Mindfulness in Healthcare: Benefits and Practices for Doctors

Whether you specialize in mental health care, are more of a generalist or are still trying to find your niche in medicine, basic mental wellness practices can help you manage your well-being and, as a result, improve your standard of care.

One of these basic practices is mindfulness—paying direct attention to what’s going on in the present moment.¹ While it might sound simple, mindfulness can be highly impactful, especially for healthcare workers.

In this guide, we’re exploring mindfulness in healthcare: what the practice looks like, techniques healthcare professionals can use and tips for implementing mindfulness techniques in your day-to-day activities as a clinician.

What Is Mindfulness?

But what, exactly, is mindfulness? During a mindfulness practice, you:

• Train yourself to focus on what’s happening in the present moment
• Observe your thoughts, feelings, environment and sensations
• Acknowledge these stimuli without judgment

While it might sound simple, it can take time to train your mind to block out worries about the past and looming thoughts of the future. The last point above—observing your present state without judgment—is also somewhat challenging, especially for healthcare professionals.

Clinicians are deeply analytical; they’re constantly thinking about the causes of medical issues and the effects of potential interventions. So, it can be difficult to detach from the stress and worry of the past and future to focus only on the present.

However, mindfulness can help healthcare providers:

• Focus – With high caseloads and stressful work environments, physicians and other healthcare professionals can easily become distracted by their to-do lists instead of dedicating their energy to the task in front of them. With mindfulness techniques, you can shift your focus back to the present moment.
• Relieve stress – Mindfulness isn’t about distracting yourself from stress—it’s about acknowledging that, while you might be busy or overwhelmed in the future, this upcoming stress doesn’t need to consume your mental energy right now.
• Connect – When your mind is completely devoted to the present moment, you can use all of your available energy to connect with your colleagues and patients.

How is Mindfulness Used in Healthcare?

Why is it so important for healthcare workers to use mindfulness techniques?²

• Focused clinicians provide excellent care – When you’re completely dialed in and focused on the patient in front of you, you can devote all of your mental resources to providing the best patient care possible.
• Stress relief can help prevent burnout – Physician burnout is a major risk for healthcare professionals—nearly half of healthcare workers report feeling burned out at work.³ By implementing mindfulness techniques, you can relieve some of the stress that fuels the symptoms of burnout.
• Connection is critical in healthcare – Attentive listening is a pillar of high-quality care; by using mindfulness, clinicians can better focus on and connect with patients during everyday interactions.

Practical Mindfulness Techniques for Healthcare Professionals

We’ve discussed why mindfulness techniques can be so impactful for healthcare workers—but how do you do mindfulness? Let’s explore a few exercises that can help you unlock the benefits of mindfulness in your clinical practice.

Mindful Breathing Exercises

Some of the simplest mindfulness exercises focus on breathing. Some common techniques include:⁴

• Breath awareness – As you inhale, try to feel where your breath is going in your body. Feel which parts of your body inflate and deflate as you inhale and exhale.
• Counting breaths – Inhale over a count of four, then exhale over a count of six—just like you would in a yoga class.
• Visualizing breaths – As you inhale and exhale, picture the air entering and exiting your body.

While these may sound too basic to be useful, remember the purpose of mindfulness training: to focus on the present. As you zoom in on your breath, you’ll train yourself to set aside worrisome thoughts of the past and future and instead, absorb as much stimuli in the present as possible.

Remember that these techniques can take time to learn. If you get distracted while counting your breaths, redirect your mind back to the practice without judgment.

Meditation Practices

In addition to breathwork, meditation can help you center yourself in the present. While we often think of meditation as sitting cross-legged in a silent room, you can turn just about any activity into a meditative practice:

• Listening to music – If you listen to music on your commute home, consider breathing along with the beat, humming or singing along or otherwise focusing intently on the music.
• Low-Impact exercises – You can also use your women’s or men’s scrubs as activewear as soon as you get home to unwind with gentle exercise. Focus closely on your movements, your breath or other sensations to laser in on the present instead of analyzing the past or pondering the future.
• Household chores – As you meal prep, fold laundry or tidy up your home, focus on your individual movements, your emotions in the moment and other aspects of the present. Try to hone in on your current activity instead of thinking through your to-do list.

