Mindfulness for Health Practitioners

How Do You Reduce Stress & Burnout?

In giving your service to clients in your practice you may find your work is incredibly meaningful and rewarding as well as exhausting and sometimes draining. Wether you are an osteopath, chiropractor, kinesiologist, psychologist, counsellor, naturopath or other health provider, balance and self care are a necessary aspect of maintaining a healthy service to your clients. Besides the actual service you offer, if you are running your own practice there are also business and administration duties that may weigh you down! Stress and burnout are all too familiar in the health industry, so how we manage our well-being is vital to business success for any health practitioner.

Whatever your business circumstances, mindfulness is a fantastic practice to support balance and ease in a busy therapeutic practice. If you are like most health practitioners then you have probably at least heard of mindfulness. You may have even begun a regular mindfulness practice at home. Today’s focus however, is about prioritising the integration of mindfulness into your daily business routines in your health service.

Steps to Integrating Mindfulness into Your Health Practice

The first step to integrating mindfulness into your health practice is to recognise its benefit in the context of your health practice. Mindfulness can help refresh your mind and de-stress your body as you work with your clients or carry out administration work. While it is easy to become consumed in the business activities and duties, practicing mindfulness will enhance your service as well as lift your energy levels at work. You can become so entrenched in the ‘doing’ that the ‘being’ can be forgotten. So the practice of mindfulness is as important at work as it is outside of work.

The second point is to realise that mindfulness can be integrated into a range of tasks that you are already doing. You do not need to add another ‘thing’ to your already busy list. You can simply modify the way you are doing it. Rather than rush between booking a client, organising the bookkeeping and welcoming the next client into session… slow down and breathe. Mindfulness can be as simple as taking ten seconds to feel the air enter into your lungs, feel your rib cage expand and contract and feel the air be released. Or it could be taking thirty seconds to feel the texture of the paper underneath your finger tips, or to really take notice of the image on your business card. It does not matter what you are doing as much as creating the ‘space’ within your body and mind to feel and witness what is. The simple act of ‘witnessing’ in mindfulness has the powerful influence of calming a busy mind.

The third step is to create reminders to practice mindfulness while at work. At first it is easy to forget to practice mindfulness throughout the day and especially if you are working in a busy health service. So a simple strategy is to put prompts around you at work to remind you. For example, you may create a phone message system or blue-tack a card above your computer screen. Eventually you will not need these prompts but at first, they can really help to maintain your mindfulness practice.

So these are three simple steps to integrating mindfulness into your health service. In a nut shell:

  • Recognize the benefits of mindfulness at work
  • Integrate mindfulness into current activities at work
  • Set up reminders to practice mindfulness in your work place
  • These three steps may seem incredibly simple but they are very powerful as you regularly bring mindfulness into your everyday way of being at work.

    Take The First Step Today To A Mindful Health Practitioner Business…

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    6 Responses to “Mindfulness for Health Practitioners”

    • Suzanne Robertson:

      Hi Vanessa

      I often practice mindfulness but I do it more in brief bursts of time when I recognize I need it. It’s good that you highlighted that’s an ok way to do mindfulness. If I was to try and ‘schedule in’ mindfulness, I don’t think it would help me as it would be another think on my list to do. Mindful breathing works best for me and mindful walking or eating is great too! The great thing about mindfulness is you can do it anywhere at any time!

      Regards

      Suzanne

      Reply
      • Vanessa Bushell:

        Hi Suzanne, thank you for your comment. I agree… adding another thing to a busy agenda is the last thing we want. Integrating a practice into what we already do is definitely the way forward and mindfulness gives us this opportunity.

        Have a great time embracing mindfulness
        Vanessa

        Reply
    • Annie Infinite:

      This is great advice Vanessa and it can help so much to clear the mind and allow expansiveness that can lead to renewed energy and better focus – I love to run outside barefoot on my grass and feel the ‘heartbeat’ of the earth beneath my feet and allow any tension to release down through my feet. It makes a huge difference so nice to know you are helping health workers with this kind of advice, they all put so much of themselves into their work

      • Vanessa Bushell:

        Hi Annie, thank you for your comment.

        I believe people can feel the freshness within someone who connects with nature regularly and really allows themselves to receive Earth’s energies. It’s beautiful that our social medial guru has such a wonderful grounded connection with mother Earth. I think when you work with a lot of ‘head stuff’ and the on-line cyber world it would be so important to run barefoot on the grass outside!

        Lovely response, Annie
        Vanessa

        Reply
    • Kama:

      Great post Vanessa. My whole business is built around mindfulness. I don’t know how I survived before mindfulness came in to my life, my mind must have been a complete mess. I practice mindfulness all day and I certainly know when I have let it slip because suddenly everything seems difficult. Such a powerful tool. I love our mindfulness chats x

      Reply
      • Vanessa Bushell:

        Hi Kama, thank you for your lovely comment! I enjoy our conversations on mindfulness too. Practicing mindfulness has been incredibly helpful to me as a psychologist as well as my clients and I know it is the same for you. It’s fantastic to embrace mindfulness in our service with others!

        Have a fantastic day
        Vanessa

        Reply

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