Based on “Holistic Healthcare” episode with Cristin Smith
Gym membership is the most popular benefit that employers give and the least utilized one. So how do we get people to realize that there’s a whole other version of this that doesn’t have to be a gym membership?
When we think about working out, we think about more work and more energy that has to be expended. Oftentimes, after the end of a really long day, the last thing we want to do is something that feels more exhausting.
For a long time, when it comes to benefits, we focused on the physicality component of health and well-being. One of the big components that everyone’s seen that we’ve really neglected and have an opportunity to pivot to is mental health. What does it look like to focus on the mental and emotional aspects of health? How do we do that in fun and exciting ways that people actually want to engage in and participate in?
Acupuncture, Massage and Sound Therapy
Everyone loves acupuncture, massage, and sound therapy. When you bring in the massage therapist, they provide more multi-sensory experiences that allow us to shut down, rest, and simultaneously to recalibrate and re-energize. Therefore, we become more clear-minded, more focused, and more productive while simultaneously supporting our immune system.
You can give people a gym membership to try to entice them to apply to work for your company, but we know they’re probably not going to use it versus something like acupuncture or massage, where it’s actually having an impact on their productivity and effectiveness at work. That’s just a different level. Why not give a benefit that’s not only good for the employee but actually good for the organization as well?
Our bodies are electric. When we think about acupuncture, we’re working on the electrical system and getting our meridians and these electrical highways basically reconnected. So, when we have things like a headache, anxiety, or stress, there’s a blockage somewhere in our bodies. So what we’re looking for is where that disturbance is.
If we look at a cellular level, we know that our cells vibrate at a certain frequency. There’s a vibrational value, depending on what you’re eating and bringing into your body and sending messages at the cellular level. So, as we understand the body’s communicating constantly, it’s all about messaging, so everything that we’re inputting is taking in information. Stress and pressure send signals to our brains into our bodies. There’s chemical messaging and so, what we have learned through science is that when those messages are negative or stressful, it has an impact.
What we want to do is look at early interventions.
Getting headaches, when we can’t sleep, and experiencing anxiety are the original signals before we have endocrine and digestive disorders. So when we look at those signals, we have an opportunity to reprogram and reframe. And so by pausing and taking a couple of deep breaths, that actually sends different signals and messages. So we must do breath work because just by certain breath patterns, you’re eliminating toxins through the breath. As a result, not only is it physically detoxifying, but it is also mentally and emotionally detoxifying.
The history of traumas in our subconscious. It doesn’t have to be a major traumatic moment. It could have been what happened years ago. Your body is still holding on to that trauma, so whether we’re looking at those historical things that are kind of set in our system and held at a cellular level, how are we cleaning those out? Oftentimes, we never do it. We never take that time, and so that’s a more systemic, long-term approach to just doing that deep cleaning as well as the maintenance right every day.
When we’re stressed we go into fight or flight mode. Our primal brain goes into a tiger chasing me and, on a physiological level, all your organ function shuts down all the bling. But all of the blood goes to your limbs in order to run from the tiger. That’s the message, that’s the programming, and when it happens, everything else shuts down. So when we live in that constant state, our immune and digestive systems aren’t working.
So, by incorporating these various practices that we can learn in a group setting and then take home and practice in our daily lives, both at home and at work, we are able to shift gears. Our psychology changes our physiology. Our physiology changes our psychology and when we can do both at the same time, like with breath works.
In the last two years, we’ve been through this pandemic, and not only has it changed home life, it’s changed work culture. It’s increased stress and in that trauma that we all experience to different degrees, it’s still lingering under the surface. Even more so, it’s just so vital that we’re just seeing so much burnout on top of what was already there. We have to process all of the stress that we’ve been experiencing while also functioning in our day-to-day, as we’re doing now, so all the more reason to take care of yourself and your team.
That’s really why we’re seeing the great resignation. People are tapped out and they can’t take anything anymore. The reality is, the grass is never greener on the other side. Sure, you might get paid more money, but what does the work environment look like? What does the culture look like? So we have an opportunity to retain our people through intervention, and these are just some of the great strategies for that intervention.
