Wellness for Health Care Executives

By Gary Scholar

While they're taking care of everyone else, health care executives often neglect themselves. Take time to become more healthy, and perform your job better because of it.

Gary Scholar

When you were a child, you were asked many times, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Whatever your answer, I'm confident you never replied, "When I grow up I want to be a stressed-out, unhealthy health care executive!" Yet, the sad reality is that as a health care executive you face a great deal of pressure, and you may cope by neglecting your own needs so you can get your job done.

It's a demanding job being a health care executive. Just when you feel you have overcome one challenge, another rears its head. At the same time, you're asked to be more innovative and deliver results. And the ever-changing leadership position you are in can force you to feel more insular.

Health care executives give so much to their profession yet are so underserved when it comes to their own health and well-being. This is because of what I call a Type E personality, which causes health care executives to do Everything for Everybody—except themselves.

The Cost of Neglecting Well-Being

A health care executive who neglects her own needs may feel she's giving her all to her job, but that's not the case. Unhealthy habits have a negative ripple effect—on an executive's focus, energy, decision-making abilities, health and effectiveness as a leader.

Just as your organization has to consider cost-benefit analyses and the bottom line, you need to consider the cost-benefit of self-care. So how can you improve your personal bottom line?

I believe the answer to making a healthier lifestyle shift, feeling and performing at your very best, is to take one of the most powerful leadership skills that you use on a daily basis and apply it to self-care and wellness on your own behalf. That leadership strength is assertiveness. Applying it is what I call assertive care.

As a health care executive you have an amazing capacity to prioritize and make assertive decisions on a daily basis. Assertive care empowers you with a heightened sense of feeling in control—doing everything you can to achieve self-care and wellness.

What if 25 percent of your job performance review consisted of how well you integrate your assertive care for your own self-care and wellness on a daily basis? How would you approach your job differently? Would you schedule self-care and wellness goals daily?

The Health Care Executive Assertive Care Plan

An effective way to implement assertive care is to create a health care executive assertive care plan that serves as an accountability partner. Examples of assertive care on behalf of your own wellness include the following commitments to self-care, career, fitness, and healthier nutrition and weight management.

Self-care:

Create healthier communication with a loved one by making a commitment to place your needs on the table at any time without the other person feeling backed into a corner.
Get out of an unhealthy relationship or say "no" to people or activities that drain your energy and time.
Schedule a much-needed massage.

Career:

Make a healthy boundary commitment to leave work at a reasonable time every day.
Create a support network among other health care executives so you won't feel so insular when it comes to your demanding challenges and workload.
Sit down with your boss or your board of trustees and partner with them to create a plan to place more of your signature strengths into your job.
Implement a year-round comprehensive on-site wellness program for yourself and those you lead.

Fitness:

Sit down with your partner or spouse and explain that you need their support and encouragement in creating a healthier lifestyle.
Identify a fitness activity you truly enjoy like tennis, dancing, biking or nature walking so you won't sabotage your fitness goals by choosing an activity you don't like.
Schedule fitness before work, during work, after work or on your days off.
Schedule daily exercises for areas with chronic issues, such as the back or knees.

Healthier nutrition and weight management:

Identify emotional food triggers such as boredom and stress that cause unhealthy eating and then manage the triggers in a healthy way.
Integrate quality foods into your diet. Every time you go food shopping, read the food labels and buy three or more healthy foods you have never tried before—you'll find some you like and will enjoy on a regular basis.
Pre-plan your meals because of your hectic schedule. Make sure you have mobile munchies of protein and whole grains on hand to keep your blood sugar level and energy up.
Integrate healthier portion sizes by using what I call the "energy plate": Fill a quarter with protein, another quarter with whole grains, and half with fruits and vegetables. If you're still hungry, add more fruits and vegetables.
At the end each day, renew your commitment and celebrate your progress by rewarding yourself.

Making Self-Care a Priority

By integrating assertive care into your daily life, you will feel better about yourself and more in control of your life. You may not always find it easy to implement, but it's always rewarding.

Please join me in making a bold call to action to change the culture of health care executives so you can place self-care and wellness at the top of your own priority list.

Gary Scholar has been the health and wellness consultant for the American Hospital Association for more than 10 years. He taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago on an NIH grant to lower the severity of multiple chronic illnesses through fitness and health education. He is the author of a new book, Fit Nurse: Your Total Plan to Getting Fit and Living Well, published by the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing (www.nursingsociety.org).

This article 1st appeared on July 26, 2010 in HHN Magazine online site.

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