LAKE BUENA VISTA, FLA. – Wellness is an antidote to burnout.
That was the message from psychotherapist and author Saundra Jain, PsyD, during a talk focused on “reigniting the flame” in both professional and personal life.
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“Wellness is not an afterthought. It simply cannot be,” she said at the annual meeting of the Florida Society of Rheumatology. The “data demand that wellness be elevated.”
That’s true both for patient care and for self care, she stressed, noting that by “wellness” she is referring to the 1948 World Health Organization definition: “... a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
Wellness-enhancing practices – she discussed five that have “the most robust dataset”: exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, social connectedness, and sleep – can improve well-being and reduce burnout through a number of mechanisms, not the least of which are reduced inflammation and reduced depression and anxiety, said Dr. Jain, adjunct clinical affiliate for the School of Nursing at the University of Texas at Austin.
For example, regular exercise is known to reduce chronic inflammation, and the effect has been shown to be independent of weight loss, she noted (Sports Med. 2013;43[4]:243-56).
Mindfulness also has been shown to reduce cortisol production in response to a psychological stressor, and thus may positively affect inflammatory responses, she said (Brain Behav Immun. 2013;27:174-184).
People struggle with the concept of mindfulness, because for many it is a bit foreign to their experience, she said, adding that “what we don’t know, we’re sometimes a little bit afraid of.
“But the data around mindfulness, honestly, is robust – it really, really is,” she said, adding that “you can take people who have not meditated at all, and in 8 weeks impact their inflammation.
“So you don’t have to be a long-term meditator – you do not have to meditate for 18 hours a day sitting in a lotus position in a serene, beautiful location.”
There is no right or wrong way to meditate; it’s all about the practice, she added.
In an effort to help her own patients find wellness, Dr. Jain cofounded the WILD 5 Wellness program and coauthored a related workbook and program called KickStart30 designed to help kick-start the wellness journey.
WILD stands for Wellness Interventions for Life’s Demands, and the program combines the five key evidence-based wellness elements into an easy-to-follow program, she said.
The KickStart30 workbook is available for purchase, with all profits benefiting mental health charities. The approach is as applicable for physician wellness as for patient wellness, she said. The program is simple, prescriptive, trackable, and self-contained, she added.
Wellness-enhancing practices as recommended in the program include:
- 30 minutes of exercise daily for 30 days, with an aim of at least moderate intensity.
- 10 minutes of mindfulness practice each day for 30 days. (Free guided meditations, which she and her colleagues use in their studies of the program, are available at www.WILD5Meditations.com, but a number of other guided meditation apps are available online, she said.) “Of the apps that are available, Headspace, without a doubt, is my favorite,” she said. It requires a paid subscription, but “is so worth it.”
- Implementation of at least four of six sleep hygiene practices each day for 30 days.
- Meeting or calling a minimum of two friends or family members each day for 30 days.
- Logging meals/snacks/beverages/alcohol consumption each day for 30 days, following the Mediterranean-DASH intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet principles as closely as possible.