is finding work that truly lights me up, having a small circle of people who truly add value to my life, putting nutrient-dense, unprocessed foods in my body, finding time to do things alone, like read, journal, meditate, breathwork, and most importantly, moving my body, whether that’s out in nature on a hike or pilates, yoga or just a walk after dinner with my family and our new pup. When I’m not able to prioritize these things, I really notice the difference in my overall mindset, the way I interact with others and my productivity.
How would you encourage a work culture of wellness beyond physical health, such as mental, emotional, and social wellbeing?
I find platforms such as All In One Wellbeing to be so beneficial and I do promote them at most of the organizations I’ve worked with in the past few years. Something simple, easy to navigate, short enough to do between meetings or during a longer break and effective. I also encourage employees to take time off when needed. We will manage and if we can’t, then we’ve identified that we have a bigger gap to fill longer term. Never taking a sick day or accruing all of your vacation days without using them is not something to be proud of in my book. I do feel that this has to come from the top to actually be put into practice and in the past, we’ve mapped out a calendar of wellness events for all employees to participate throughout the year. Having a continuous flow throughout the year, rather than crammed into one month is much more impactful in building a culture that promotes employee wellness.
How do the All In One Wellbeing classes align with your personal wellness goals? What are some of your favorite classes on All In One Wellbeing?
While I’m currently an HR Director and HR Consultant (for almost 20 years), I am also a certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, podcast host and overall wellness junkie, so Caravan is like my best friend. The classes offered are the resources I looked for in so many other places and needed multiple memberships to get all the classes I can get from All In One Wellbeing. I love the breathing exercises and my all time favorite to fit into a busy day with major results is the “5 Minute Meditation for Productivity” which I like to use when I feel like I need help focusing, and the “10 Minute Breathing Meditation” with Leo! He has such a calming voice and I feel transformed in just 10 short minutes. There are also non-work related courses that I love like the sleep meditations, airplane stretches and foods to eat for better sleep, to name a few!
In what ways has All In One Wellbeing provided you with valuable resources or knowledge during your health and wellness journey?
All In One Wellbeing makes pushing this out to employees so easy and I think that’s one of the reasons I continue to sign on whenever I’m working with a new company. Their team is so helpful in providing email templates, kick off webinars, monthly challenges, and newsletter content for each month that links back to their website. For most of my clients, the industry is in the creative realm, so the simple aesthetic of the All In One Wellbeing website and app is also important.
