By Renee Couch, Comal County Treasurer and TAC Board President
I attended the Texas Association of Counties' Health and Employee Benefits Pool (TAC HEBP) Board meeting in May where the importance of good health was discussed. As I listened, I thought about how for more than a year, we have been focused on staying healthy relative to COVID-19, but as we protected ourselves from the pandemic, I wondered whether we neglected other aspects of our health.
The demands of our personal lives and jobs can make looking after our health difficult in normal times, and not just our physical good health but our emotional and mental good health, too. Add the stresses of the pandemic to the equation — the mixing of home, work and school in one place for many of us — and you can easily see how our personal and work lives blurred even more than usual over the past year.
With COVID-19 cases at levels not seen in more than a year, our pre-pandemic lives are finally back in reach. We can use this moment to reassess ourselves and commit to taking care of our physical selves by eating nutritious food, exercising and getting enough sleep. The result can prevent ordinary, everyday pressure from turning into stress and burnout.
As the old saying goes, the first step is the most difficult. But one tiny step leads to another. I've been participating in Omada, the interactive health program that TAC offers at no cost to TAC HEBP members and their covered adult family members. Omada helps you learn to eat a healthy diet to attain more energy, and a professional health coach helps motivate you to stay on track.
You can learn about Omada, TAC's Healthy County wellness program, the latest health benefits news and much more by visiting www.county.org/health-benefits.
Developing long-term healthy habits not only rewards us with improved overall health but can also help us become better public servants and leaders. Many factors make a good leader, of course, but surely good health, by improving our sense of well-being, contributes to good leadership.
This summer offers us a great opportunity to take that first step toward better health, especially as we begin to reacquaint ourselves with our old, in-person social lives. It's the perfect time to resolve to take a break from work to focus on ourselves and our families and friends and enjoy a season meant to be enjoyed.
Let's shake loose the past 15 months, which have been some of the hardest of our lives. It's time, at last, to take some well-deserved summer fun time.
Your body and your mind will thank you for it.
I can think of no better way for us at this moment to stay #254Strong!
