You may be thinking, how is taking better care of myself going to make me a better physician?
Exercise won’t make me perform exams any better.
Diet won’t improve the speed of completing EMR documentation.
Mindfulness won’t make my patients cancer go away.
Well this cynicism is exactly the reason why you need to read the rest of this article.
Whether you want to believe it or not your personal wellbeing has a direct effect on your patients and every aspect of your career and personal life.
Let’s jump into the reasons.
1. Your patients will have better outcomes
There was a study performed that showed a patient whose primary care physician is out of shape will have worse outcomes than someone who’s PCP is healthy.
According to this same study, physicians who are out of shape and do not workout themselves have been shown to be less likely to bring up obesity, diet, and lifestyle modification counseling with their patients.
This is an unfortunate disservice to our patients that is rooted in a deeper issue of overworked doctors.
I do not write this as an attack by any means, but instead to spread awareness to the issue. My goal is not to beat up physicians who are being stretched far and thin by an overloaded healthcare system.
This is why at the end of this article I provide a solution to the problem not just point out a problem. So keep reading to see how prioritizing your wellness will make you a better physician.
2. Your home life will improve
This doesn’t mean you have a dysfunctional home to start with.
What it does mean is a happy, functional, and loving home life will indirectly effect how you interact with your patients, your colleagues, and your attitude in the clinic.
Partaking in activities that prioritize your personal wellness such as
- Taking time to decompress after a long day of seeing patients, which will leave negative energy out of the home.
- Eating foods that encourage positive mood and high energy, allowing you to have more energy to share with your family and friends
- Using functional movement and exercise to decrease rates of injury and sickness, so you have more quality time with your family
All of this plus more will make you a better mother, father, sister, or brother as well as a better caregiver and colleague.
3. You will experience less burnout
Burnout is a huge issue that isn’t getting the proper attention in my opinion. This is why I am writing this article in the first place.
In a previous article I spoke about physician burnout in depth, so check that out for more information about it and how to fix it.
To sum it up burnout leads to anxiety, depression, depersonalization, cynicism, and an increase in medical errors.
Using wellness to decrease burnouts is not something to be taken lightly. There is a epidemic of physicians not giving their body the love and support it needs.
With the amount of knowledge you have over the human body it would be a shame not to experience its full potential.
A potential that can only be reached with the proper maintenance that can only be achieved through a wellness approach.
4. You will have more autonomy over yourself
Changing your behavior when it comes to self-care routines and wellness will increase your personal autonomy in so many ways.
When you implement a personalized wellness routine you will:
- Feel empowered.
- Have an increased sense of control.
- Be impressed with your ability to directly affect your mood and health.
This happens because when you get into the habit of caring for yourself you realize that many of the things you thought were out of your control in your life you actually had a hand in as well.
This requires a sense of personal accountability as well, which is hard for some, but I promise it is such a better way of living.
5. You will be healthier.
This one is so obvious, but should still be mentioned. As a personal trainer I have specialized in working with physicians for the past couple of years, and I cannot tell you how many clients I have worked with that completely ignore their health.
I never thought I would be preaching health to healthcare professionals, but the more entrenched I became in the niche the more need I saw.
Your blood pressure will decrease, your injury rates will go down, your mental health will improve, your sick days will be less.
I could write a book on the positive effects of taking your wellness seriously, but I won’t bore you here.
Just know your health is your wealth, and what a shame it would be to give up your 20’s to learning to help others, sacrifice your working years and family by participating in long hours of caring for your patients. Only to retire and go straight to the other side of the healthcare realm as a chronic patient yourself.
Take some time out of your week to give your body the healing it needs. It doesn’t need to be much, just enough.
6. You will make a bigger impact in the world
What in the heck does my wellness have to do with my impact on the world?
When you take care of yourself it shows. The energy you give to the world is different.
I was always attracted to medicine (i’m in my last year of physical therapy school) because I thought of it as a way to heal people, not just ‘treat sick people.’
As a kid I thought of doctors as these healers you might see in a movie of some ancient civilization. Where just their presence transferred some sort of transiate healing.
Not a thing, I know, but we all have been in the room with someone whose presence alone changed how we felt.
Maybe we were down and their energy picked us up. Or maybe we were hurt and just their touch somehow made the pain go away.
I’m not saying wellness will give you superpowers, but seeing someone who has dedicated their life to the health of others and radiates good health and prosperity themselves is sometimes enough.
What a gift it is to influence someone’s health just by being an example of what health looks like.
While this isn’t something that works for everyone. Someone with a new case of cancer isn’t going to see your health status and be influenced to workout more.
But, with some of the leading causes of death in the western world being preventable diseases I think it is worth a shot.
7. You will be more successful
Last, but not least, taking care of yourself will indeed make you a more successful doctor.
How?
There is a reason why successful people tend to prioritize exercise. It changes you.
Firstly, every day you exercise you accomplish a small victory, this sense of accomplishment motivates you to continue your winning streak.
This will to win often gets transferred over to other aspects of your life, your career being a huge chunk of that by default will be affected.
Secondly, you will put the same principles of getting results in your workouts and wellness routines into getting results for your patients.
You discover that hard work and consistency produce results. You apply this to getting that new position or opening your own practice or leading your team.
These all combined lead to a more successful doctor, which is measured by your ability to make positive impacts on your patients, community, and organization.
My solution
As I promised I said I had a solution if you were struggling to incorporate wellness into your practice to become a better doctor.
There is nothing I like more than seeing one of my clients win.
This is why I combined the main points from my health coaching curriculum and created a FREE training just for you to incorporate wellness strategies to take back control of your life.
When you attend this training you will:
Learn how you can use behavioral modification and mindfulness to completely 180 your view on life.
Understand how to use functional movement to decrease stress, anxiety, and depression as well as improve body composition, and increase longevity.
Learn how to use the power of food to assist your mindfulness and movement based lifestyle modifications to accomplish any goal from weight loss to stress reduction.