You can become a health coach just by asking the right questions. I was doing an initial goal setting session with someone this morning and it unexpectedly became a health coaching session. I say unexpectedly because this guy seemed like a fitness guru himself, until I asked some clarifying questions. Truth be known, he only sleeps an average of 3 or 4 hours a night. I don’t specialize in health coaching, but I recognized that pattern of adrenal burnout syndrome; in other words, running on adrenaline after you are exhausted. I was also able to predict his other issue of being addicted to junk food and explain his difficulty with focusing on tasks. Here’s how you can recognize this pattern and help others, whether you decide to become a health coach or not.

Become a Health Coach Who Knows that Health Coaching is Important for Everyone

What you first need to become a health coach who can help people with this common pattern is to recognize normal sleep cycles. Most people start getting sleepy by 10pm, and for this particular client it was about the same. What happens to him is the same thing we see in children. If they keep going through their natural cycle of sleepiness, they start using adrenaline to keep going. You don’t have to be an expert at health coaching to recognize when children are running around wild long past they should be in bed, not looking the least bit sleepy. They get so hyped up that they have a tough time calming down. Adults do the same.

The second thing to recognize if you want to become a health coach, or do any type of health coaching, is that lack of sleep affects our appetites. Not too long ago I read a n article about a study from the New England Journal of Medicine that talked about hormone regulation with and without sleep deprivation. It turns out that people who have 5 hours or less of sleep show elevated levels of hormones that increase appetite and lower levels of hormones that suppress appetite compared to control groups who slept 7 hours. To paraphrase the results, lack of sleep makes you crave more calories. You really didn’t need to go to all that effort to prove that to me!

Health Coaching Still Involves Clients’ Needs and Desires

As I mentioned before, I am not a health coaching expert. But I was able to cut through this clients ‘story’ and find out what he was trying to tell me about his apparent lack of focus and motivation just by asking a few clarifying questions. But even when you become a health coach, don’t forget that you still need to uncover how your clients are getting their needs me by their behavior and how that drives their action. Even when I helped this client see what his behavior was costing him in some major areas of his life, he was still not ready to make a change. He was afraid by not driving himself so hard he would not to feel as significant and he might loose out on the love and connection he was getting from his current behavior.

Become a Health Coach Who Can See Beyond Diet and Exercise

You can start to become a health coach right where you are by caring enough to continue to ask enough questions to get to the real issues. When you can ‘read clients minds’ and predict their other issues based on what recognizing patterns, they will naturally see you as the person who can solve their problems. Whether you are a health coaching guru or not. Just make sure you don’t let anything slide, because what they almost tell you is usually what they need to tell you the most.

Colette Seymann
JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach