Exams terrify me. They always have. And it never seemed to matter how much I studied or slept, the minute I walked into that classroom and those exam booklets were dropped in front of me, it was like someone hit the delete key in my brain and kept clicking on the sleep function.

I wish I better understood my own psychology and why my body went automatically into panic (and sleep) mode when I tried to take an exam. Thankfully, as I kept taking exams, I got more comfortable with the process and found myself not passing out anymore. They still terrified me, but I was completing and passing the exams – and that’s what mattered most.

While studying communications at MacEwan University, I learned a few techniques of how I best prepare for an exam, how to quell my fears and walk out of the exam room a confident winner.

The first thing I learned was that cramming doesn’t work. There’s a reason why education programs and courses can take a few years to complete: it’s because learning takes time. If I knew I had an exam coming up, I would start studying at least two weeks (sometimes up to a month) ahead of time and just casually review the material as I went. I would take one night to study one thing, take the next night to study another, and then I’d review what I studied the night before.

Reviewing what you previously studied is important – even if it’s just a quick glance through to remember what it was that you read. In fact, if you remember what you read the night before from a quick glance, that’s good because it means you’re retaining what you need to know and it’s staying fresh in your mind. Keeping material fresh in your mind as you go is important because it will stay fresh when you sit down for the exam and you’ll have no problem recalling that information.

As you review information, bring it up to yourself in everyday situations. In my case, keeping in mind I was studying a lot of writing and editing techniques, I would knit-pick at everything that I read, identify different literary techniques that were being used and even sometimes edit the newspaper or magazines laying around my house just so I could keep applying what I needed to know for the exam.

Practical application is an art in itself and should be taught as a course. When you’re first presented material for an exam, it seems odd and theoretical, and thus harder to recall. But, when you apply what you need to know in everyday situations, you brain will actually be able to recall what you applied the material to with more accuracy than if you just read it out of a book. So instead of just reading about different anatomy in a book, grab a friend and start pointing out all the different body parts; your friend will think it’s funny and you’ll remember all the material better.

I also suggest, wherever possible, studying with a buddy. This way, if there’s something you don’t understand, you can bounce it back and forth between you and your buddy and be able to recall the conversation while testing.

The last thing I always found helped me with exams has been as simple as diet and sleep. It’s best to eat high protein foods and simple carbohydrates: oatmeal, eggs, lean chicken and fish are the types of foods I always found best to eat when I was in exam mode.

As for sleep, I usually keep it to around seven hours but everyone is different. Oversleeping can be as bad as not sleeping at all. In addition to being conscious of the amount of sleep you get, try also doing a simple exercise routine first thing when you wake to get your energy levels up.

You can follow all of this advice and maybe even other great advice from other veteran testers, but you can still fail from one small mistake.

With this in mind, the final point I want to touch on is attitude, which can go a long way when it comes to performance. If you walk into a test with a bad attitude, assuming you’ll fail, then you’re probably going to fail. But, if you go into the exam calm and confident, prepared and relaxed, you’re probably going to do pretty well.

Here’s what I want to know from you, all of my loyal readers. I want to know about your own testing experiences. What have you found works well for you when preparing for exams? What are some of your own exam success stories and what did you do to find those successes? And what hasn’t worked for you in the past and what did you learn about your own studying and information retention style for future exams?

And to all of you CEE Candidates, what have you been doing to prepare for the exams? What NHPCA resources and courses have you been taking advantage of in your studies? How are you helping yourself retain a lot of this information?

Ok, let’s keep it clean on this blog. No shots below the belt, biting ears, slapping or kicking. Let’s keep it constructive and let’s explore ways to study better!

Your coach in the corner rooting you on,

Christopher Schieman

Recently while watching The Walking Dead, I noticed something interesting about the character of Milton Mamet, the token science-guy in the town of Woodbury. For those who haven’t seen the show, the very distilled summary up to this point goes something like this:

·      Dead people come back to life and start eating living people.

·      Civilization as we know it crumbles.

·      Our protagonists travel around the Southern States trying to survive.

·      They discover Woodbury, a town trying to salvage what’s left of the previous civilization.

Milton’s serves predominately as the guy studying the zombies and trying to figure out their scientific makeup. In a recent episode, he’s seen jotting down a lot of notes. When another character asks him what he’s doing, Milton responds saying, “I’m tracking our history.”

Milton goes on to explain that what they’re experiencing is the next chapter in humanity and as they grow and try to rebuild their world, someone has to record the history of what happened and how they got to where they will be in the future.

Amidst all the conflict and zombies, this has been something that has stuck out in my mind a lot the past few days, particularly as we work as a team here to begin to understand the importance of our own Association’s history.

Here at the NHPCA’s main headquarters, we’ve been digging through a lot of our old files, trying to understand how we got to where we are now 25 years after we formed as an organization. The rumors we are piecing together lead us to the idea that this organization formed at a hot tub party back in 1988. But things didn’t exactly jump from hot tub to the downtown Edmonton office overnight. There’s a story in between.

Unfortunately, we’re running into a funny problem here: much of the old documents and records aren’t around anymore. Business has changed exponentially in the past 25 years and how we record our progress has changed from filing cabinets filled with paper to machines filled with memory.

The Internet’s accessibility and the idea of using computers to store everything is really a recent idea: computers weren’t a staple part of business until the 1980s and organizations having an online focus wasn’t necessarily important until the late 1990s.

You see the same thing happening with people today: how many commercials have you seen about new online databases where you can track your family history? How many family members do you have right now (or maybe you do this yourself) who are digging up the old family albums and scanning the pictures on their computers?

What this shows is despite the change in technology and how we live day to day, history is still important. From taking pictures while on vacation to studying ancient civilizations, everyone has some interest in tracking and understanding history.

What I want to know this time around is what part of your history do you find important? Do you study where your practices came from, how they evolved over time, and how they stay relevant today?

And even better, do you know anything about the history of the NHPCA? Do you know anything about the hot tub party or whom the first practitioners represented by this organization were?

And most important, how are you tracking your history today and how do you hope the people of tomorrow continue tracking their history and studying ours?

Before I forget, I want to invite anyone in the Edmonton area to come to our office (6^th floor, 10339 124 St.) and check out the timeline we have running through the front foyer – and to add whatever history is missing that you know about to our timeline. Even if you’re not in the Edmonton area, we still want to see what old documents and pictures you have that shows our progress through these last 25 years.

After all, our history isn’t complete without you.

Your blogger, zombie-slayer, and time traveller,

Chris Schieman

You’ve probably seen plenty of ads and notifications kicking around about this year’s Annual National Conference (ANC). The NHPCA is making sure you’re reminded that the conference is coming up whenever you open a Connections magazine, whenever you go onto the website, or anytime you open one of our mass emails. It probably feels like we’re pushing this conference pretty hard, and that’s because we truly do have a spectacular line up prepared this year and we want to ensure you’re involved.

You no doubt already know that our keynote speaker is recipient of the 2010 BC RMT of the Year Award, Susan Chapelle, and that we have workshops being put on by some of the biggest international names in natural health: such as Brian Utting, James Waslaski, Paula Nutting and Mya Breman.

This year is also seeing one of the biggest tradeshows that any NHPCA event has ever assembled. It’s like the world of natural health is packing up its bag and moving itself over to Calgary for the weekend.

Sitting next to our Education and Events team here at the NHPCA office, I get to overhear a lot of the things that Lynett, Jamal and Jana do to set up these kinds of events. More, I get to hear the kind of thought processes that go into who they pick to keynote speak, put on workshops and courses and who’s going to set up at the tradeshow. It’s far from drawing names out of a hat.

They take into account what’s new in the industry, who’s offering the best courses, who are the notable names that people are going to recognize and want to learn from, and how are they going to best serve our entire membership base through all 60-plus modalities.

A lot of thought and work has gone, and continues to go, into this year’s ANC. With everything that has gone into the ANC I cant help but think about the kind of value that you would get from an event like this.

To me, it’s about more than just the courses and the tradeshows. There’s something bigger going on. People throw around the “building a community” catchphrase a lot to the point where it’s starting to lose its meaning; but, if you ever wondered what that catchphrase really means, you’ll find the definition at the ANC.

What I want to know is what are you going to get out of the ANC this year? What courses and workshops are you looking forward to? Who are you excited to meet? And what are you hoping to walk away with once you leave Calgary?

Or, maybe you’re not going this year. If this is the case, I’d be curious to know why you aren’t going. Is it too far from where you practice? Do you feel like you’ll gain nothing from this conference? Is there anything that could have been done on our end to make the ANC more accessible or worthwhile for you?

Let’s keep the conversation constructive and engaging and leave out the insults and trolling.

Your e-voice from the inside,

Chris Schieman

PS: if you haven’t checked it out already, here’s a fun clip we put together on 25 reasons why we think you need to be at this year’s ANC.

In February of this year, the UK’s Choice Health Magazine published an article written by the English-based Association of Reflexologists about how to attract men to natural health practices. The article outlined ten practical shifts that can help men ease into being treated in an industry almost entirely dominated by women:

“Choose a niche market sector (business, a sporting discipline, or the elderly) where you have empathy, knowledge or enthusiasm so you can build a genuine connection with your male clients – don’t be all things to all people.”

“Provide treatment times that your male clients can access (i.e., after work, during evening training sessions or lunchtimes).”

