Improving Doctor-Patient Relationships

The real concern is not about the wait although that's important, but because our medical professionals are so busy, how can we be sure that we really get the full ten minutes we're allotted in the system. I'm not saying that we should keep an eye on the clock, but I am suggesting the importance of you and your medical provider being "present" together throughout the appointment.

There is lots of scientific literature and books about being "mindful". As I interview those with illnesses I'm wondering how our doctors would respond if we tried to practice mindfulness during our appointment. Is it possible to create a sacred space within the doctor's office? Could we invoke some level of control over our appointment by suggesting to our medical provider that we both get centered for a moment making the interaction more human and relationship based and gets both us and our providers to match energetic forces as we tackle the big questions about test results, examinations and treatment?

Would we absorb more and become more responsible patients if we had the doctor's attention to the degree that the two of us, for a brief period of time, were really the only ones in the world....just for those ten minutes. It's important to remember that it's not about the quantity of time you spend with your medical provider but the quality of the visit. Keeping focused and holding the doctor's attention is critical to good care. Having the ability to express yourself and be understood alleviates misunderstanding and increases more efficacious treatment strategies. Taking the guess work out of a treatment plan allows you to have more confidence in your medical team and that elevates your intention to comply with the instructions and in turn elevates the odds for a positive outcome.

It may be difficult to think about medicine as a domino effect, but the truth is that your interaction with your healthcare team impacts the doctor's willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty. You'll have greater access to your medical team because they know that each and every contact is initiated with purpose. There is nothing more detrimental to the doctor-patient relationship than creating an adversarial relationship. The doctor and patient must respect each other and understand that everyone is working toward the same goal...wellness.

If you're facing a health challenge take a personal inventory of your relationships. Note those things that create better relationships between you and your friends and family. Apply those same principles to your relationship with your medical team. Each visit is an opportunity to connect person to person, not simply as doctor to patient. These human relationships create a bond where everyone is vested in the best outcome possible, not out of duty, but out of desire. Don't you want to be at the top of someone's priority list out of choice and not circumstance? "Presence" will give you the edge in the world of medical overwhelm.

Looking for other ideas to improve your relationship with your doctor? Get your FREE copy of the special report "The 5 Pillars of Health and Healing". As a bonus I'd like to offer you the multimedia program "Instilling Hope for Health". Want to benefit from my experience with illness and twenty years of working with clients who have been diagnosed? Get your FREE report and multimedia program at http://www.survivingstrong.com

Strategies For Improving Your Relationships, Health, and Productivity in 2009

As we quickly approach a new year we are all reflecting on the past and our goals for the future.

Many thoughts and questions come to mind.

How can you become more efficient? How can you save time on one task to gain more time, and money? What do I need to do to get that nice new car? What do you need to do to look better or lose more weight?

How can you improve your relationships and make your spouse love you more? How can you be more like the Jones family down the street who seem to have their act together.

We all are guilty of judging our own success by comparing ourselves to others. Friends, there is not a single person out there better than you, as a human being, if you are not hurting people, or involved in criminal activity and doing the best that you can at what you do.

The most important goals we can set for ourselves are those that help us achieve satisfaction with life.

Take the time, as you write down your resolutions for the new year, to see if the following thoughts fit into your game plan for the coming year.

1. Visualize How You Want Your Life To Be - take the time every day to relax and think about what you want. Visualize how you see yourself. What you are doing, what you are wearing, who you hang out with. Change how you dress if that makes you feel better about yourself. See yourself as someone with endless energy and ready to conquer the world or at least your next task. Feel good about yourself.

2. Learn Something New Everyday- keep reading, researching, and brainstorming. Just reading something of interest may turn on a light that gives you an idea or answer to an issue you have been pondering.

3. Interact With Positive People- if your friends are negative they will bring you down. There are people who find something wrong with any experience, or idea that comes their way. These people may be members of your own family. Make it a goal to network and make friends with positive people that have similar interest to your own. Those are the people that will keep you motivated when things do not seem to be going as planned.

