Last Updated Dec 2010
We spend most of our days talking. The question is whether we “walk the talk” or just open our mouths and let the hot air out, not thinking about how our advice applies to us as much as to our patients. We’re making recommendations, prescribing exercise, describing diseases and what to do about them.
There’s lots of talking, but how about showing?
Sometimes it helps to turn the microscope inward and look at why it’s good for us to exercise and eat right too. After that, it’s time to put our advice into practice. Here are some of the benefits.
1. Credibility = Compliance = Results
Have you ever sold your patients something? No? Well, you should. I don’t mean you need to sell 900 linear feet of red resistance band to everyone who comes in the door. I mean you have to sell the idea of health by looking like you yourself buy into that idea. For example, sloppy, overweight PTs with donut crumbs on their shirts have a hard time trying to convince their patients that it’s important to exercise and eat right to decrease arthritic pain.
The image of the messenger conflicts with the message. In the end, the dissonance between what we say and do will make the patients explode. Healthcare providers who do or show that they are trying hard to live healthy lives have much more credibility.
Credibility = compliance = results.
2. Live to work another day
Physical therapists engage in lots of “physical” work. This is true whether you work with bariatric patients, kids or high level athletes. There’s an unavoidable amount of stress and strain that your body just has to hold up against.
Just as an experiment, try tallying the number of times you push, pull, bend, lift, stoop, squat, knead, squeeze, lean, throw, catch and crawl throughout a typical day. There are also the incidentals like walking, sitting and standing as well as a host of static positions we maintain when treating patients.
The movements will differ depending on the setting, but I think you get the point: a physically demanding job requires a physically conditioned body.
3. Fight stress, feel good
You’re not stressed out? Well, that’s great. You should find a way to store up that extra dopamine in your body and sell it to the rest of us.
Stress management is a big deal these days, spawning everything from workshops and webinars to full-scale mountain retreats. But exercise and good nutrition remain the simplest, cheapest ways to blow steam without barking at your boss or punching walls. Did I mention they’re also more conducive to your career?
The Take Home
Good health for patients really has to start with us. We bear the onus, the responsibility for sharing and demonstrating what it means to lead a healthy lifestyle, one that will minimize the chances of disease and maximize the chances that we can do the activities we like.
Most of our patients don’t have the knowledge to fix themselves. That’s why they come to us. When they do, let’s show them we can walk AND talk.