Welcome to the Active, Healthy and Happy Info and Resources section. We’re setting this up to give you lots of support with your fitness, health and well being journey – from articles and information about mental health right through to exercise routines and programs you can use at home. This section is a work in progress! We’ll be regularly adding to it with all sorts of goodies so keep visiting us here to check out new things.
Gold Coast Active and Healthy Program
All our exercise classes in the Active, Healthy and Happy program are part of the Gold Coast Active and Healthy Program. To check out more about this city-wide initiative click here
Exercise routines and programs you can do at home
Here’s a couple of fun programs you can do anytime at home or in your local park – they come from Australian Unity’s regular newsletter
And Australian Unity also has a large suite of You Tube workouts with Personal Trainer Nick Scott.
Food and Eating
That Sugar Film is one man’s journey to discover the bitter truth about sugar. Damon Gameau embarks on a unique experiment to document the effects of a high sugar diet on a healthy body by consuming only foods that are commonly perceived as ‘healthy’. Through this entertaining and informative journey Damon highlights some of the issues that plague the sugar industry and where sugar lurks on supermarket shelves. That Sugar Film will forever change the way we think about ‘healthy’ food.
The Centre hosted a free screening of That Sugar Film during October 2016 and we are now working with the film’s action kit.
If you would like to borrow the film to watch it at home please contact Sally at 0412 682 008. For more information about the film go to: http://thatsugarfilm.com/
Alongside sugar, the other white substance that can cause all sorts of issues for us is processed flour. If you are interested in learning more about becoming gluten-free, the highly respected Chopra Centre has an excellent article about eating gluten-free here.
And what about fat? It has a troublesome reputation but there is more to it than we realise. The Chopra Centre has an informative article about two types of fat in our bodies here.
Here is an article from Living Now magazine about why we are getting bigger: why-are-we-getting-bigger
Check out this link for more “Activities to Promote HeartHealth” Its a good read!
Mental Health
Both of the Centre’s Yoga teachers – Adrian and Sally – are trained and qualified Mental Health First Aiders. This means they can assist students who have immediate concerns about their mental health by referring them to counselling and other support services. The Centre has a free counselling service available for Northern Gold Coast residents. If you would like to know more please talk to Adrian, Sally or phone the Centre on 5529 8087.
In September 2016, the Youth Centre’s Family Support Counsellor Breda Grimley facilitated a forum about Understanding Anxiety and Depression. We learned such a lot about these ‘common colds’ of the mental health world; particularly the signs and symptoms of illness and how to deal with them. Breda made a great resource booklet for us and it’s attached here for access and use anytime:
anxiety-and-depression-handout-sept-2016
“Positive Habits” is an article that was published in Living Now magazine in 2015: positive-habits
Yoga, Chi Gong, Meditation, Acupressure
When our yoga classes are on holidays it’s great to have access to a short yoga practice you can do at home. Kara from Canungra Yoga recently recorded a 9 minute morning yoga practice on You Tube and it is available here:
We run four yoga classes a week at the Youth Centre with teachers Adrian and Sally. Sometimes people wonder if Yoga is a bit too passive to help us much physically and we say a resounding NO! Yoga is a brilliant, all-round physical and emotional practice that nourishes a healthy mind, body and heart. In this article by teacher Cameron Story from the Gold Coast Yoga Centre we learn that Yoga can even provide cardio benefits: yoga-and-cardio
“A Non-Violent Approach to Extending Your Limits” is a great article from the Gold Coast Yoga Centre that explains how we can extend ourselves in yoga asanas (postures) compassionately and without harming ourselves.
In Term 1 the Centre started a new class – Chi Gong-Energiser – mainly for over 50s but all ages are welcome to come along. This class offers gentle moving meditation from the ancient Chinese art of Chi Gong; mindful breathing and even some simple yoga postures. We are finding that this combination of flowing movement, mindful breathing and stretching is giving us all a sense of inner peace and calm which we love. Here is the link to the 18 Forms of Chi Gong that we are currently exploring in class. We also apply the Eight Brocades of Chi Gong in class.
This helpful article from Liviing Now magazine shows us how to use simple acupressure to relieve headaches and relax the scalp, face, eyes and head: acupressure-for-the-eyes
iRest (Integrative Restoration Institute is a wonderful organisation that focuses on the benefits and practices of meditation for wellbeing. It’s latest newsletter offers an excellent article called “Meditating on what it means to just be…”
Pelvic Floor
In 2015 Amelia the Physiotherapist held an information forum at the Youth Centre about pelvic floor health. Here are some of the handouts from that important session: protecting-the-pelvic-floor
Pregnancy and Exercise
We have two excellent info fliers here about pregnancy and exercise: pregnancy-and-exercise and returning to exercise after giving birth: returning-to-exercise-after-giving-birth