4. Enjoy The Simple Things- take the time to enjoy the things you like to do. What kind of life is it to only focus on what you think others expect from you. Take the time to smell the roses.

5. Laugh A lot- this is the cheapest, safest form of therapy anyone can have. Laughing helps you forget your troubles, decreases stress, and stimulates the release of endorphins, which are the bodies natural pain killers.

6. Make Fitness A Part Of Your Life- if you do not focus and take care of yourself what good will you be to others? Exercising decreases stress, helps clear mental cloudiness, relaxes you, improves your morale, and helps you be more productive. You will enjoy life, your work, be more pleasant to be around and increase your chances of living a longer and healthier life.

7. Stay Healthy- you should make educating yourself on what is considered optimal health a life long goal. Take the time to learn what your ideal weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol should be. Know and understand what illness you may be at risk for based upon your life style, family history, and habits. You may think that is your doctors problem, but in reality you are ultimately responsible for your own health. The most important thing you can do for yourself and loved ones is doing your part to understand your health so that you can live a longer and more productive life. If there are health problems that need addressed, approach them one at a time, unless it is something potentially life threatening.

8. Be Happy- if you are unhappy you must look inside to determine what keeps you in that state of mind. There is no question that financial, health, relationship, and others problems can weigh so heavily on you that it is hard to see the joy in any aspect of your life. Life and the issues that go with it can be overwhelming. If you are having trouble seeing light at the end of the tunnel talk to someone about your problems. Sometimes just hearing another person's perspective on something will improve your outlook and give you direction. Do not hesitate to seek professional counseling if things do not seem to be turning around. Some of the brightest and most successful people have a therapist to help them keep things in check. Try to look inside yourself and find what you need to bring you happiness. Try to find inside yourself what would make you happy if you were never being able to change your current relationships, financial situation, or social status. I am sure there are others that would agree that having more than enough money, the biggest house, the nicest car, etc. does not ultimately bring more happiness. These things all come with there own set of headaches. Financial security does provide you with more opportunities, but not true happiness. This is not intended to give you an excuse for not trying to make changes, but to encourage you to look deeper for what you need in life to make you feel content and happy.

9. Manage Your Stress- we are all unique in how we respond to stressful situations in life. You must find ways to help relieve stress even if you only allow yourself 5 minutes per day. Failure to manage your stress will impact all aspects of your life in a negative way. Offer to help someone out, so that they can take a stress relieving break. They will more than likely be happy to return the favor.

10. Take A Worry Break- constantly worrying about all of life's issues can paralyze you. It can lead to procrastination in all aspects of your life. If you are constantly worrying about things take the time to write them all down. Then look at each one and determine if there is something or someone that could help remove that worry. Letting someone else help you deal with issues that are overwhelming will allow you to focus on more important things in your life in a more productive way. It could be something as simple as letting someone else deal with phone calls from bill collectors that you find yourself avoiding. It may be hard to do and require some practice, but give yourself 5 or 10 minutes per day, to just worry about the things that are on your mind.Then get back to focusing on more important task that will help bring back the joy in your life.

11. Teach Something- we all have unique experiences, knowledge, and wisdom that will benefit another. Keep learning then pass it on. The best way to keep feeling young is to feel useful. Make it your goal, for the new year, to pass along something useful to someone that expresses an interest in your interest.

No matter what your game, if you are doing the best that you can, then that should be good enough. If you want to find contentment and happiness you must not allow your satisfaction in life to revolve around how someone else is living or doing things. If you are making a living, taking care of your family, and being a good parent then no one can or has the right to say they are better than you.

If you are not happy with your performance then look at how others are doing something similar to what you are currently focusing your time on. Study their methods and then modify your system until you feel things are good enough. Watching and learning how others perform certain task or conduct their lives does not make them a better person, they may be just performing a similar thing differently or more efficiently.

