Research Paper Assessment Name:Brett Avelin Date:10/29/12 Student ID: Email:brettavelin@gmail.

com

Complete your 2000 word research paper and insert it in the space below. Then email this document as an attachment to assessment@icoachacademy.com Coaching and Healthcare Think Good Thoughts...Your Health May Depend On It Can the way that people think actually affect the health of their bodies? The goal of this paper is to look in to this question and see if it is true that the way people think will affect their bodies level of health. It will look both in the immediate moment while one is thinking and how that affects the body as well as in the longer term whether or not our day to day thinking affects whether we contract various chronic diseases such as cardio-vascular issues and diabetes. Finally this paper will look at the effectiveness of coaching in maintaining a level of thinking that is supportive of total body health and wellness and how it does that. To begin lets look at a case study from a clinic in rural Vermont in which a clients health dramatically shifted without the intervention of medications, supplements, surgery or any other interventions. The only thing that changed was the quality of the persons thinking because of an interaction he had with his father. The client had been working coming to the clinic (called Sojourns) for about a month. This clinic is knows for its innovative treatment regimens integrating both allopathic and holistic modalities. She initially saw a Naturopath and was coming because his symptoms had been growing steadily worse and he was losing weight rapidly. For years this person had been experiencing her body and life in

general from a viewpoint that resulted in a constant feeling of anxiety. She was finding herself more and more reactive to foods as well as her environment. Even foods that are generally considered healthy would set off a chain of immune/allergic reactions that would result in her being very sick for days. She was down to eating almost exclusively rice and a few vegetables. Everything else caused abdominal bloating, pain, diarrhea and rashes. The anxiety increased each time she would eat. She would think Will this food cause me pain? and entertaining the question What if I cant eat anything at all eventually, will I die?. One of the primary goals at the clinic was to strengthen the immune system in order to allow it to relax and accept more food choices. The ND had tried many approaches, both dietary, energetic, and supplemental. The client was way too sensitive to be able to take any conventional medications other than an anti anxiety pill. The ND then referred the client to a Wellness Coach who worked as part of the team of practitioners. During the first visit the rapport was built and some goals were set between the client and the coach. Then at the second visit something came up around the clients relationship with her father and how she related to him. The coach then simply asked how she would like to be relating to him which was quite different. Between than and the next visit something amazing happened. She had had a conversation with her father that she described as Never happened before in which she simply stated how she would like to relate to him. In turn her father told her about the first months of her life in which she had been constantly crying. He, her mother, and the Doctors had thought it was some kind of colic and couldnt find anything wrong. Finally a nurse figured out that the mother was producing very little breast milk and that the reason the baby was crying all the time was that it was actually starving and crying out for food. When she heard this it triggered an enormous emotional reaction in relation to the weight loss and the situation she was currently in. Somehow the information her father shared released from the burden that she had unknowingly been carrying for all these years being sick. She had unconsciously believed that it was somehow her fault that she had been sick for so long and had repeatedly failed in healing. Having another explanation that was outside of her control brought in the possibility that her health conditions werent necessarily all her fault. When she came back in the clinic two weeks later and was asked about what she had been eating she said Basically everything. This was shocking news from someone two weeks ago who couldnt eat most things without doubling over in pain. Even foods with a well known history of causing immune reactions such as Gluten and Dairy were fine. She said I love eating now! My favorite is eating fish sandwiches!. She also described having to discover how to live her life now that she wasnt constantly searching for how to heal. She was excited and also daunted by what she wanted to now do with her life. The previous case study illustrates the far reaching effects that the mind has over the bodies. It also illustrates that we may not even know all of the ways in which
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this transpires. This was a very dramatic example of someones mind changing and their body instantly healing or shifting. It is also and excellent example of how coaching has a way of inviting actions, conversations, or interventions from the clients side of things that can have a dramatic impact on their health and well being. How can we explain this radical shift? She no longer believed the thought Its my fault that I am constantly sick and I have to struggle constantly to find a way to make myself better. Without this belief a large portion of the anxiety abated, the nervous system and therefore the immune system relaxed, and foods that previously had been a problem in that state of constant stress were no longer a problem. In checking back with the client and month after the big shift and she has since been gaining weight steadily and feels much better. The content of the brain, the chemicals that are released for there, and our gut have an intimate relationship. The phenomenon of getting butterflies in our stomach before giving a speech is a dramatic example of this. What we dont realize is that even mild stress in the nervous system has a constant affect not just on our digestion, but on everything. So does thinking affects our health? Is Coaching a viable, helpful medium in which to promote better thinking and therefore better health? In the ancient tradition of Chinese Medicine which is gaining popularity even in mainstream culture now there is a saying that Ninety Eight percent of illness arises from mental emotional disharmony. Thinking as a factor in determining whether health or illness tends to prevail might be worth researching and studying despite the difficulties in measuring such a subjective line of research. It is peoples thinking that determines their choices in diet, exercise, supplements and medications. Without the right thinking none of these things will happen in a way that is supportive of the bodies health. It is unfortunate that we live in a society that has a health care system which has trained people not to think but rather to simply rely on the Doctor to do the thinking and to take care of our health when disease strikes. This is health care that is dealing with effect rather than cause. Rigorous, methodical Coaching applied to the existing health care system can be a major contributor to the people adopting more health supportive thoughts and therefore habits. The existing studies of the efficacy of Coaching in improving healthcare outcomes are few given the relatively recent nature of the profession. There are signs however that healthcare organizations, even as large as the Federally run Medicare, are considering it. The following is taken for a Home Health Care publication (1) that supports Nurses and Hospice workers Copyright 2006 International Coach Academy Pty. Ltd. Use is governed by the Terms and Conditions at http://www.icoachacademy.com Last updated Feb 2006

