Experience Your Power 9® - Right Tribe: Health and Wellness Blog

After the Blue Zones Project™ kick-off last fall, I wanted to get more involved with this healthy initiative in our community. During a brainstorming session with a friend, I created Experience Your Power 9^®: Interactive Series Inspired By Blue Zones Project™. We have learned from Blue Zones Project™ that people who live longer, healthier lives have nine common characteristics, Power 9^®. Over nine weeks, we will celebrate the characteristics we do well and bring each
one to life with a short activity.

We started last week learning about the 80% rule and experiencing it through food sampling at Crossroads Hy-Vee with dietician Stephanie Wharton. Tonight, we will learn the importance of finding a right tribe. According to Blue Zones Project™, the world's longest-lived people are either born into or choose to create social circles that support healthy behaviors. Assessing who you hang out with, and then proactively surrounding yourself with the right friends, will do more to add years to your life than just about anything else. We will experience this principle through a short volunteer project: assembling the dog tags that are used as an interactive component throughout the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum.

We will continue the rest of the series every Tuesday, 5:30-6:30pm, so join us one or all of the following weeks: 2/5: Down Shift - massage activity at d’vine Medical Spa, 2/12: Community - Tai Chi at the YMCA, 2/19: Move Naturally - Zumba at Fusion Dance & Fitness, 2/26: Loved Ones First - discover the Youth Pavilion, 3/5: Wine at 5 - wine tasting at Luna, 3/12: Plant Slant - food tasting at Newton’s, 3/26: Know Your Purpose - life coaching activity with Val Bullerman at Cedar Falls Library. Discover the healthy resources in the Cedar Valley that will help us become a certified Blue Zones Community™ and live longer, healthier lives! *FREE with LIMITED space – please RSVP on Facebook or call Jessica Crouch at 319-504-6689.