TURNSTONE
wellness
Cultivating wellness, growth and resilience
Health & Wellness Coaching
Feeling stuck? Frustrated? Perhaps you recognize that what you're doing isn't getting the results you want.
With a whole-person approach, I offer personalized health and wellness coaching to adults who are facing life’s transitions and want to address issues such as:
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A new or chronic health diagnosis
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Stress and stress-related illnesses
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Establishing healthy eating or movement habits
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Reassessing career paths
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Preparing for or recovering from surgery
Together we’ll build your strengths in areas like:
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Sleep and rest
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Emotional well-being
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Resilience
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Physical activity
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Mindfulness
FAQs
What is health and wellness coaching? Health and wellness coaching is a proactive approach to promoting health behavior change. By collaborating with a health coach, you formulate achievable goals, navigate the steps of behavior modification, and establish sustainable habits. Through this partnership, a health coach offers both accountability and unwavering support for the goals and outcomes that you want to see.
What kind of topics does health and wellness coaching address? Health and wellness coaching addresses a wide range of topics that impact one's overall well-being. These include sleep and rest, stress management, emotional and mental health, time management, nutrition and eating habits, work-life balance, and physical fitness and activity. Essentially, health and wellness coaching can address any of these areas based on your needs and goals.
Who might benefit from health and wellness coaching? Health and wellness coaching can benefit a wide range of individuals looking to enhance any area of their life, lifestyle, health, or overall wellness. Whether you're aiming to improve your sleep habits, stress management, mindfulness, time management, physical fitness, or any combination of issues, a health coach can provide valuable support tailored to your specific needs.
How is health and wellness coaching different from therapy? Health and wellness coaching differs from therapy in several ways, but a key distinction lies in the role of the client (you!). The fundamental belief in coaching is that you possess the answers within yourself. The coach's role is to facilitate the process of uncovering and harnessing that inherent knowledge, providing support as you work towards your goals. Unlike therapy, coaches do not diagnose conditions or prescribe treatments. Instead, coaching primarily focuses on the present and future, aiming to empower you to make positive changes in your life. Rather than delving into past experiences, coaching sessions typically concentrate on setting actionable goals and devising strategies to achieve them.
Does Health and Wellness Coaching work?
The research says YES. Health coaching isn’t just a trend—it’s a game-changer. And the science backs it up. With a rapidly growing body of research, the verdict is clear: health coaching works. That’s why doctors, patients, and researchers are embracing it as a powerful tool to tackle some of today’s biggest healthcare challenges. But health coaching doesn’t just work on its own. Studies show that it enhances and complements other proven medical treatments, making it a valuable addition to evidence-based care. Check out a selection of research studies below.
Mental and Emotional Well-Being: Research shows that health coaches play a powerful role in helping clients navigate challenges like stress, anxiety, depression, and cognitive decline. How? By guiding clients to build effective coping strategies, improve key lifestyle habits (nutrition, sleep, and exercise), and reframe negative thought patterns. Coaches help create lasting, positive change. 1. Clinical and cost-effectiveness of remote-delivered, online lifestyle therapy versus psychotherapy for reducing depression: results from the CALM non-inferiority, randomised trial | The Lancet Regional Health – Western Pacific | 2024 2. Effect of Personalized Risk-Reduction Strategies on Cognition and Dementia Risk Profile Among Older Adults: The SMARRT Randomized Clinical Trial | JAMA Internal Medicine | 2024 | 3. Mobile Behavioral Health Coaching as a Preventive Intervention for Occupational Public Health: Retrospective Longitudinal Study | JMIR Formative Research | 2023 | 4. Social return on investment of face-to-face versus online lifestyle coaching to improve mental wellbeing | Lancet | 2022 5. The Effectiveness of Wellness Coaching for Improving Quality of Life | Mayo Clinic Proceedings | 2014 |
Sleep and Stress: 1. App-Supported Sleep Coaching: Implications for Sleep Duration and Sleep Quality | Frontiers in Sleep | 2023 2. A Pilot Study to Assess the Effect of Coaching on Emergency Nurses’ Stress Management | Nursing Reports | 2023 3. Lifestyle Medicine Practitioners Implementing a Greater Proportion of Lifestyle Medicine Experience Less Burnout | American Journal of Health Promotion | 2023
Exercise and Movement: 1. Setting Physical Activity Goals with a Virtual Coach: Vicarious Experiences, Personalization and Acceptance | Journal of Medical Systems | 2023 2. Effective techniques in healthy eating and physical activity interventions: a meta-regression | Health Psychology | 2009 3. Feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a novel web-based physical activity intervention in adults with overweight/obesity: a pilot randomized controlled trial | Contemporary Clinical Trials | 2024 4. The effect of telephone health coaching and remote exercise monitoring for peripheral artery disease (TeGeCoach) on health care cost and utilization: results of a randomized controlled trial | European Journal of Health Economics | 2024
Healthy Eating and Weight Management: 1. The Impact of Health Coaching on Weight and Physical Activity in Obese Adults: A Randomized Control Trial | American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine | 2022 2. Health and Wellness Coaching Improves Weight and Nutrition Behaviors | American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine | 2018 3. Health coaching to improve healthy lifestyle behaviors: an integrative review | American Journal of Health Promotion | 2010 4. Effective techniques in healthy eating and physical activity interventions: a meta-regression | Health Psychology | 2009
Diabetes: 1. A personalized multi-interventional approach focusing on customized nutrition, progressive fitness, and lifestyle modification resulted in the reduction of HbA1c, fasting blood sugar and weight in type 2 diabetes: a retrospective study | BMC Endocrine Disorders | 2022 2. Effectiveness of Health Coaching in Diabetes Control and Lifestyle Improvement: A Randomized-Controlled Trial | Nutrients | 2021 3. Behaviour change techniques targeting both diet and physical activity in type 2 diabetes: A systematic review and meta-analysis | International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity | 2017
Other Chronic Illnesses: 1. Digital health coaching to improve patient preparedness for elective lower limb arthroplasty: a quality improvement project | BMJ Open Quality | 2023 2. The impact of health and wellness coaching on patient-important outcomes in chronic illness care: A systematic review and meta-analysis | Patient Education and Counseling | 2023 3. Intensive out-of-hospital coaching for frequently hospitalized COPD patients: a before-after feasibility study | Frontiers in Medicine | 2023 Clinical Effectiveness of Lifestyle Health Coaching | American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine | 2016 4. Health coaching to improve healthy lifestyle behaviors: an integrative review | American Journal of Health Promotion | 2010
My Background
Several years ago life threw some serious health challenges my way, pushing me to rethink my priorities. In a search for a not-your-average professional development activity, I came across health and wellness coaching. Through participation in the coach training program at Duke Integrative Medicine, I gained insights into the transformative impact of health and wellness coaching.
Coaching is a natural extension of the advising profession in which I've been so deeply involved, and draws on my background in higher education and student affairs. Most recently, I've been working with educational programs in the field of global health and have come to embrace the tenets of global health - improving access to and reducing disparities in healthcare across the world.
I am nationally board certified as a Health & Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC).