Encourage Your Patient's Efforts
As a physician, you can help motivate your patients to find the space and time to practice mind-body therapies for both prevention and treatment purposes. Setting time aside to engage in a mind-body practice that involves slowing down may be difficult for many people. Reflective practice is very counter to the active pace of our culture.
As your patients begin a mind-body sitting practice, they may complain they have trouble sitting still or emptying their minds of thoughts. It is important that you remind them to be patient with themselves. It takes time for the body and mind to move into a relaxed state and adjust to a new way of feeling and being. It is natural for persons to feel fidgety or feel that they are not doing something right at first.
If patients continue to think that they are not obtaining any benefit from a practice after a few months, encourage them to try another stress-management technique. The variety of mind-body practices currently available to achieve the same end result offers many different options to explore.