At least one out of three doctors is vulnerable to personal health problems such as injury and physical and mental illness at some point in their career. This keeps healthcare professionals from functioning properly and practice medicine safely, contributing to the onset of disruptive physician behavior.
Healthcare professionals are more prone to suffer from depression than the general population and other professional groups. In the wake of the recent meta-analyses of global studies, an overall prevalence of depression is 27% in medical students, 29% in registrars, and up to 60% in practicing doctors.
It is the need of the hour to safeguard the mental health of young healthcare providers. Massage therapy is a great answer!
Massage Therapy: Empowering Healthcare Providers to Combat Burnout
Over 300,000 complementary and integrative healthcare (CIH) providers – such as chiropractors, massage therapists, and acupuncturists – in the United States provide relief to healthcare providers.
As healthcare providers become vulnerable to intensifying stressors, including back pain, fatigue, headache, and mental exhaustion, they can no longer work at their peak performance. In fact, disruptive physician behavior affects healthcare providers’ productivity, adding to medical errors and thus compromising patient safety.
According to the Medical Economics 2019 Physician Report, a large proportion of physicians earned more than they did a previous year; they credited their success to seeing more patients; this implies that as young physicians suffer from depression, anxiety, or fatigue, their revenue opportunities are hindered; they may lose out on opportunities to see more patients.
Massage therapy treatments are one of the proven methods that can empower healthcare providers to remain on top of their physical and mental health, allowing them to increase their work hours and eventually increase revenue.
The top 3 benefits of massage therapy are:
1. Massage Therapy Reduces Stress
An analysis of 17 clinical trials in 2010 revealed that massage therapy has the power to reduce anxiety and depression by lowering the levels of the stress hormone called cortisol.
2. Massage Therapy Combats Insomnia
Massage therapy has a relaxing aura, which can elevate serotonin levels, helping doctors and healthcare providers to experience a soothing good night’s sleep.
Aromatherapy, a massage therapy involving essential oils obtained from selected flowers and plants for their particular therapeutic properties, is perfect for reducing nervous tension among healthcare providers.
3. Massage Relieves Postural Stress
As doctors spend most of their time standing, postural stress adds to their stress and burnout.
Myotherapy, massage therapy for injury, soft tissue pain, and dysfunction disturbing movement and mobility are helpful to restore and maintain the health and function of the soft tissue structure (muscles, tendons, ligaments, and fascia); this helps healthcare providers revive.
This therapy also has preventative medicinal benefits, which means when the body has regained postural balance or mobility, it will maintain that balance even under stress, which is genuinely what healthcare providers truly desire!
The Bottom Line
It is vital to make therapy a standard for young physicians; the benefits are further discussed by Jude A. Pierre, MD (aka Coach JPMD) in Practice: Impossible Podcast.
Embarked on a mission is to help populations live long, Coach JPMD indulges in increasing physician awareness of spiritual, mental, and physical health globally via his podcasts. Stay tuned for more!