This could be applied to anyone. It doesn't matter if your game is being a parent, teaching second grade, a physician, nurse, pumping gas, or running the most powerful country in the world. There will always be someone that does it a little better or different than you do. That makes them an opportunity for you to learn from and fine tune your skills.

I speculate that future wealth will not be reflected by our checking account balance, but in the value we provide to others through networking and just being a good person.

No matter how small or unbelievable your goals may be for 2009, make it your mission to share something of value with another. Those things that you consider trivial may be just what is needed to change your world and the world of those around you.

Curtis E. McElroy is an internal medicine physician with an interest in health and wellness, anti-aging, fitness, weight loss, self improvement, and motivation.
http://imdocmac.com/motivation and http://imdocmac.com/mydailypassion.

5 Incentives For Improving Your Relationship - Why Would I Want to Work on My Marriage?

It's nice to talk about being sweet to each other and living happily ever after; but it's not always realistic because it's not always that easy. It's easy to get jealous when you see someone else's "prefect relationship;" but don't make the mistake of assuming that their relationship just "magically" happened to them, or that it was always easy for them.

Building a truly great relationship requires attention and energy; and most people need a pretty good reason before they put attention and energy into anything. What's the payoff? Why should I work on my relationship? You benefit in many ways when you improve yourself and your relationships. We all do. But, in case you need specific reasons to put energy and effort into your life, here is a list of five-incentives for investing your time and energy into the improvement of your relationship.

1. Your life is a series of experiences and perceptions that can span many decades. Marriages often last decades. If you are not happily married, and you do nothing to improve it, you are surrendering many happy years of life. You can justify your misery and you will end up looking back on a miserable life; or you can improve things and have a fun life.

2. Stress is blamed for approximately 90% of all trips to the doctor's office. Relationships are one of the biggest sources of stress. If you improve your relationship, you can expect to see dramatic improvements in your health - and you'll probably even lose some weight if you're holding on to unwanted pounds.

3. Happily married people live longer than anybody. Working on your relationship is the same as working on extending your life on earth - and improving the quality of that life on a daily basis.

4. A good marriage is like a good team. A strong partnership can build great things - much greater than what one can build on their own - and a strong union can endure great adversity. By working to improve your relationship and support and encourage your partner, you will be gaining a powerful ally and asset for your journey through life. If you improve your relationship, it will sustain you in the most difficult times.

5. Being married is less expensive than being single; and, if you're going to be married, you might as well enjoy and get the most out of your situation by learning to be happily married. When people are stressed - by their relationship or anything - they often exhibit costly behaviors such as: consuming food, drugs, alcohol, and other consumer goods and services, at a much higher rate than people who are relaxed and happy. Being single is expensive, and being married and stressed and unhappy is expensive; but being happily married is beneficial to you in every conceivable way. Learn to be happy and at peace in your relationship; you almost can't afford not to.

You can improve any area of your life and relationship if you have a reason to do so. For some people, suffering and discomfort are reasons enough to change the way they do business; but others need a good reason, or a clearly and obvious benefit to making any changes at all in life. Consider that, if you are married, your marriage affects every other part of your life; and, by improving it, you will automatically improve every other area of life. So, if you're going to be married anyway, you should seriously consider learning how to do it right; your health, longevity, happiness, success, and prosperity will all improve with each step you take toward enhancing your relationship. Make your own list of reasons - or use these - and get started making tomorrow better than today.

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Pete Koerner is the author of The Belief Formula: The Secret to Unlocking the Power of Prayer. The Belief Formula is a look at how you can use ancient wisdom and modern scientific awareness to learn how to use your mind to reclaim your health and create the life of your dreams.

For a Free Report on Making The Belief Formula Work for You, visit: http://www.TheBeliefFormula.com (This report focuses on improving your health with your thoughts.)