“Make your males feel comfortable and understood. Include male-focused publications, sports interest publications or a daily newspaper in the waiting room.”

This lack-of-male phenomenon isn’t exclusive to the UK. Even here at the NHPCA, our membership base is predominantly female, along with the subscription and readership for our Connections Magazine.

Though with prevalent faces surrounding NHPCA events and in the Canadian natural health industry such as Matthew van der Giessen, Brian Utting and James Waslaski (all making appearances at this year’s Annual National Conference May 2 to 5 in Calgary, Alberta) it’s not as if the natural health field is completely devoid of men, but there is an odd stereotype surrounding it.

Despite all the progress we’ve made through the years integrating natural health into the medical field and increasing public knowledge of the benefits of natural health, there’s still a looming stereotype that natural health is for women and hippies and about getting in touch with your feelings and giving up some of life’s guilty pleasures.

For the average businessman or rough-and-tumble labourer, that’s an awfully tough sell. The stereotypes are in place; so, how do we get the message out that you don’t necessarily have to be vegan to find benefit in natural health?

What we want to know from you is why do you think these stereotypes are still in place and are these stereotypes the reason why men may be adverse from engaging with natural health practices?

Also, we would love to know what you’re doing with your practice to help engage men? Will you be taking some of the Association of Reflexologists advice and finding ways to market yourself better to suit the unique needs and mentality of males?

Or, do you find that there’s no discrepancy between genders and that these statistics are blown out of proportion? Do you service plenty of males already? If so, how do you treat them different from your female clients, if at all?

Usual blog requests are still in place, please keep all discussion civil and on topic and please no personal insults.

Thanks for reading and I’m excited to see where this conversation goes.

Your master of the blog domain,

Chris Schieman

A blog platform but no blogs? Well, that needs to change.

My name’s Chris Schieman and most of you who have talked to me before know me as the advertising guy at the NHPCA. But I actually also have a long track record as a writer here in Edmonton, contributing to magazines and other blogs such as Avenue, SEE, Void, and Calgary’s Beatroute magazine.

Since joining the NHPCA team in October 2012, one of the top projects I’ve wanted to bring to life is this blog. I love the idea of opening up another channel of communication and to hearing more of your thoughts and opinions as part of the NHPCA community.

A lot has been happening with the NHPCA and natural health industry over this past year. We’ve seen changes with insurance industry requirements, the introduction of the Competency Equivalency Exam (CEE), ongoing activity as part of the Continued Competency Program (CCP), and a whole range of workshops and events that have allowed the growth of our community.

Over the next few months we have the 24^th Annual National Conference coming up in Calgary on 2-5 May, and this year we also celebrate the 25^th Anniversary of the Association (with the official birthday in September!).

We have loads of news to share and sometimes it feels like we can’t get information out of our office and into your hands quick enough.  And we want to make sure we are constantly keeping you in the loop! So that’s where this blog comes in.

This space is an area where we can talk about the issues surrounding natural health and the entire health care industry; where we can all explore new ideas, talk about them intelligently and respectfully, and continue the never-ending process of learning and developing.

So to kick off, let’s start with a fun idea, shall we?

Recently, we posted a CNN report on our Facebook page about Las Vegas’ Heart Attack Grill where two spokespeople and a few customers (while inside the restaurant) actually suffered significant heart attacks (tragically, John Alleman and Blair River, both unofficial spokespeople for the restaurant, recently lost their lives). The food at the Heart Attack Grill is infamously unhealthy, even boasting a single burger that’s 10,000 calories – keep in mind, weightlossresources.co.uk reports that the average person eats between 1,900 to 2,500 calories a day and NBC reports that a Big Mac has 550 calories and KFC’s Double Down has about 540 calories. As part of Las Vegas’ Heart Attack Grill, the restaurant’s owner, Jon Basso, dresses like a doctor while he’s in the dining room, which is covered in signs warning customers about how unhealthy the food is.

Basso supports the food he serves, quoting American author Mark Twain, “Everything in moderation, including moderation… If someone wants to have a cheat meal, let them.”

So we want to know, as health care professionals with a special focus on the benefits and practices of natural health, how important is it to be a role model for how to lead a healthy lifestyle?

This isn’t a question of alternative dietary choices (veganism, vegetarianism, etc. – although opinions about these lifestyles are always welcome) but rather this is a question about what role we should be playing as health care professionals. Should we be leading by example with the dietary choices we make?

Is this important? Or is this irrelevant?

Is the public only critical of health care professionals while they’re practicing, or does activity outside the office matter too?  

We want to know what you think.

Feel free to comment below. We ask that you respect each other’s opinions and focus on the topic in terms of your own thoughts.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this read and I’m excited to see where this blog goes next.

Your NHPCA blog specialist,

Chris Schieman