Blue Zones Project — North Hawaii

Lift your workforce. Lead in your community.

Imagine a place where people feel excited about what they do, where they’re engaged and active together, and it’s easy to refuel in healthy ways. It’s possible in your workplace and your community.

You may have heard about the original Blue Zones places where people live longer, with a higher quality of life and lower rates of disease. Blue Zones Project leverages findings about these places and other well-being research to create new Blue Zones Communities across the U.S. This unique, systematic approach touches people, places and policy to support the natural, widespread adoption of powerfully healthy behaviors. In these environments, healthy and easy become one and the same.

Rewarding transformations

Worksites are a vital part of Blue Zones Communities. Employers play a key role in Blue Zones Project by shaping the workplace environment to support health and, in turn, improve productivity, decrease turnover and reduce health care costs. Business leaders are in a powerful position to dramatically improve employees’ well-being.

Here’s a list of some simple, yet effective best practices to create an optimal workplace environment:

• Encourage stretch breaks every hour

• Designate a quiet space for employees to downshift or meditate

• Create an employee garden and offer plant-based cooking classes

• Promote walking by encouraging the use of stairs, distributing walking maps and forming walking teams

• Allow flexible work schedules for all employees

• Offer on-site biometric screenings and health-risk assessments

• Design health benefits that promote prevention

Put Blue Zones Project to work at your worksite

We spend many waking hours at work. Day after day at work presents a new opportunity to encourage positive well-being transformation. The impact employers have on their human resources transcends the walls of an office building and into the community.

Here in North Hawaii, KTA Super Stores in Waimea and Hawaii First Federal Credit Union have already achieved Blue Zones Project Approved status. You, too, can join the movement by contacting Dena Smith Ellis, organization lead for Blue Zones Project – North Hawaii, at Dena.Ellis@healthways.com or 564-4761.

To learn more about Blue Zones Project Hawaii, go to info.bluezonesproject.com/hawaii

Blue Zones Project® – North Hawaii involves dozens of community volunteers from Waimea, Waikoloa, North Kohala, Kawaihae, Puako, and Hamakua who are dedicated to helping us all “Live Longer, Better.” Go to hawaii.bluezonesproject.com to learn more. North Hawaii is one of only eight communities in the state selected as a Blue Zones Project demonstration site. Blue Zones Project by Healthways is brought to Hawaii by HMSA.