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Mindful Listening

Mindful listening is very similar to active listening: the practice of listening intently during conversations, asking follow-up questions and paraphrasing information back to the speaker to communicate understanding.⁵

You can use these techniques in conversations with:

• Patients – As patients describe their experiences and ask questions, take careful mental (or manual) notes. Focus on what they’re saying, repeat the information back to them to acknowledge that you heard them, and do your best to answer complex questions.
• Colleagues – As you consult with your colleagues and healthcare team in a professional setting, use the same active listening techniques you would with a patient: pay attention to what they’re saying, confirm that you understand and ask follow-up questions as needed.
• Friends and relatives – Using mindful listening in a social setting can be just as powerful; plus, your loved ones will likely take notice of your attentiveness in conversation.

Effective listening isn’t just about showcasing your professionalism; it’s also about rooting yourself in the present conversation and devoting your full focus to the person in front of you.

Implementing Mindfulness in Healthcare Settings

Now that you understand the benefits of mindfulness and have some tools in hand, let’s explore how to incorporate these changes into your routine.

Start Small

If you’re a complete newcomer to mindfulness, don’t underestimate how challenging it can be to give your undivided attention to the present moment. Instead of trying to incorporate breathwork, meditation and mindful listening all at once, start with just one technique and slowly incorporate others into your everyday life.

This might look like:

• Starting with mindful listening – For medical professionals, active listening is a must-have skill. So, you’re likely the most familiar with the mindful listening techniques we discussed above. Consider doubling your efforts to be present in professional and social conversations first.
• Adding meditative practices – You’re likely already doing something outside of work hours to promote your own health and wellness—exercising, cooking, cleaning or devoting time to a creative practice. Once you feel like you’ve improved your mindful listening skills at work and at home, consider implementing some of the meditative practices we discussed above to enhance these activities, too.
• Zooming in on breathwork – While it’s simple, breathwork can take time to master; it can also take time to see the results of this practice in your everyday life. So, it might be easier for healthcare workers to incorporate this practice last—once they’re already familiar with the benefits of mindfulness in their professional and personal lives.

Document Your Experience

As a clinician, documentation is likely as second nature to you as putting on scrubs ahead of a shift. Between taking clinical notes and charting patients’ information, you know how to document in a way that makes it easy to track progress.

Why not do the same with your mindfulness practice? Each time you purposefully commit to mindfulness, try a new technique or notice a positive impact of mindfulness exercises on your life, consider writing down:

• The exercise you used
• How well you avoided distractions and stayed focused on the present
• How much time you committed to the exercise
• Your feelings about the experience or other qualitative notes

By documenting your mindfulness efforts, you can track changes over time and identify which approaches work best for your routine and your clinical approach.

Talk to Colleagues

Whether you see the promise of mindfulness in the clinical space or you’ve been implementing these practices for months, consider talking to your colleagues about these exercises and their personal and professional benefits.

Again, start small—depending on your circumstances, this may not be the right time to try to implement a unit- or practice-wide mindfulness program. Instead, start with short, impactful conversations about:

• Stress management and burnout prevention
• Small, simple mindfulness techniques that have improved your life
• The benefits of focusing on the present moment

Remember that, while you might want to shout the benefits of mindfulness exercises from the rooftops, you don’t need to convert everyone in your midst into a mindfulness guru. Instead, share the positive effects of your practice with others in hopes that they’ll implement one or more techniques into their own clinical approaches.

Mindfulness in Healthcare: Support Your Mind, Improve Your Care

Achieving work-life balance as a doctor can help you relieve stress, improve your standard of care and support positive changes on a personal level. While regular mindfulness practice can certainly impact your personal life, it can also facilitate improved patient and professional relationships.

But approaches like mindfulness are only one piece of the puzzle for clinicians; to provide exceptional care, you have to feel good inside and out. Healing Hands takes healthcare workers’ comfort to the next level with high-quality men’s and women’s scrubs designed to elevate every day.

Our stylish prints, cozy underscrubs, and functional pieces are sure to enhance your comfort and your practice—because when you feel good, you can focus on providing excellent care to your patients.

Sources:

¹ National Institutes of Health. Mindfulness for Your Health. https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2021/06/mindfulness-your-health. Accessed on December 27, 2024.

² International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health. Mindfulness in healthcare professionals and medical education. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33223537/. Accessed on December 27, 2024.

³ US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Healthcare Workers Face a Mental Health Crisis. https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/health-worker-mental-health/index.html. Accessed on December 27, 2024.

⁴ Department of Veterans Affairs. Mindfulness Exercise. https://www.publichealth.va.gov/docs/employeehealth/54-mindfulness-exercise.pdf. Accessed on December 27, 2024.

⁵ National Library of Medicine. Active Listening. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK442015/. Accessed on December 27, 2024.