Health coaching is quickly emerging as a new approach of partnering with patients to enhance self-management strategies for the purpose of preventing exacerbations of chronic illness and supporting lifestyle change. Medicare is now pilot testing this approach for patients with congestive heart failure and diabetes. Without thinking that is educated and informed by our best ability to make good choices then we are necessarily living out our own ignorance. The root of ignorance is obviously to ignore. What do you ignoring in this case? Ourselves, our bodies, our responsibility to take control of our own lives. When we ignore ourself and specifically how we are thinking, then it seems our bodies may suffer for it. So what would not ignoring ourselves look like? It would look like an active investigation, a living process in which we are listening to what we are thinking and believing about ourselves and the world and we are listening to what the body is needing or not needing that we are feeding it. This is the kind of relationship that a coach is ideally suited for using active, focused listening, penetrating questions, and non judge-mental support and problem solving skills to get the job done. Sound like a lot of work? Well, how much work is it to live with illness and chronic stress? The effects of chronic poor thinking result in stress to the body. This stress or burden builds as we age and the body is less and less able to tolerate imbalance so we experience more symptoms. More and more people look to medications to manage these symptoms including their moods. More and more mood altering drugs are being used to treat conditions previously not thought to be related like pain and digestive disturbances. All of this is a tremendous burden to the healthcare system. Healthy People 2010 reported that more than 75% of the $2 trillion spent annually in US medical care are due to chronic conditions; spending are even higher in proportion for Medicare beneficiaries (aged 65 years and older). (2) The body has an elegant mechanism that is constantly informing us of the quality of our thoughts and therefore our relationship with ourself, it is called emotion. When we feel bad about something, ANYTHING, then we are believing something to be bad, wrong, shouldnt have happened, etc. This feeling bad is actually a measurable cascade of stress related chemicals that has a measurable effect on the ability of the organ systems in the body to do their job properly. In the case of the client in the case study above, she received a great gift in being invited to have that conversation with her Dad that freed her from the false belief that it was her fault that she had been constantly dealing with sickness in her life. Coaching is the perfect modality to help elicit this kind of conversation resulting in the excavation of limiting beliefs resulting in a burdened body. Since most disabling beliefs are concealed within or underneath our everyday thinking they are hard to spot. It takes a certain amount of trust, grace and hard work to discover them.
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Coaching can help people win their freedom from the tyranny of their own thinking. How much people are willing to go there depends on them as individuals, but having a Coach is a tremendous advantage because of the steady support that is built be sharing and relating openly with another human being. So may we all think good thoughts and question the ones that make us feel bad. Perhaps it is having a much more profound affect on our bodies and our health than we ever realized. May this paper encourage people to continue to do more research in the efficacy and utilization of Coaching in the healthcare setting. (1) http://journals.lww.com/homehealthcarenurseonline/Abstract/2007/04000/He alth_Coaching__A_New_and_Exciting_Technique_to.10.aspx (2)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_%28medicine%29

Copyright 2006 International Coach Academy Pty. Ltd. Use is governed by the Terms and Conditions at http://www.icoachacademy.com Last updated Feb 2006