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Self-care takes effort - but it's worth it!

An interesting subject came up in a recent interview for a Dutch massage magazine. After speaking for a while, the interviewer said to me "so it sounds like you expect therapists to rearrange their home life and work life. That sounds like a lot of effort - do you think they'll be willing to do that?" I found that to be a surprising question, but I realized that a lot of therapists probably are thinking the same thing: wow, it takes a lot of effort and thought to prevent injury.

Well, yes it does! If you want to eat in a healthy manner, you're probably going to have to change your eating habits, buy more fresh foods (which means going to the market more often), and change your lifestyle so you're not eating fast food on the run. If you want to get in shape, you're going to have to find time in your schedule to work out at least 3 times a week.

Preventing injury to protect your career also takes effort. I won't kid you about that. You may need to change or adapt techniques that may be too stressful for your "weak links", the vulnerable parts of your body. You'll need to get in shape if you aren't already. You need to eat well, get enough sleep and hydrate well, which may involve considerable lifestyle adjustments. You'll have to become more aware of your body mechanics and work on improving them.

All of this takes effort, as do most things in life that are worth doing. You have to be ready to make that effort, to think that you're worth it, and to realize that not making the effort may leave you open to injury risk. You can ease into it, making just a few changes at first and building up to the other changes that may be necessary. It can be a process of discovery, and it can be fun and interesting. But it does take time and effort. The rewards, however, are great: providing better treatment for your clients, no longer feeling exhausted at the end of the work day, learning about yourself, and of course, reducing your risk of having symptoms or injury interfere with the career you've worked so hard to make for yourself.

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Comment by Lauriann Greene, CEAS on April 5, 2010 at 1:11pm: Hi Darcy - glad to hear you're staying in great shape by working out! I'm sorry to hear you didn't receive enough self-care training in school. Rick and I are trying to get the word out as much as possible to schools that it's easy to incorporate the necessary information into an existing curriculum - I was asked by AMTA to speak on this subject at the 2009 National Conference. We have an Instructors' Guide to help them do just that. I hope that the more that students understand the importance of injury prevention training, the more they'll ask their schools to provide this kind of training.

Comment by Darcy Neibaur on April 5, 2010 at 1:06pm: I joined a Curves Gym here 1 month ago today for my Birthday. I just love it. They started me on a low intensive program for 3 weeks and now on April 1 stepped me up to a more intentive program. Curves has the balance for upper and lower body workouts plus Cardio in their 30 minutes program. I am just loving it. Self Care in School? Our Class received very little. All we were taught was a few arm and hand stretches and to squeeze a tennis ball in iur hand. It is so sad compared to what I now know. I learned more about stretching from my Chiro than I did my Massage Instructors.

Comment by Lauriann Greene, CEAS on April 5, 2010 at 12:45pm: I totally agree, Stephen - learning how to prevent injury should be part of every MT's training. Many schools do include information on self-care and injury prevention. Including physical conditioning as part of a massage program is an interesting idea, but MTs can also just work out on their own, particularly with a program designed specifically for their needs (like the one in the 2nd Edition of Save Your Hands).

Comment by Stephen Jeffrey on April 5, 2010 at 12:23pm: Surely a great way to get all MTs aware of thier vonerabilities is to make it a specific part of becoming an MT?

Get the whole class down the gym, 3 student MTs to 1 personal trainer.!

So many skill sets to cover whilst including some sweaty class bonding at the same time !!!

A + P , posteural assesment, core stability, strength training, interprofessional interaction, etc, etc, you must admit there is a pretty long list of benifits ..........it could even be .....FUN.

Wether your course is 500 hrs or 5,000 there's a massive amount to learn thats of direct benifit to you, your future, and your clients ???

Becoming "fit to practice" should mean just that........Both ways :)

Comment by Lauriann Greene, CEAS on April 1, 2010 at 11:39am: Darcy, I'm sure that you do inspire the others in your workplace to take care of themselves. A suggestion for long (90-minute) massages: try to find ways to work rest and recovery into the session, to keep yourself fresh and avoid too much repetitive movement, hand force and other risk factors that can lead to injury when you do them over a longer period of time. Mix in some lighter techniques (energy work, Trager, cranial sacral, etc.), do some assisted stretching with them, use hot packs for the first 10 minutes to relax the muscles, work in a spa-like treatment, etc. 90 minutes of deep tissue or even repetitive Swedish-type techniques is a lot without a break.

Comment by Darcy Neibaur on March 31, 2010 at 10:24pm: I am the only therapist where I work who does stretches before, after, and in between sessions. I do them faithfully because I have to. I always drink a cup full of water after each session and if I have a 90 minute or greater session I take a water bottle full of water with me into the session so I can have a drink. This is all so very important to me. I know it can oly begin with me and end with me. Maybe at some point others will follow my lead.

Comment by Lauriann Greene, CEAS on March 31, 2010 at 7:03pm: I wish there were a pill, Neil! But the self-awareness you develop when you practice self-care really enhances your ability to be a good therapist, so it's definitely a worthwhile process to go through.