I bet that’s one of the biggest objections practitioners hear when they recommend meditation.
Many of us work with pretty busy people. They juggle work, family responsibilities, and other obligations. They don’t want slow improvement over months – they want solutions now.
But what if we could show even our most stressed-out clients that the benefits are worth the discipline?
Here’s a great example.
Teri Pipe, PhD and her colleagues at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona conducted a study of a mindfulness-based stress reduction program with a group of nurses in leadership positions.
Now, nursing is a stressful job.
And in fact, a survey found that nurses were significantly more stressed than the general population.
Researchers randomly assigned 32 nurses to either a mindfulness treatment group or a control group.
The treatment group participated in 4 two-hour MBSR sessions, along with 30 minutes of daily mindfulness practice. The control group received a structured educational series containing stress management and leadership strategies.
After only four weeks, the nurses who received MBSR reported significant improvement in anxiety, phobic anxiety, and distress compared to the control group.
While most mindfulness programs take 8 weeks or more, this study showed a significant effect after only a month of training.
If mindfulness helped them manage their busy lives, I imagine your clients could find benefits as well.
If you’d like to read the full study, you can find it in the Journal of Nursing Administration.
Have you ever struggled with clients who don’t have time for mindfulness practice? How did you overcome this barrier? Please leave a comment below.
Heya i would really love to subscribe and read your blog posts ;
I think you’ve just captured the answer pelrectfy
I found out the hard way that people have no time for a PWS of the BRAC!
Not even one 20 minute break even during coffeebreaks during the waking day.
I have found that different people have different styles of slowing themselves down including myself. The meditation is one of them another one is bodywork with foot reflexology. Our job is to figure out what works best for each unique person. Knowing yourself and dominate sense is a key.
Marty, you said: “try to inspire clients to take action and share the belief if you do the work benefits will follow.”
That’s exactly what I do! 🙂 The biggest challenge I find is with those who want instant gratification, instant relief, and/or just want to comfortably numb themselves. I always say that anything in life that is of lasting value must be earned, and that an entitlement perspective can keep one stuck in the quicksand. Their inspiration rises once they see they *can* actually change, AND that they aren’t doing the work just for themselves, but for the benefit of the impact of every life that crosses his or her path. People learn they can lead by positive, contagious example in their own sphere of influence, and suddenly it becomes much bigger that “I – me – mine.”
Excellent
One soldier a days committing suicide, that is unacceptable with all your talents.
So many women visit my blog, who as little girls were raped by their fathers, brothers or uncles that it is epidemic. These lives are dominated by low or no self esteem, feeling flawed, angry and resentful fearing for a life time.
As healers being paid to give support, you have the greatest opportunity to change lives. Place all your heart in giving full effort. Give a little more, try a little harder, care a little more. Start a mindful group and go beyond the accepted.
Step put of the box and be creative. Make a difference.
Great article – should be a wake up call to more professions.
For me meditation is not a thing; it is a process. The goal of the process is to keep us in the here and now. I realize that I am not using the technical term but what it helps us do is keep in touch with our animal brain. We can have model that helps us understand meditation interruption. I like Freud’s Id, Ego, and Superego. Whatever I’m doing while meditating, whether it whether jogging on my run, sitting in a formal process, or laying in bed preparing for sleep, items of consciousness emerge and before I detach them I quickly determine which of the three has interrupted. E.G. Id> angry thought, happy thought, sex; Ego> How long will it take to make this blog post and Super Ego> Meditation is a wonderful thing and Stop thinking, lets get back to the chant.
These things are important to me not only because I love doing it. I am using it to slow down the growing deterioration of my brain which may be headed toward dementia. Thanks Ruth! May “The Force” be with you
Thanks for this wonderful aitrcle. One other thing is that a lot of digital cameras are available equipped with a zoom lens that enables more or less of a scene to generally be included by means of zooming’ in and out. These kinds of changes in focusing length are usually reflected while in the viewfinder and on large display screen at the back of your camera.
The first thing that I do is challenge their belief that there is “no time”. My approach is funny – but real!
I tell them to give stress relief (meditation or HeartMath Cardio-contemplation, my approach) the same priority that you give a BAD case of diarrhea. When your body stops you, and keeps you tied to the toilet, you don’t “JUST” have to make this call, drive someone somewhere, do ANYTHING, but take care of your body. There’s always time for diarrhea!
My Emwave (similar to biofeedback) shows my client when they are improving their heart-focused practice, and it gives them instant reinforcement and training.
Then with continued practice, they see the improvement in all aspects of their lives: ability to think clearly, mood improvement and even physically. It becomes indispensable and something they look forward to – But the important thing is getting them started!
I want to chime in on the concept of “coach” though perhaps not necessarily in the “Life” coach sense. I think, and experience, meditation to be a great modality in changing one’s set point. I notice how difficult it is for folks to establish a “practice” or return to one when the routine of meditation has fallen from the rhythm of day to day. This may be particularly true of patients with frank psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, OCD and ADHA. I wonder if someone who can function as a “mental health coach” wouldn’t be of value here- not only for mediation instruction and support but for medication compliance, lifestyle habits, and working with health care and governmental systems. Or perhaps a “buddy system” or sponsor situation such as in 12 step programs. Does anyone know of such help? Mindfulness can only be of help when the patient practices it.
Nursing IS a stressful job. It is a profession we chose but nursing through the years has become underappreciated. With increased demands to do more with less in all areas of living, nurses are met with unrealistic expectations from those we serve and those we are employed by. Talk about a double bind situation? Connection with ‘Source,’ keeping it ‘real’ and recharging your energy is necessary.
