Mindful Opportunity to Reflect on Experience: Interdisciplinary Mind–Body Medicine Skills Training for Health-care Professionals

Abstract

Interventions that support employee wellness and resilience hold potential to improve patient care, increase staff engagement, and decrease burnout. This repeat-measures study evaluated whether an abbreviated version of mind-body medicine skills training could decrease stress and improve mindfulness among an interdisciplinary cohort of health-care professionals. The study also assessed whether participants incorporated the mind-body medicine skills into their personal and professional lives. Aggregate results from this unpaired cohort showed decreased stress and increased mindfulness. Postcourse surveys demonstrated increased personal and professional use of mind-body medicine skills. There was high favorability among participants. These preliminary results suggest that a modest investment of time and resources to learn mind-body medicine skills may positively affect employee wellness among health-care professionals. In addition, skills learned could translate into improved patient care and increased staff engagement. Further study with larger cohorts and a paired design is needed.

Introductory Chapter: How Does Stress Impact Human Body?

“…It has been reported that diaphragmatic breathing practice improves the cognitive performance and reduces the adverse effect of stress in healthy adults [6,[14][15][16][17]. It has been provided that effective stress management strategies such as meditation, yoga, deep breathing, which is defined as a mindfulness activity efficient for integrative body-mind training and reduces stress-related disorders, contribute to healthy lifespan, increase the quality of life, and prevent sudden death [18].…”

Breaking Burnout: A Personal Reflection on Mindfulness Exercises for Physicians

“…Mindfulness activities such as reflection, sensory awareness activities, and Yoga for staff, residents, and medical students also reduce burnout at all levels of training [2][3][4]. The benefits of mindfulness and Yoga on stress management have also been demonstrated to extend broadly to nurses, teachers, police officers, and military personnel [5][6][7][8][9][10]. Unsurprisingly, mindfulness is an effective nonpharmacologic therapy for psychogenic disorders, dysthymia, and stress reduction in the general population [11][12][13].…”