Meditation has tons of benefits. It helps with stress, regulates emotion, improves sleep, and can even help with chronic pain. You probably mentioned all these benefits to your patient if you’re a therapist or a coach. Yet, you may still feel like they aren’t getting all the benefits of mediation. So how can you help them? First, understand that being unable to connect with your patient isn’t your fault.
There can be many reasons why it feels like you’re trying to swim upstream when helping your patients meditate. Well, no more! We curated 8 ways you can connect with your patient more during meditation.
Use Music To Connect With Your Patient
The first step is to create a relaxing environment in your establishment. It will help your patient feel more relaxed. Therefore, connecting with them will also become easier.
You can do this in many ways. One way is with music. You can use great royalty-free yoga music options to enhance your sessions with the patients. Good music helps patients meditate more easily, especially if they haven’t done it before.
It can also slow down breathing, a crucial part of effective meditation. If you incorporate relaxing music into your place, you will be able to get your patients relaxed, which will help you connect more.
Create The Right Environment
Speaking of your establishment, make sure it’s inviting and comfortable. We can’t stress this enough. Our environment has a significant impact on mood. It can motivate people to interact with people more, which is exactly what we want in this case.
So, if your establishment is inviting and comfortable, it will be easier for patients to let their guard down. Hence, they can truly give in to the session. A nice, clean, and comfortable environment also comes with additional perks.
It reduces one’s stress, which is one of the biggest benefits of meditating. And it also gives you more credibility as well. Patients who are more relaxed in your office will trust you more.
Trust and a sense of authority also help the patient relax. It assures them that you know what you’re doing.
Share All Information And Build Trust
We cannot emphasize enough how important trust is. A patient might feel very vulnerable when they’re meditating. Guided meditations are a good option – more on that a bit later.
To build trust even further, give your patients all the necessary information. Talk to them about how you plan to do the session. What are you expecting from them, and more importantly, what role will you play in the session?
Counterintuitively, you should also tell your patient that meditation isn’t a magic cure for every problem. It sets the right expectations from the get-go.
When your patient understands the possible outcomes, their mind won’t race and think about why they’re doing this. Rather, they can start to concentrate on the session.
Share The Benefits Of Meditation With Your Patients
Sharing the benefits of meditation with your patients will also help them to open up. Some patients are very skeptical despite the proven benefits of meditation.
Don’t only tell them how they’ll benefit from the session. You can also share how meditation helped you. Sharing a personal anecdote also allows us to build trust and connection.
It’s a two-way relationship. The mind plays a crucial role in meditating. Therefore, if you can help your patients understand meditation and how it helps, you can connect with them on a deeper level.
Help Your Patient Understand How Easy Meditating Is
Doctors should also aim to demystify meditating. Some patients stress themselves out when they can’t keep calm while meditating. Eventually, it turns into a bad loop.
The stress stops them from meditating properly. Which in turn causes more stress. As the doctor, what you should do instead is to teach them how easy meditating can be.
Don’t complicate things unnecessarily. Ignore talks about the perfect pose, the perfect time, and what you should be thinking, where your hands and legs should be.
All these extra things only add to the complexity. At its core, meditating is simple. Yes, you do need a structured process to mediate effectively. However, dwelling too much on the nitty-gritty details will cause anxiety.
Instead, help your patient realize that meditating isn’t some complex spiritual journey, which it can sometimes be.
However, most of the time, it takes patience and time to reap the benefits. Focusing on the core and simple fundamentals with your patients will give you the most out of each session.
Introduce Guided Meditations
Patients who don’t have experience with meditation will benefit a lot from guided meditation. It’s a great way to learn from an experienced teacher, in this case, you.
Guided meditation helps you build connections with your patients since you’ll instruct them through the process. It builds trust.
If the patient trusts you, which we discussed earlier, they’ll be more willing to let go of worries and get completely engulfed in the session. That’s where you’ll start to see true benefits for your patients.
Moreover, your patients will also have a better experience. They won’t be dwelling over the small details. The patient can trust the expert. So, take charge but speak in a calm and assuring voice.
As your patient gets more experience in meditating, you can slowly introduce them to unguided meditations as well.
Do Breathwork With Your Patients
You can use the fundamental human function of breathing to enhance your patient’s experience and deepen their connection with you. There are many breathing exercises you can help your patient master.
It relieves stress, boosts mood, and even helps regulate blood pressure. People who are new to meditating find controlling their breathing difficult. That’s where you come in.
Helping your clients to learn proper breathing techniques when meditating will increase trust. Moreover, your patient will also be able to relax better. Which results in a deeper connection with your patients.
Help Them Practice Mindfulness
A key component of any meditation session is mindfulness. In some ways, this is the crux of it all. Helping your patient practice mindfulness during their sessions with you enhances the experience.
Practicing mindfulness also has benefits beyond just decreased stress, improved sleep, and emotion regulation. But the kicker is that some patients aren’t willing to practice mindfulness. To be more specific, they don’t truly believe it helps.
This is the perfect opportunity for you to connect with your patient. A good way to ease your patients into mindfulness is to give them proper information about it. Framing certain things differently also helps. You don’t have to use the word mindfulness if they’re not fond of it.
Wrapping Up
Building trust and providing a safe and comfortable environment is the key to creating a deeper connection with your patients. The more comfortable and inviting your office and demeanor are, the easier it will be.
Patients can sometimes feel disconnected. Maybe they had a bad experience with meditating. Or it could be a past trauma. You can help them overcome past traumatic experiences. It builds an even deeper connection and trust.