As a psychiatrist treating mainly anxiety and depression I still believe that Mindfulness meditation maybe the best exercise for the mind there is.
I suggest to my patients to start slow. I start as slow as they need to. This may be just one minute before bedtime. Then we increase it slowly. One minute every hour. Just practicing stopping is vital.
I have found that different people have different styles of slowing themselves down. Some like the exact time others like to just take an unscheduled break. Our job is to figure out what works best for each unique person.
Larry Drell, MD
counselingandtherapydc.com/INFO
for information on anxiety, depression and meditation research and info
I agree with so much of what you have said. I backed off of the 20 – 30 minutes recommendation to 10 minutes first thing in the morning and 10 minutes at bedtime with at least 10 “mindfulness/meditation” breaks during the day of just taking 5 deep slow breaths. The results have been amazing . . . .
it is not about a duration or amount of time. 20 to 30 minutes may be far to long and not doable for some. The Zen Buddhist sit for half hour periods, which I did for five years.
Now I have a timer that shares how long I have sat. mindfulness should not be a chore or it will not become habit. I found myself ready to get up sometimes after 10 or 15 minutes and sitting there was counter productive any longer.
Share with client this is a special healing space. We leave goals and expect ions alone while practicing. There is no right or wrong, good or bad. We are exploring a place where dialogue does not exist. Numbers and words look like pixels. eating will not come to us Ina conscious way.
Life is a journey not a destination, we never arrive. We have so many breaths left in our life. We will die the same day whether we doubt, worry and fear or let go and enjoy the ride.
Life is not granted so we can cognitively dissect but to be accepted and lived in this moment. Look at how much time we waste thinking about fear, guilt or shame.
let me challenge the status quo. MBSR is a great program.
do you think it matters the depth or quality of clients meditation?
Do you think learning to apply this ability to focus on Tje breath with thoughts and emotions could help?
application makes mindfulness come alive. If you want to be free, you must live mindfully with the ego at bay, applying our focus to distractions.
We are just training the mind to let go of distractions. We are trying to slow the mind down and go below the cognitive.
It does not take that long to see significant improvements if the focus is strong enough.
It has to be simple concrete and immediate for the mind ato adopt it.
Do you therapists ever think about inspiring clients. Like a coach. It would raise your level of participation easily. It would help heal many more clients.
The hardest thing I have seen with most complex childhood PTSDers are frozen or lost in dissociation.
Requiring clients to take action is key to healing in my humble opinion. Why not double up the first couple of weeks of therapy and practice mindfulness together. Meet twice a week and get feedback.
Show clients you are invested and have urgency to help thm heal themselves as quick as possible. encourage, cheerleader or kick butt but please care.
Thanks
Marty, in support of your final paragraphs- i just read that Life Coaches are the fastest growing profession…
Marty, I’m a mind-body coach, certified hypnotherapist and mindfulness educator. Besides my own teaching/coaching practice, I work for a Florida-based company called eMindful (eMindful.com) and we teach mindfulness meditation and skills in an interactive online classroom for corporate employees, as well as directly to the public. Those who are willing to do the work and take it as an adventure in learning that becoming more present and aware leads to the realization and actualization of greater individual choice > empowerment > freedom, no matter what life stressors come their way. I am moved to tears when I see lives being changed and it is an honor to be their coach, guide and teacher. They realize it can be fun too, and although some of eMindful’s classes are 8 – 12 weeks long, significant and tangible change can take place in just the first few weeks.
One of our clients is Aetna, who recently earned the National Business Group on Health’s platinum award for 2012 “Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles.” Aetna received the stress management recognition for its Mind-Body Stress Reduction programs which include eMindful’s Mindfulness at Work™ and Viniyoga™ Stress Management. These programs have shown significant results in a recent study with Duke Integrative Medicine, proving their effectiveness on perceived stress, productivity, pain, sleep and cardiac health.
A study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Study, “Effective and Viable Mind-Body Stress Reduction in the Workplace: A Randomized Controlled Trial” was conducted by eMindful, Duke University and Aetna that backs up the effectiveness of our mindfulness courses. We also did a study with nurses that had excellent results.
Mindfulness works – and one can learn and benefit from these skills not just as an unwell patient looking for help in a therapeutic environment, but as an average human being who wishes to not be so adversely impacted by stress – and take back his or her life. 🙂
mindfulness is much more powerful than most of you even would entertain as true. You can go beyond thoughts and emotions or treat them like they are appendages. An emotion has nothing to do with my self worth.
look at our frustration or complications with Complex PTSD when we grab trigger thoughts or emotions. An emotion is so small and fleeting to be of importance to a steady mind. Am emotion or thought arrives in my consciousness now, then is gone in mili seconds.
Our greatest power is the abiIty to direct our attention to this moment without having to analyze our behavior.
Fear becomes a warning sign protecting us. Our emotions are just functions or mechanisms of the mind that we all share exactly the same number of emotions.
Life can be terrible or miserable if judged but flows on threw, if we can not judge it.
Mother Theresa has given up most wordly desires and labors with sacrifice for others but seems extremely happy and content with life.
Why not think of being a therapist as a healer or facilitator of healing. We are not lab rats or is our life in a pristine laboratory. Dirty your hands and invest in us. try to inspire clients to take action and share the belief if you do the work benefits will follow.
I played pro baseball and the motivators I was exposed to changed my life in ways I did not realize until I used mindfulness. We have unlimited potential each one of us Rick Hanson says. Why. Ot inspire and give a little more and maybe receive more satisfaction everyday.